Fancy a Soupe à l'Oignon?

Do you know what Vichyssoise means? 10 exotic dishes’ names explained

Image: Sam Loyd

Whenever browsing through the menu of a foreign restaurant, the names can make food appear exotic, fancy, enticing, or straight-out odd. In these cases, the logic dictates that we ask the waiter for help. But a few of these foreign dishes have become famous all over the world and their names pop up in all sorts of restaurants, not just foreign ones. Take a look at the following ten and see if you already know the meaning of any of them!

Image: Philippe Murray-Pietsch

A staple name when it comes to "fancy" meals, Coq au Vin is French for rooster in wine, even if the rooster is usually replaced with chicken. Coq au Vin was a peasant dish in origin due to the fact that rooster meat is tough and sinewy and it takes a long time to marinate and braise to make the meat tender.

As legend goes, this dish originated during the Roman conquest of Gaul. The rooster was a symbol of valor to the Gauls. The chief of the tribe Arverne sent a symbolic rooster to Julius Caesar to show they would never be defeated. Caesar returned this gesture with a surprising twist, serving the chief with a delicious dish of rooster in wine.

Image: Mgg Vitchakorn

A literal translation of "spring pasta", Pasta Primavera certainly sounds Italian. But this dish originated in 70s America, not Italy. Sirio Maccioni, the co-owner of New York restaurant Le Cirque, initially introduced pasta primavera as an off-menu special.

Maccioni is said to have taken a dish of pasta, vegetables, and cream his wife had mixed from a hunger-induced raid of their kitchen, refined it, and started serving it to his guests. Despite its humble beginnings, pasta primavera gained huge popularity amongst diners and critics, eventually being adopted by home cooks in America and beyond.

Image: Bakd&Raw by Karolin Baitinger

Just pronouncing the name of this dish sounds like speaking French. Vichyssoise is a soup made of cooked and mashed leeks, potatoes, onions, and cream, served chilled and garnished with chopped chives. It was invented in the early 20th century by Louis Diat, a cook working as head chef of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York.

Leek and potato soup is a traditional staple of French cuisine. 19th-century French cookbooks give recipes for a simple leek and potato soup, called potage Parmentier or potage à la Parmentier. The name Vichyssoise means "ice-cold cream from Vichy".

Image: Toa Heftiba

A familiar yet exotic name, Chicken Tikka Masala is a dish consisting of roasted marinated chicken chunks in a spiced sauce, often creamy and orange-colored. The dish was created by cooks from South Asia living in Great Britain and is popular in restaurants around the world.

The sauce usually includes tomatoes, cream, coconut cream, and a masala spice mix. The sauce and chicken pieces may be colored orange using foodstuffs such as turmeric, paprika, tomato purée, or food dye. Tikka translates to "roasted", and Massala is "a mix of spices".

Image: Becca Tapert

Moussaka is an eggplant or potato-based dish, often including ground meat, which is common in the Balkans and the Middle East, with many local and regional variations.

Many versions have a top layer made of custard or béchamel sauce.

In Greece, the dish is layered and typically served hot. There’s a vegan version that replaces meat with mushrooms or a mix of sautéed onions and rice. And, in Turkey, moussaka consists of thinly sliced and fried eggplant served in a tomato-based meat sauce, warm or at room temperature. The word moussaka itself translates to "cold, or dipped in liquid".

Image: silvia trigo

Ceviche is a Peruvian dish consisting of fish or shellfish marinated in citrus and seasonings. The fish is usually cured in lemon or sour lime juice, marinated together with sliced or chopped onion, and served with chopped cilantro. The dressing also includes some local varieties of chili pepper or chili, replaced by mustard in some locations in Central America.

In Peru, it is served with garnishes of boiled root vegetables such as sweet potatoes, cassava, or, very rarely, potatoes, and grains or seeds such as corn, legumes such as zarandaja, fried plantain, seaweed, and lettuce.

Image: Mulan Sukrisno

A colorful array of small Chinese dishes traditionally consumed for brunch, Dim Sum is commonly associated with Cantonese cuisine. In the 10th century, travelers frequented Cantonese teahouses for small-portion meals with tea. Cantonese dim sum was originally based on local foods. As dim sum continued to develop, chefs introduced influences and traditions from other regions of China.

