In some areas, a salad such as this may be presented as an entrée.

An entrée (pronounced on-tray in American English) (French, literally meaning entry or entrance) is one of several savoury courses in a Western-style formal meal service, specifically a smaller course that precedes the main course.^[1] Usage may differ in North America where the disappearance in the early 20th century of a large communal main course such as a roast as a standard part of the meal has led to the term being used to describe the main course itself.^[2] In that case what would otherwise be called the entrée is called the first course, appetizer or a starter.

In 1970, Richard Olney, an American living in Paris, gave the place of the entrée in a full menu: "A dinner that begins with a soup and runs through a fish course, an entrée, a sherbet, a roast, salad, cheese and dessert, and that may be accompanied by from three to six wines, presents a special problem of orchestration".^[3] In 1967 Julia Child and her co-authors^[4] outlined the character of such entrées, which— when they did not precede a roast— might serve as the main course of a luncheon, in a chapter of "Entrées and Luncheon Dishes" that included quiches, tarts and gratins, soufflés and timbales, gnocchi, quenelles and crepes.

Part of the Meals series

Common meals

Breakfast • Brunch • Lunch • Tea • Dinner • Supper

Components & courses

Amuse-bouche • Appetizer • Entrée • Main course • Side dish • Salad • Drink • Dessert • Fruit • Cheese • Nuts • Entremet

Related concepts

Food • Eating • Cuisine • Etiquette • Buffet • Banquet

[edit] Use

Marie-Antoine Carême explained for a French readership the order of courses in the state dinner à la russe served for Tsar Alexander I's review of his troops in 1815, at an isolated location far from Paris, under trying circumstances:

Russian service is carried out rapidly and warmly; first, oysters are served; after the soup, hors d'oeuvres; then the large joint of meat; then the entrées of fish, fowl, game, meat, and the entremets of vegetables; then the roast meat with salad. The service ends with the desserts: jellies, creams and soufflés.^[5]

In Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, chapter 40, bills of fare for a grand dinner for eighteen, January 1887,^[6] follow two kinds of fish and two kinds of soup with four entrées: Ris de Veau, Poulet à la Marengo, Côtelettes de Porc and a Ragoût of Lobster. Guests were not expected to eat of each dish, of course, for the entrées were followed by a Second Course and a Third Course, of game and fruit.

An entrée is more substantial than hors d'œuvres and better thought of as a half-sized version of a main course, and restaurant menus will sometimes offer the same dish in different-sized servings as both entrée and main course.

The processional entrée at a French fifteenth-century banquet

[edit] Origins

The word entrée is French. It originally denoted the "entry" of the main course from the kitchens into the dining hall. In the illustration from a French fifteenth-century illuminated manuscript of the Histoire d'Olivier de Castille et d'Artus d'Algarbe, a fanfare from trumpeters in the musicians' gallery announces the processional entrée of a series of dishes preceded by a covered cup that is the ancestor of the tureen, carried by the maître d'hôtel. The entrée will be shown round the hall but served only to the high table (though it does not stand on a dais in this hall), where the guests are set apart by a gold-and-crimson damask canopy of estate.

In traditional French haute cuisine, the entrée preceded a larger dish known as the relevé, which "replaces" or "relieves" it, an obsolescent term in modern cooking, but still used as late as 1921 in Escoffier's Le Guide Culinaire.

In modern French restaurant menu usage (by "French" meaning in restaurants in France, not restaurants abroad that serve French cuisine) the standard meaning of "entrée" is the course that precedes the main course in a three course meal,^[7] i.e. the course which in British usage is often called the "starter" and in American usage the "hors d'oeuvre" (a term which in France suggests something very light preceding the "entrée", such as olives, etc.). Thus a typical modern French three course meal in a restaurant consists of "entrée" (first course, starter (UK), hors d'oeuvre (U.S.)) followed by the "plat" or "plat principal" (the main course) and then dessert or cheese. This procession is commonly found in prix fixe menus.

[edit] See also

Food portal

• Full course dinner

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

Look up entrée in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Why Americans say Entrée when everyone else says Main
• The Straight Dope on the meaning of entrée