View source for Entrée

{{Short description|Dish served before the main course}}
{{About|the small course served before a larger one|the American meaning as the principal dish of a meal|main course|other uses}}
{{meals}}
An '''entrée''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɒ̃|t|r|eɪ}}, {{small|US also}} {{IPAc-en|ɒ|n|ˈ|t|r|eɪ}}; {{IPA|fr|ɑ̃tʁe|lang}}), in modern French table service and that of much of the English-speaking world, is a [[dish (food)|dish]] served before the [[main course]] of a [[meal]]. Outside North America and parts of English-speaking Canada, it is generally synonymous with the terms ''[[hors d'oeuvre]]'', ''appetizer'', or ''starter''. It may be the first dish served, or it may follow a soup or other small dish or dishes.

In the United States and parts of English-speaking Canada, the term ''entrée'' instead refers to the main course or the only course of a meal.{{efn| name = dictionaries}}

==Early use of the term==
The word ''entrée'' as a culinary term first appears in print around 1536 in the ''Petit traicté auquel verrez la maniere de faire cuisine'', more widely known from a later edition titled ''Livre fort excellent de cuisine''{{efn| The ''Petit traicté'' was published by Pierre Sargent in Paris between 1534 and 1536.  Philip and Mary Hyman have identified 27 editions of this book published between 1536 and 1627, under numerous titles, including the ''Livre fort excellent de cuisine''.{{sfn|Hyman|Hyman|1992|pp=66-68}}  }}, in a collection of menus{{efn| name = menu}} at the end of the book.  There, the first stage of each meal is called the ''entree de table'' (entrance to the table); the second stage consists of ''[[Pottage#Early use of the term|potaiges]]'' (foods boiled or simmered "in pots"); the third consists of one or more ''services de [[Roasting#Early use of the term|rost]]'' (meat or fowl "roasted" in dry heat); and the last is the ''issue de table'' (departure from the table).{{sfn|Albala|Tomasik|2014|pp=210–27,238–48}} These four stages of the meal appear consistently in this order in all the books that derive from the ''Petit traicté''.{{sfn|Tomasik|2016|pp=239-244}} 

The terms ''entree de table'' and ''issue de table'' are organizing words, "describing the structure of a meal rather than the food itself".{{sfn|Jurafsky|2014|p=22}}  The terms ''potaiges'' and ''rost'' indicate cooking methods but not ingredients.  The menus, though, give some idea of both the ingredients and the cooking methods that were characteristic of each stage of the meal.

Sausages, offal, and raw watery fruits (oranges, plums, peaches, apricots, and grapes) were apparently considered uniquely appropriate for starting the meal, as those foods appear only in the ''entree de table''.{{efn|name = dry fruits}}  Other [[Dish (food)|dishes]] considered appropriate for the ''entree'' stage also appear in later stages of the meal, such as venison cooked in various ways (in the ''entree'', ''potaiges'', and ''rost'' services) and savory pies and sauced meats (in the ''entree'' and ''rost'' services).  The distribution of dishes is very similar to that of the menus in the ''[[Ménagier de Paris]]'', written 150 years before the ''Petit traicté''.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=66-69}} {{efn| name = Ménagier}}

==The entrée in the "Classical Order" of table service==

The stages of the meal underwent several significant changes between the mid-16th and mid-17th century.  Notably, the potage became the first stage of the meal and the entrée became the second stage. By 1650, the term "entrée" had lost its literal meaning and had come to refer to the stage of the meal after the [[Potage#Potage in the “Classical Order” of table service|potage]] and before the [[Roasting#The roast in the "Classical Order" of table service|roast]], [[Entremets#Entremets in the "Classical Order" of table service|entremets]], and [[Dessert#Dessert in the “Classical Order” of table service|dessert]].{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|p=72}} The term "entrée" also came to refer to the dishes served in the entrée stage, and not just to the stage itself.  

While cookbooks and dictionaries of the 17th and 18th centuries rarely discuss the type of dishes appropriate to each stage of the meal with any specificity, entrées and the dishes of the other stages of the meal can be distinguished from each other by certain characteristics, such as their ingredients, cooking methods, and serving temperatures.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=11, 21}}  The distinct characteristics of the entrée were at first loosely observed, or perhaps more accurately, the "rules" were in a formative stage for several decades.  By the early 18th century, though, certain ingredients and cooking methods were increasingly confined to the entrée stage of the meal.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=23-27}}