Dim Sum has a very broad range of flavors, textures, cooking styles, and ingredients and can be classified into regular items, seasonal offerings, weekly specials, banquet dishes, holiday dishes, house signature dishes, and travel-friendly items, as well as breakfast or lunch foods and late-night snacks. The term Dim Sum translates to "touch the heart."

Image: Viktor Ritsvall

Doner kebab is a dish of Turkish origin made of seasoned meat stacked in the shape of an inverted cone, turned slowly on the rotisserie, next to a vertical cooking element. The operator uses a knife to slice thin shavings from the outer layer of the meat as it cooks.

The sliced meat of a doner kebab may be served on a plate with various accompaniments, stuffed into bread as a sandwich, or wrapped in a thin flatbread such as filo. Doner kebab has become popular around the world as a fast food dish sold by kebab shops, and is often called simply a "kebab." The term, donner kebab itself, translates to "roasted lamb."

Image: Alyssa Kowalski

An exotic dish that has become famous all over the world, Pad Thai is a rice noodle dish fried in a wok and commonly served as a street food. As Thailand's national dish, it is typically made with rice noodles, shrimp, peanuts, scrambled eggs, and bean sprouts.

Many of the ingredients on a Pad Thai dish are provided on the side as condiments, such as red chili pepper, lime wedges, roasted peanuts, bean sprouts, garlic chives, and other miscellaneous fresh vegetables. The term Pad translates to "fried".

Image: Bakd&Raw by Karolin Baitinger

Wiener schnitzel is made of a thin, breaded, pan-fried veal cutlet served without sauce.

It is one of the best-known specialties of Viennese cuisine and one of the national dishes of Austria.

This dish is prepared from veal slices, butterfly cut, lightly pounded flat, slightly salted, and rolled in flour, whipped eggs, and bread crumbs. Finally, the Schnitzel is fried until it is golden yellow. The term Wiener schnitzel translates, literally to "small, breaded, veal cutlet."

Translation and interpretation

Was the forbidden fruit really an apple? 10 Bible surprises

What if some of the Bible stories you grew up with aren't exactly what the Bible says? Was the forbidden fruit really an apple? Were there actually three Wise Men? Did "God helps those who help themselves" really come from the Bible? Over centuries, translations, traditions, and famous works of art have added details that became so familiar, we stopped questioning them. But go back to the texts, and some of these stories look surprisingly different. From Eve's "apple" to the date of Jesus' birth, here are 10 familiar parts of the Bible that may not be quite what we remember.

When you picture the Garden of Eden, what fruit comes to mind? Most people imagine an apple, but there's just one problem: the Bible never says it was an apple.

In the Book of Genesis, the fruit is simply called "the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." The original Hebrew text uses the word peri, which simply means "fruit." The apple connection came centuries later, largely through the Latin translation. The Latin word malum can mean both "apple" and "evil," making it an especially fitting symbol for the story. Over time, that association spread through Christian art and literature. Famous works such as Albrecht Dürer’s 1504 engraving Adam and Eve (also known as The Fall of Man) helped cement the image of Eve holding an apple. Today, it's one of the most famous scenes in history, even though the original biblical text doesn’t identify the fruit as an apple at all.

The story of Jesus' birth is so famous that most of us picture the Three Wise Men, sometimes called the Three Kings, standing beside the manger. But the thing is, over the centuries, the story picked up a few details that aren't actually in the Bible.

In the Gospel of Matthew, the only Gospel that mentions these visitors, they are described simply as Magi from the East. The original Greek word, magoi, referred to learned scholars, astrologers, or priests from Persia or Babylon, not kings. But where did the number three come from? Matthew lists three gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but never says how many visitors brought them. Over the centuries, people naturally assumed there must have been three Magi, one for each gift. Even their familiar names, Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar, were added later by Christian tradition. So, neither the number of visitors nor their names appears anywhere in the biblical text.

Whether it's used to motivate a friend, encourage a family member, or push yourself to finally make a difficult decision, "God helps those who help themselves" is one of the most familiar religious sayings in America. But here's the surprise: those words never appear in the Bible.

The idea can be traced to ancient Greek sources, including Aesop’s Fables, where the saying appears in an earlier form: "The gods help them that help themselves." The exact modern wording was written by English politician Algernon Sidney in 1698, but it was Benjamin Franklin who helped make it part of American culture when he included it in his 1736 edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack.

Many teenagers have heard "Cleanliness is next to godliness" when it was time to clean their rooms. But despite sounding like a Bible verse, the phrase never appears in Scripture.

