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Tuesday, February 05, 2008
4:32 PM

Frappé

Yes, frappé. My new favorite word. Which came to my attention through the strange juxtaposition of my ongoing FoodTV addiction and a recent interaction with our own blender. Allow me to explain.

Recently I noticed that when Giada makes a vinaigrette, her much fancier looking than mine blender actually looks much simpler. It has just a nice, simple switch in the front for either "low" or "high". (It's amazing the little details that you notice when you have Food Network in HD.)

So there we were last weekend making smoothies (yes, we Californians are super health-conscious) when I took a closer look at our blender. Definitely not just "high" and "low". Our blender has the following options:

Stir
Puree
Cream
Chop
Whip
Mix
Grate
Blend
Shred
Grind
Frappé (yes, the actual blender even has the little accent mark)
Liquefy

12 settings in all. And that doesn't include the ability to just pulse it. Now at first glance you would think that 12 settings MUST be better than just two. But upon further reflection. I think that the blender industry is really just trying to pull a fast one. They are just trying to convince us that more is better, even when more serves no apparent function.

Have you ever had a recipe tell you to Shred something in your blender? But make sure not to Grind it, that would be far too much. What is the difference between Puree and Liquefy (Liquefy sounds very Sci-Fi to me, more like what a ray gun would do)? Stir versus Mix? What does Frappé mean anyway?

Naturally, I googled "frappé" (actually, first I had to google how to get the little accent mark in the word). Definition: (1) liqueur poured over shaved ice; (2) thick milkshake containing ice cream; (3) a frozen dessert with fruit flavoring (especially one containing no milk).

Anyone else as lost as I am? How can one word mean either a milkshake or, alternatively, a dessert that specifically does NOT contain milk? And I note that the word isn't even a verb. Which leaves me rather confused as to why it is on my blender. Naturally, at that point I lost interest and looked no further as to what it means to "frappé" something. But I still love the word and intend to only use that setting from now on.

What I did notice is that apparently I am not the only one asking these hard-hitting questions. I looked at the newer blender that we have and checked its settings. They are identical except "stir" became "beat" (I guess people figure they don't need a blender just to stir things. That's what spoons are for.). Meanwhile "frappé" is gone entirely and there is instead a "mince" setting between "mix" and "grate". Thank God for that! Just in case chopping, grating, shredding or grinding are not quite right for your job, you can now mince. Maybe they just wanted to save the cost of adding the little accent mark. Do you think that the blades now spin slightly slower or faster? Somehow I doubt it. I just don't see a blender having that many degrees of subtlety. High and low are probably just about right.

I fear that I see a new (third) blender in our future. Besides, hers was red.

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