Glossary

Here is a list of some words and expressions you might commonly encounter in Romanian cuisine; in recipe books, food blogs, or on menus. It would obviously be too much of an undertaking to provide a list of every ingredient and its English translation, but I wanted to mention a few more generic terms that you might frequently come across. Note that many of these words will change their ending according to their role in the sentence, so mancare (food) may be written mancarea, mancari, mancarii, mancarile, or mancarilor. I've also chosen to leave out the diacritics on the Romanian words in case your PC isn't configured to display them properly.


aperitiv - starters
bauturi - drinks
bere - beer
bucaterie - kitchen (as in the room) or cuisine (as in Romanian cuisine)
bucatar - a chef
carne - meat
clatite - pancakes
ciorba - a soup, but in almost all case containing a sour element (commonly borsh)
desert - dessert
felul doi - main course
friptura - a piece of meat, such as a steak, cooked under the grill or in a hot pan
garnituri - side dishes
ghiveci - literally a earthenware pot (or a plant pot) but used to indicate a type of dish made up of different types of vegetable, with or without meat
gratar - a grill or barbeque
mancare - food in general, but sometimes used to mean a particular dish
meniu - menu
mezeluri - cold cuts, salami, and the like, but sometimes used for starters in general (as in the Turkish 'meze')
miel - lamb
peste - fish
porc - pork
prajit - fried, eg cartofi prajiti (fried potatoes)
prajitura - cakes of various kinds
pui - chicken
salata - salad
sos - sauce
supa - a soup, usually like a broth, often with noodles or dumplings
tocatura - finely chopped or minced meat, or a dish made with it
tocana - chunks of meat fried with onion in a sauce of varying kinds
tocanita - diminutive of tocana
vin - wine
vita - beef
vitel - veal