With the amount of French words I have heard in an English-language setting, there is no doubt how much the French have influenced the culinary world. In the extremely short time I've spent in my stocks, soups, and sauces course, here is a handful of terms:
Mise en place: Preparation and assembly of all ingredients and equipment needed before a dish is cooked. (Literally: "everything in place")
Mirepoix: A 50/25/25% mixture of onions, celery, and carrots used to flavour soups and stocks.
Sachet: An aromatic mix of bay leaves, thyme, cracked peppercorns, and parsley sprigs wrapped in cheesecloth used to flavour soups and stocks
Bouquet garni: same type of deal as a sachet, except made from fresh ingredients such as celery, carrots, leek, and thyme sprigs all tied together in a bundle with kitchen twine
Roux: A thickener for sauces made by cooking equal parts of fat and flour
Remouillage: Re-using the bones from a stock a second time around to make a weaker stock, that is in turn used instead of water to make a new stock
I'm pretty sure if you make a remouillage too many times in a row you probably disrupt the space-time continuum somehow.
That is just the tip of the iceberg of the French terms swirling around in my head. All of this is being taught to me by Chef Hans Wicki, a chef from Switzerland (where French is an official language).
BTW, Chef: French for "chief"
At this rate, I should be bilingual by next week.
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