In the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, entrées on meat days{{efn| name = maigres}} included butchers' meats (but not ham), suckling pig, fowl, furred and feathered game, and offal.  Eggs were never served as entrées on meat days; they were served only as [[entremet]]s.  Vegetables often made up part of the sauce or garnish, but entrées on meat days were always meat dishes; separate dishes of vegetables were served only as entremets.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=21–31}} 

On lean days, fish replaced meat and fowl in every stage of the meal.  Entrées included a wide range of fish, shellfish, crustaceans, turtles, and frogs. Entrées on lean days were rarely composed only of vegetables, except during [[Lent]], when vegetable entrées ("''entrées en racines''", encompassing all vegetables, not just "roots") were sometimes served. Eggs were commonly served as entrées on lean days out of Lent; in Lent, eggs were never served at any meal.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=32–43}}

Moist cooking methods were characteristic of the entrée stage of the meal, typical preparations being sautés, ragoûts, and fricassées.  Meat or fowl (but not fish) might be roasted, but it was first wrapped in paper, or stuffed with a forcemeat, or barded with herbs or anchovies, or finished in a sauce, or prepared in some other way to keep the dish from browning and crisping like a true roast.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=12–15}} Savory pies and pastries were baked in dry heat, but the enclosed meat cooked in its own steam and juices.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=27–8}} Meat fritters and, on lean days, fish fritters were also served as entrées.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|p=30}}

All entrées were served hot, which was a salient feature of entrées until the 19th century.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=25-30}}

=== Large entrées ===

Large joints of meat (usually beef or veal) and large whole fowl (turkey and geese) were the ''grandes'' or ''grosses entrées'' of the meal.  When roasted, whole joints and fowl were called "spit-roasted entrées" (''entrées de broche''), always served in a sauce or ragoût to distinguish them from true roasts.{{sfn|Grimod de La Reynière|1806|pp=1–3}}

=== ''Le Bouilli'' ===

When boiled, a joint of beef was ''"le bouilli"'', the first of the entrées consumed in the meal.{{sfn|Grimod de La Reynière|1804|p=45}}

=== Relevés ===

In the late 18th century, the practice arose of removing the empty soup tureens and replacing them with ''entrées de broche'' or other ''grosses entrées''.  The replacement dishes were commonly called "relevés", or in English, "removes".  They were the last of the entrées consumed at the meal, although they were brought to the table immediately after the ''potages''.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=76–77}}

=== Small entrées ===

The most numerous of the entrées at any meal were the "ordinary entrées" (''entrées ordinaires''), consumed after the ''bouilli'' and before other ''grosses entrées''.  In composition, they were distinguished from the ''grosses entrées'' by the small size of their ingredients, not the size of the dish itself.  Small fowl could be served whole, but large fowl and large joints of meat were cut into pieces or fillets.  Despite the designation "ordinary", these entrées were much more elaborate and refined than ''grosses entrées''.{{sfn|Grimod de La Reynière|1806|pp=3–4}}

=== Hors d'œuvre === 
In the late 17th century, "[[hors d'œuvres|hors d'œuvre]]" were served in both the entrée and entremets stages of the meal as little "extra" dishes, always served hot and always consumed as the last of the entrées or entremets.  By the early 19th century, hors d'œuvre had come to be served only in the entrée stage of the meal; they were essentially small entrées, consumed after the potages and before the other entrées.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=75-76}}

==Changes in the 19th century==

In the 19th century, hors d'œuvre became a distinct stage of the meal.  They were no longer considered to be entrées, and, in a marked change from earlier practice, they were consumed immediately after the potage and before the other entrées.  Over the course of the century, cold hors d'œuvre became increasingly common.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|p=76}}

Relevés also became a distinct stage of the meal, often consumed before the other entrées rather than after them.{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=101–102}}  Relevés came to include not just spit-roasted joints, but all large joints and bulky cuts of butcher’s meats and whole fish cooked in any way.  Entrées, in the new sense of the term, included less bulky foods, like sliced meats and fillets of fish; fowl cooked in any way other than roasting; [[foie gras]]; and meat pies and other pastries of poultry and game.{{sfn|Blot|1868|pp=462–63}} 

Due at least in part to [[Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution|the collapse of the church’s authority in France]], rules governing meat and lean days were followed irregularly.  In particular, fish was commonly served on meat days, and whole fish became a classic relevé.  Some styles of service even included a "fish course".{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|pp=91–93}}  

After the 1820s, the bouilli was no longer routinely served at fine dinners,{{sfn| Brillat-Savarin|1826|pp=140–41}} having been replaced by a wider variety of relevés.  Also, in a marked change from earlier practices, cold entrées became increasingly common.{{sfn|Dubois|1856|p=400}}{{sfn|Flandrin|2007|p=107}}  

