to object to the term 'cooking from scratch'?

[oxocube]

Erm ... you either cook or you don't. What is this whole 'from scratch' business about? And I'm not being judgey, if you don't want to cook and want to buy pre-prepared stuff, then fine. Its the wording that pisses me off

well, wasn't quite wiki, just some online dictionary of etymology. Quite possibly bolleaux but it sounds plausible.

I would have looked it up in Brewers but it's on the bookshelf in DS's room and he's asleep

'Cooking from scratch' is not a modern term at all. It's an American term, very prevalent in the early twentieth century.

The 'scratch' refers to striking a match to heat the wood burner that would cook your food.

Cooking from scratch I don't mind. Although it does sound a little smug.

BUT dh brought home some cookies from the US last time he was there that were allegedly 'scratch-baked using natural blahblahblah'. A box of cookies! Scratch-baked! IN A FACTORY!

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to rant about that, it's been bothering me. I will have to tell dh not to get them again for linguistic reasons and he will laugh at me.

well if it comes to that, I very much doubt when people make pastry "from scratch" they actually bother to churn their own butter and mill their own flour.

Most food is processed to some degree.

I kind of agree with Oxo that it is a bit of a silly, self-congratulatory term. I would never present a cake and say "made from scratch you know!" in a simpering manner, if someone asked I would probably say that it was homemade or something.

oo a rival etymology Desi .

Shall we batter each other with reference books until one of us submits?

am going with the runners here tyv
did americans invent fire do you think?

impressed at your to hand reference books too

Mine is far more plausible, visitor

I'm a bit curious about the OP. I've always used the term 'from scratch' to describe plenty of things. I didn't realize it had taken on an irritating resonance. Not that I give a shit, but interesting, nonetheless!

It's definitely an Americanism. New York (as a for instance), had literally thousands of fast food restaurants in an era when we had none. To cook from scratch literally meant that you weren't dining out that night; that you were striking the old match on the wood burner.

hurray! Vote Visiter!

I have rather a lot of books in general - hence the fact that they've overflowed into poor DS's room. He has the least furniture out of all of us and has lost one wall to bookshelves, but he doesn't seem to mind.

[puts on debating cap and shuffles papers]

But Desi, from scratch can mean non-cookery things, eg I built my business up from scratch, or I made this outfit from scratch.

I would argue (ahem) that my definition is more applicable to the saying in its wider definition. Yours assumes that it was always used with regard to cookery which I would respectfully submit is not the case.

[steps down from podium]

scratch is a scratchy word. but what other word could describe cooking from 'scratch'

Nope! Read my last post. I use the term 'from scratch' to describe plenty of things. In fact, to use it solely in regard to cookery is new to me.

I can't make the leap from athletics to cookery. It's all too contrived and difficult. It's definitely an Americanism. It just doesn't sound British.

Ok, I crept into DS's room to get Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable which I regard as the bible for these matters. Here is the entry for Scratch:

A person starting from scratch in a sporting event is one starting from the usual starting point (ie the line marked, originally scratched out) whereas his fellow competitors would be starting ahead of him with handicaps awarded to their respective merits. In golf the term par is used instead of scratch. To start from scratch in general means to start from nothing or without particular advantage.

[bangs rostrum with gavel]

btw can you tell I am bored? DH is watching Terminator 3, yawwwwwn.

Indeed! I don't dispute the sporting link. To start from scratch means to start from the bottom up.

However the term cooking from scratch refers to the lighting of a match. It does in America, at least.

I would imagine the origin of both meanings coincides with a similar time-line, though. Early twentieth century.

Habbibu you have the OED?! [swoon]

Do you have a paper edition or a CD? Doesn't it cost like a million quid? Can I come to your house and look things up?

I have online access through working at a university. Hence the unseemly gap where I logged in to Athens, searched OED, copied, posted pompous stage direction and pasted.

Ah! Habbibu has floored me. I cannot argue!

I did like the old match theory, though. It had a certain simplicity, don't you think?

well I think we all have to submit to being battered with Habbibu's OED. I don't think anyone (except maybe Terminator 3) would survive a battering with all 23 vols or whatever it is.

Very sad that you don't have it in your house Habbibu, I imagined them all lined up above your telly. When I make my first million I shall buy myself the full edition as a present.

Changes too much, TYV - by the time you buy all vols there's 3000 more words added... And working in a uni generally means you have access to certain things that your wages will never allow you to buy!

YANBU !!!!!!!!

Pisses me off too.