Meet the Entree

If you ask Americans what an entree is, they’ll say it’s the main course of the meal. That’s what the word means to us.

But it’s only the latest meaning of the word. “Entree” is really the same word as “entry,” and it originally meant a dish that served to lead into other dishes. An appetizer, so to speak.

This picture is somewhat clouded, though. In opera, an entree is an interlude between two acts, and “entree” has meant both an intro and an interlude. French dictionaries define it as either a first course or a side dish.

In the 19th century, formal meals--which had been higgledy-piggledy arrangements of dishes, almost like buffets--started being organized into courses, ultimately numbering 12. In England, the entree was the fifth course, served after the fish and before the roast meat. In our country, though, it was the sixth, following the roast and preceding the punch or sorbet (which was itself followed by another roast, this time preferably of wild game).

Sometimes the entree may have meant another meat dish, but typically it was a “made dish”--a dainty mouthful of the sort we associate with a ladies’ lunch, not a resting place in the middle of a titanically long dinner. In the original 1896 edition of Fannie Farmer, the entrees were fritters, croquettes, timbales, rissoles and omelets. Other 19th century cookbooks include scallops, cutlets, meatballs, meat pies and souffles among the entrees.

The change of meaning may simply reflect the 20th century’s lighter eating habits. But words like “entree” are squirmy things. Consider the French word “entremet,” which originally meant an in-between course; in modern French, it’s a dessert, while in Spanish entremeses are appetizers.