Over the course of the 19th century, entrées and relevés were sometimes considered to be the principal part of the meal.{{sfn|Encyclopédie|1837|p=581}}{{sfn|Encyclopédie|1885|p=1183}}

==Changes in the 20th century==
Distinctions between the various types of entrées (''grosses'', ''grandes'', ''de broche'', ''relevé'') had largely fallen out of use by the end of the 19th century, and menus of the first half of the 20th century routinely include entrées but not relevés.{{sfn|Escoffier|1912|p=11}}

In France, the entrée slowly came to be associated primarily with its position in the meal rather than the composition of its dishes.  Despite the objections of various food authorities who insisted on retaining the classical meaning of the word,{{sfn|Montagné|1938|p=443}} the term ''entrée'' came to refer to the first course of the meal, a small dish that precedes the main course (''plat principal'') in a three-course meal.{{efn|name = dictionaries}} The "new" use of the term, now common almost worldwide, is a return to the literal meaning of the word and a partial return to the medieval arrangement of the meal.

In the United States and parts of English-speaking Canada, though, the older understanding of the entrée as a substantial meat course persisted, and the word came to refer to the principal dish of the meal.{{sfn|Hill|1911|p=3–4}}{{sfn|Raskin|1922|pp=16, 17}}  In the 21st century, the use of the word entrée in North American menus began to decline, being replaced by terms like "main course" or other terms appropriate to the culinary tradition of a given restaurant or cookbook.{{sfn|Jurafsky|2014|pp=21–34}}

==Notes, references, and sources==

===Notes===
{{notelist | refs=
{{efn
 |name = dictionaries 
 | {{bulleted list |{{cite web |url=https://www.cnrtl.fr/definition/entr%C3%A9e |title=entrée |website=[[Trésor de la langue française informatisé]] |language=fr}}|{{Cite OED|entrée|2174380319}} }} 
}}
{{efn
 | name = menu
 | The word "menus" appropriately describes this section of the ''Petit traicté'', but the first appearance of "menu" with that culinary meaning is in the much later [https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k504003/f52.image/ ''Nouveau Dictionnaire de l’Académie françoise''], 1718, p. II:50.
}}
{{efn| name = dry fruits
 | Raw "dry" fruits (apples, pears, and medlars) are characteristic of the ''issue de table'' in the ''Petit traicté''.
}}
{{efn
 | name = Ménagier
 | In the menus of the ''Ménagier'', sausages and raw watery fruits are characteristic of the "premiere assiette" served at the start of the meal, either before the potages and sauced meats or, sometimes, alongside them in a large first service.  Roasted meats, fowl, game, and additional potages follow, presented in a single service or, more often, in several separate services.  The meal is concluded with [[wafers]], [[Dried fruit|dried]] and [[Fruit preserves|preserved fruits]], and [[Hippocras|spiced wine]].   
}}
{{efn
 | name = maigres
 | In accordance with [[Fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church|church regulations]] in force from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, the ingredients for every stage of the meal varied between "meat days" (''jours gras'', literally "fat days"), when all foods were allowed, and "lean days" (''jours maigres''), when the church forbade consumption of meat and fowl but not fish.  Until the 16th century, white meats (milk, cream, butter, and cheese) and eggs were additionally forbidden in Lent. Beginning in the 17th century, white meats were allowed in Lent.  Beginning in the 19th century, eggs were also allowed in Lent.
}}
}}

