About the use of the word "fresh" to denote home-made

[FortunesFave]

I've only seen it on MN. A few times now...people referring to 'fresh gravy' and 'fresh pancakes' etc when they mean 'made from scratch' or 'homemade'

Is this a new thing? I've only previously heard it in relation to fresh orange juice...meaning freshly squeezed but that seems to have gone now and people say 'fresh orange juice' when they mean no additives and it's literally just orange juice in a carton.

You actually made a post about this?

If someone said fresh gravy I’d assume they meant bought as a liquid from the supermarket rather than as granules. Like fresh soup (in a plastic tub) rather than tinned. I haven’t heard fresh orange juice meaning freshly squeezed since the early 90s. It’s commonly used now to mean the not from concentrate stuff that needs to be refrigerated.

They have different meanings, OP. But then, so does 'homemade'- some will classify a lasagne made with dolmio sauces as homemade if made in the home, as opposed to a ready meal style frozen one. Personally, I prefer using 'from scratch' to denote that a dish has not been made from processed/pre-prepared elements, such as gravy granules.

Seeing "fresh orange" irritates me a little in supermarkets as even though it's not from concentrate, it has been pasteurized so it little more than sugar water.
Nothing beats freshly SQUEEZED orange as in squeezed from the oranges within the last 5 minutes. Ideally on a taverna on a beach in Greece with an accompanying mezze. Sigh. God i havent been abroad for years.

Anyway. Fresh / homemade / whatever. All depends on the item and the context i guess...

I have not noticed this, but I hate the phrase “from scratch”, because it summons images of mosquito bites and scabby scratched legs, dead skin under fingernails etc. I wish there was a better way to say “made at home from raw ingredients”!

Supermarkets use it, or at least Ocado do. It's an accepted word for things that aren't frozen, or dried or preserved, like ready meals or yogurt. I'm pretty sure it's not just MN.

Ah, you say people are using it for stuff they make at home from scratch? No I wouldn't use it that way, but then I've never seen anyone else use it like that either. Do you have any examples?

According to the dictionary definition that seems fine.. not the orange juice from a carton, the homemade stuff.

"Fresh" to me means "freshly made" or "freshly prepared", it doesn't indicate who has done it. If I wanted to indicate that I'd made it myself I'd say "home-made" or "made from scratch".

"I don't throw beige frozen mush onto oven trays, or unscrew jars of sugary processed slop, oh no, I cook fresh delicious hearty meals from scratch for my 6 foot tall ravenous beanpole children and 6 figure earning husband".

It's usually used in that context

God forbid someone uses the wrong term and thereby masks how lazy they are in not picking the oranges from the grove and pulping them for juice

YABU

@MaskingForIt

Haha you have a vivid imagination! Some words / phrases do that to me too. Keep your eyes peeled, cats out the bag shudder they all bring to mind unwanted images!!

For me, fresh pancakes or fresh gravy would be stuff that was just made, fresh from the oven as it were, might fresh berries for stuff recently picked, but yes, as pp said, fresh is what stores use to separate from frozen, chilled, tinned, or otherwise preserved stuff.

Molly you actually responded?

If you just defrost some home-made dish it's hardly "fresh" is it. It still home-made, you made have spent hours making it in the first place.

So not sure how fresh can even be used in many instance.