Delicious Food, Terrible Branding
Some foods have names that do absolutely nothing to help their case. You can know perfectly well that a dish is delicious and still hesitate when someone offers you something called spotted dick or head cheese. In many cases, the strange name comes from history, regional slang, or ingredients that sound worse than they taste. These 20 foods prove that a good meal doesn’t always come with a good sales pitch.
1. Spotted Dick
This traditional British dessert has probably caused more awkward menu-reading moments than most sweets ever will. It’s actually a steamed suet pudding made with dried fruit, usually currants or raisins, which create the “spots.” The name may sound like something you’d rather not discuss at dinner, but the dish itself is sweet, comforting, and usually served with custard.
2. Head Cheese
Despite the name, there’s no cheese involved here. Head cheese is a cold meat terrine traditionally made from pieces of meat taken from the head of a pig or calf and set in gelatin. Knowing that probably doesn’t improve the name much, but the finished product is closer to a savory deli meat than anything dairy-based.
3. Toad in the Hole
Despite the name, no amphibians are harmed in the making of this British comfort food. Toad in the hole consists of sausages baked into Yorkshire pudding batter, often served with gravy and vegetables. It's a cheeky name for what's essentially sausage wrapped in crisp, fluffy batter.
4. Garbage Plate
Ordering something called a garbage plate requires a certain amount of confidence. This Rochester, New York, specialty usually combines items like home fries, macaroni salad, baked beans, hot dogs, hamburgers, and meat sauce on one overflowing plate. The name isn’t exactly inaccurate when you look at the presentation, but fans love it precisely because everything gets piled together.
5. Scrapple
“Scrapple” doesn’t immediately inspire thoughts of a leisurely breakfast. The Pennsylvania Dutch dish is made from pork scraps combined with cornmeal, flour, and spices, formed into a loaf, sliced, and fried. Crispy on the outside and soft inside, once you taste it, it's easy to see why it has plenty of loyal fans despite a name that emphasizes the least glamorous part of the recipe.
6. Bubble & Squeak
This sounds more like a noise coming from the kitchen than something you’d willingly eat. Indeed, this British dish got its name from the bubbling and squeaking sounds the ingredients make when they hit the hot frying pan. It's made from frying together the leftover vegetables, typically potatoes and cabbage, from a Sunday roast.
7. Stinking Bishop
You have to admire a cheese that warns you before you even unwrap it. Stinking Bishop is an English washed-rind cheese famous for its pungent, dirty feet-like aroma, which comes partly from the pear-based liquid used during production. The smell can be intense, but the cheese itself has a rich, creamy flavor that’s generally much gentler than its name suggests.
8. Boiled Baby Pudding
Despite the alarming name, boiled baby pudding contains absolutely no babies. It’s a traditional British pudding made from suet pastry that’s boiled or steamed and usually served with something sweet. The name is believed to come from the pudding’s bundled shape.
9. SOS
This military classic has a polite official interpretation and a much less polite nickname. It usually consists of creamed chipped beef served over toast and became especially common among American service members. The initials are widely associated with “stuff on a shingle,” although generations of soldiers usually use a more colorful word than "stuff."
10. Slumgullion
There’s something about the word “slumgullion” that makes even a hearty meal sound questionable. In the U.S., the term has been used for various inexpensive stews, often made with ground beef, tomatoes, macaroni, or whatever ingredients happened to be available. The dish is practical and filling, but its name sounds considerably less inviting than “beef stew.”
Alborzagros, edit by Artoria2e5 on Wikimedia
11. Rumbledethumps
Scotland has contributed plenty of excellent comfort food, and plenty of them have wacky or slightly cheeky names. Rumbledethumps is made from mashed potatoes, cabbage, and onions, often topped with cheese and baked until golden. The ingredients are familiar and cozy, even if the name sounds like something went badly wrong during preparation.
12. Pigs in a Blanket
If you hadn’t grown up hearing the phrase, pigs in a blanket might raise a few questions. In the U.S., the dish generally means small sausages wrapped in pastry dough and baked until browned. The name is cute once you know what it means, but taken literally, it’s not exactly the most appetizing mental picture.
13. Funeral Potatoes
Few side dishes sound quite as gloomy as funeral potatoes. This cheesy potato casserole earned its name because it’s commonly served at post-funeral gatherings, particularly in parts of the American West and within Mormon communities. The dish itself is rich, creamy, and comforting, but its association with memorial meals gives it one seriously somber title.
14. Wet Nellie
Liverpool’s Wet Nellie may be delicious, but the name doesn’t do much to communicate that. It’s a traditional bread pudding made with stale bread, dried fruit, sugar, spices, and other simple ingredients. The “wet” part refers to its moist texture, while Nellie is a shortened form of Nelson, as the dessert is a variation of the traditional Lancashire fruit cake known as the Nelson cake.
15. Blood Pudding
While blood pudding does indeed contain blood, it has nothing to do with the sweet chocolatey stuff many of us know as pudding. It’s a sausage made with animal blood, fat, grains, and seasonings. The directness of the name can make newcomers hesitate, although it remains a beloved breakfast food in several countries.
16. Devils on Horseback
A dish called devils on horseback sounds dramatic enough to require its own warning label. The appetizer usually consists of prunes or dates wrapped in bacon, sometimes stuffed with cheese or another filling before being cooked. The origin of the name remains an unsolved culinary mystery, but the most widely accepted culinary link is that they were named as a playful opposite to "Angels on Horseback," an earlier Victorian dish made of bacon-wrapped oysters.
17. Soused Herring
“Soused herring” doesn’t exactly make you hungry on first hearing it. The dish is made by marinating raw herring in a seasoned vinegar mixture or brine, often with onions, spices, and sometimes sugar. It can be tangy and flavorful, but the name makes it sound more like the fish has been left sitting in something questionable.
18. Crapaudine Beet
Anything containing a word that looks suspiciously close to “crap” faces an uphill branding battle in English. Crapaudine is actually an old French variety of beet known for its rough, dark skin and elongated shape. The name comes from crapaud, the French word for toad, referring to its bumpy appearance.
Alois Pokorny (1826-1886) on Wikimedia
19. Cold Duck
Cold duck sounds like leftover poultry pulled straight from the refrigerator, but it’s actually a sparkling alcoholic drink. The beverage traditionally combines sparkling wine with another wine and developed from a German punch known as Kalte Ente, meaning “cold duck.” Knowing that there’s no refrigerated waterfowl involved certainly makes ordering it easier.
20. Monkey Gland Sauce
South Africa’s monkey gland sauce may have the most alarming name on the entire list. Fortunately, it contains no monkey and no glands, with recipes typically featuring ingredients such as tomatoes, onions, chutney, Worcestershire sauce, and spices, all mixed together and served on top of grilled meat. It likely got its name from French hotel chefs in Johannesburg complaining that diners kept slathering their fine French dishes with random condiments, so they created an outrageous sauce to appeal to local tastes, jokingly calling it monkey gland sauce.
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