===References===
{{reflist}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin|2|indent=yes}}
* {{cite book
 | editor1-last = Albala
 | editor1-first = Ken
 | editor-link1 = Ken Albala
 | editor2-last = Tomasik
 | editor2-first = Timothy
 | title = The Most Excellent Book of Cookery, Livre fort excellent de cuysine
 | location = Totnes, Devon
 | publisher = [[Marion Boyars Publishers|Prospect Books]]
 | year = 2014
 | isbn = 978-1903018965
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Blot
 | first = Pierre
 | title = Hand-Book of Practical Cookery, for Ladies and Professional Cooks
 | location = New York
 | publisher = D. Appleton and Company
 | year = 1868
 | url= https://archive.org/details/b20417366/page/n5/mode/2up
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Brillat-Savarin
 | first = Jean Anthelme
 | authorlink = Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
 | title = Physiologie du goût, ou Méditations de Gastronomie transcendante
 | volume = 1
 | location = Paris
 | publisher = A. Sautelet et Cie
 | year = 1826
 | url= https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8626673x 
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Dubois
 | first = Urbain
 | authorlink = Urbain Dubois
 | title = Cuisine Classique
 | volume = 2
 | location = Paris
 | publisher = Les Auteurs
 | year = 1856
 | url= https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k55330177/f89.item.r=dubois%20cuisine%20classique
}}
* {{cite encyclopedia
 | encyclopedia = Encyclopédie des gens du monde
 | title = Entrée
 | page = 581
 | location = Paris
 | publisher = Treuttel et Würtz
 | volume = 9.2
 | year = 1837
 | ref = {{harvid|Encyclopédie|1837}}
 | url = https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k2155419/f184.item
}}
* {{cite encyclopedia
 | encyclopedia = La Grande Encyclopédie
 | title = Entrée
 | page = 1183
 | location = Paris
 | publisher = H. Lamirault et Cie
 | volume = 15
 | year = 1885
 | ref = {{harvid|Encyclopédie|1885}}
 | url = https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k24650j/f1193.item
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Escoffier
 | first = Auguste
 | author-link = Auguste Escoffier
 | title=A Guide to Modern Cookery
 | location = London
 | publisher=William Heinemann
 | year = 1907
 | url=https://archive.org/details/cu31924000610117/page/n11/mode/2up
 }}
* {{cite book
 | last = Escoffier
 | first = Auguste
 | author-link = Auguste Escoffier
 | title = Le Livre des menus
 | location = Paris
 | publisher = E. Grevin
 | date = 1912
 | url = https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb305062127 
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Flandrin
 | first = Jean-Louis
 | author-link = Jean-Louis Flandrin
 | title = Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France
 | trans-title = L’Ordre des mets
 | location = Berkeley
 | publisher = [[University of California Press]]
 | year = 2007
 | orig-year = 2001
 | translator-first = Julie E.
 | translator-last = Johnson
 | isbn = 978-0520238855
 }}
* {{cite book
 | last = Grimod de La Reynière
 | first = Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent
 | author-link = Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière
 | title = Almanach des Gourmands, seconde année
 | location = Paris
 | publisher = Maradan
 | year = 1804
 | url = https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k15191246 
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Grimod de La Reynière
 | first = Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent
 | author-link = Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière
 | title = Almanach des Gourmands, quatrième année
 | location = Paris
 | publisher = Maradan
 | year = 1806
 | url = https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k64812256 
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Hill
 | first = Janet McKenzie
 | authorlink = Janet McKenzie Hill
 | title = The Book of Entrées
 | location = Boston
 | publisher = [[Little, Brown and Company]]
 | year = 1911
 | url = https://archive.org/details/b21538980/page/2/mode/2up
}}
* {{cite book
 | last1 = Hyman
 | first1 = Philip
 | last2 = Hyman
 | first2 = Mary
 | chapter = Les livres de cuisine et le commerce des recettes en France aux 15e et 16e siècles
 | title = Du manuscrit à la table
 | editor = Carole Lambert
 | location = Paris, Montréal
 | publisher = Champion-Slatkin—Les [[Presses de l'Université de Montréal]]
 | year = 1992
 | isbn = 978-2852037076
}}
* {{cite book
 | last = Jurafsky
 | first = Dan
 | author-link = Daniel Jurafsky
 | title = The Language of Food
 | location = New York and London
 | publisher = [[W.W. Norton & Company]]
 | year = 2014
 | isbn = 978-0393240832
 }}
* {{cite book
 | last = Montagné
 | first = Prosper
 | author-link = Prosper Montagné
 | title = Larousse Gastronomique
 | location = Paris
 | publisher = [[Éditions Larousse|Librairie Larousse]]
 | year = 1938
 }}
* {{cite book
 | last = Raskin
 | first = Xavier
 | title = The French Chef in Private American Families
 | location = Chicago
 | publisher = [[Rand McNally|Rand McNally & Company]]
 | year = 1922
}}
* {{cite journal
 |last = Tomasik
 |first = Timothy J.
 |title = Cuisine by the Cut of One’s Trousers: Cookbook Marketing in Early Modern France
 |journal = Food and History
 |volume = 14
 |issue = 2–3
 |date = May 2016
 |pages = 223-247
 |doi = 10.1484/J.FOOD.5.115341
 |issn = 1780-3187}}
{{refend}}

==See also==
{{Portal|Food}}
*[[Full course dinner]]
*[[Food presentation]]
{{-}}

==External links==
{{Wiktionary|entrée}}
{{commons category|Entrée dishes}}
*{{Cookbook-inline|Recipes}}
*[https://languageoffood.blogspot.com/2009/08/entree.html The Language of Food: Entrée]

{{Meals_navbox}}
{{French cuisine}}

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[[Category:Courses (food)]]