The Bible, particularly Leviticus, does contain extensive laws requiring people to wash their bodies and clothes in certain circumstances, especially before religious rituals. But the famous saying itself came much later. In 1605, Francis Bacon wrote in The Advancement of Learning that "cleanness of body" was connected to reverence for God. Then, in 1786, it was Methodist leader John Wesley who used the wording we recognize today in a sermon: "Cleanliness is indeed next to Godliness." Over time, the phrase became a familiar saying that many people simply assumed came from the Bible.

When it comes to famous dates, December 25 may be the most recognizable of all, universally associated with Christmas. But here's the surprising part: the Bible never gives any specific date for Jesus' birth.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke describe the Nativity but never provide a calendar date, so how did December 25 become Christmas? There are two leading theories. The first is that the Roman Church was celebrating Christmas on December 25 by 336 AD, during Constantine's reign, possibly choosing the date to coincide with existing Roman winter festivals and make it easier to convert the empire to Christianity. The second points to an early Christian tradition that calculated Jesus' birth date from the supposed date of his crucifixion, eventually arriving at December 25.

The story of Jonah and the Whale is so famous that it has appeared literally or symbolically in innumerable works of art and literature, from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-1512) to Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick. But there's a small problem with the title we've given it: the Bible doesn’t actually say it was a whale.

In the Old Testament, the original Hebrew text of Jonah 1:17 uses the words dag gadol, meaning "great fish" or "large fish"; it doesn't identify the creature as a whale, or even specify what kind of fish it was. Most modern English translations therefore stick with "great fish," but the familiar "whale" interpretation developed through older translations and later European tradition, eventually becoming so widespread that "Jonah and the Whale" became the name almost everyone recognizes.

Just as we've always pictured the forbidden fruit as an apple, many of us also assume the serpent in the Garden of Eden is the devil himself. But the original story is a little more complicated.

A plain reading of Genesis depicts the creature simply as a serpent or snake, using the Hebrew word nachash. It describes the serpent as clever and crafty, but it never calls it Satan or explicitly identifies it as the devil. So where did the connection come from? The answer comes from later parts of the Bible, particularly the New Testament. In Revelation 12:9 and 20:2, Satan is called "the ancient serpent" (ho ophis ho archaios in Greek), connecting him to the snake of Eden. Over time, Christian tradition applied that later connection back to Genesis, leading to the familiar belief that the serpent was Satan himself.

Many of us remember Samson for his legendary strength and the long hair that was said to be the source of his power. His story with Delilah is one of the Bible's most famous tales of betrayal, but there's one detail some people may have gotten wrong: Delilah didn't actually cut his long hair.

In Judges 16:19, Delilah has Samson's hair shaved while he sleeps on her lap. The text says she called for a man to do the shaving; it never says she did it herself. Yet paintings, films, and other retellings have often shown Delilah wielding the scissors herself, cementing that image in popular culture. It can be considered a small detail, but it’s a great example of how easily familiar Bible stories can pick up elements that aren't actually in the original text.

Many of us think of the Bible as a single book, written at one particular time by one author, or perhaps a handful of them. After all, that's how it looks when you pick one up in a hotel room, but its history is far more complicated.

The Bible is actually a collection of books written by over 40 authors over roughly 1,500 years, from about 1400 BC to AD 100. The exact number of books varies by religious tradition: Protestant Bibles contain 66 books, while Catholic and Orthodox traditions include additional books. Across these different traditions, the writings were produced by kings, prophets, fishermen, and scholars in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. They also span a tremendous range of literary styles, including history, poetry, songs, laws, letters, and prophecy. So while we hold it as one book today, the Bible is actually a collection of many different writings produced across centuries.

Many people assume that at least a few original fragments of the Bible must still exist somewhere. It would be incredible if they did, but none of the original manuscripts, known as autographs, have survived.

The earliest biblical texts were written on fragile materials such as papyrus and animal skins, which could deteriorate through humidity, heat, handling, and simple age. Wars, fires, and other destruction also contributed to their disappearance. So how do we know what the originals said? Through a technique called textual criticism: expert scholars compare thousands of handwritten copies, ancient translations, and quotations from early Christian writers. When they find passages that match across different sources, or differences that reveal how a text changed over time, they can work backward to determine what the original most likely said, even though the original manuscripts themselves are gone.