I was in my local pub the other night and spied this on the specials board.
Glazed with a herb crust? They’ve glazed it with a herb crust, have they?
Pan fried seebass [sic] with grilled artichokes and confit and new potatoes. Confit new potatoes. You explain to me how that works.
Someone’s been let loose with a culinary dictionary and half a brain.
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101 Things Every Cook Should Cook 
July 7, 2007 at 12:58 pm
It’s annoying when pubs do that, isn’t it? It’s worse when they use a correct term but mean something completely different.
I’ve seen confit new potatoes mentioned somewhere too. Maybe it’s the next big thing. 😉
July 15, 2007 at 6:04 pm
Actually they have written seabass correctly, if you compare the ‘a’ with others on the menu, and confit potatoes is a pretty common dish in restaurants. Why are you alwaysw sneering at people?
July 15, 2007 at 6:14 pm
A “confit” is a piece of meat (usually duck), cooked and preserved in its own fat. Cite. This does not apply in any way to potatoes, new or otherwise.
The seabass may well be spelled correctly,I was going for comic affect. But thanks for pointing that out. Jolly well done.
July 15, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Oh dear, digging yourself deeper…
‘confit’ meant preserved, from the French ‘confire’, to preserve. In France you can buy fruits confits, and pommes de terre confit, garlic confit, and many other foodstuffs as well as meat.
July 15, 2007 at 8:38 pm
And the French “confire” comes from the Latin pluperfect subjunctive “confectus” meaning “finished”, from where the word “confectionary” comes. Words evolve, there’s nothing clever in pointing that out. I’m not interested in where the word comes from, I’m interested in what it means now and its comical misapplication in a misguided pub specials menu.
The current meaning of “confit”, as defined by the dictionary as given in my cite* above is a meat cooked and preserved in its own fat. Which potatoes are not.
I love how important it is to you to establish how humourless you are.
*And to save confusion, I haven’t mispelled “site”. It is an abbreviation of “citation” (from the Latin citatio – a command). Just to save further pedantry.
July 15, 2007 at 9:13 pm
I’m not humourless or pedantic, I just hate how snobbish you are, and your refusal to admit you are wrong. At the end of the day, it’s just food. 😀
March 18, 2008 at 3:29 am
But you did misspell “misspell”!
January 19, 2010 at 9:25 pm
“I’m not humourless or pedantic, I just hate how snobbish”
You’re nitpicking in the fight against nitpicking. Whether she’s wrong or not, you’re only perpetuating the problem.