nouvelle cuisine

Style in international cuisine developed in France in the 1960s and '70s that stresses freshness, lightness, and clarity of flavour, as distinct from the richer and more calorie-laden classic haute cuisine. Dishes commonly include sauces made of vegetable and fruit purees, novel combinations of foods in small quantities, and elegant displays highlighting details of texture and colour.

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Cuisine (from French cuisine, "cooking; culinary art; kitchen"; ultimately from Latin coquere, "to cook") is a specific set of cooking traditions and practices, often associated with a specific culture. A cuisine is primarily influenced by the ingredients that are available locally or through trade. For example, the American-Chinese dish chop suey clearly reflected the adaptation of Chinese cuisine to the ingredients available in North America. Religious food laws can also exercise a strong influence on cuisine. For example, Indian cuisine is characterized by its wide varieties of vegetarian dishes because Hinduism discourages consumption of meat.

Regional cuisine

A regional cuisine is a coherent tradition of food preparation that rises from the daily lives and kitchens of a people over an extended period of time in a specific region of a country and which has notable distinctions from the cuisine of the country as a whole. Some examples of great regional variance can be seen in the cuisines of France, Italy, Mexico, India and China among others.

See also

• Cooking
• Culinary arts
• List of basic cooking topics
• List of cuisines
• Gourmet Library and museum

External links

• Recipes and cooking culture
• NEAC - Network of European Alimentary Culture
• CuisineXtreme - Culinary Social Networking Community