Ragout

Ragout a French term, adopted into English as ragoo in the 17th century, which indicates a stew of meat and vegetables, especially if a highly flavoured sauce is added to it towards the end of the cooking time. The verb ragoûter, from which the noun is derived, means ‘to revive the taste of’, i.e. ‘to perk up’, e.g. by this addition.

In the 18th century, when many English cookery writers held fancy French dishes in scorn (or professed to do so), the ragoo became a sort of symbol of what they disliked. Thus Thacker (1758), explaining why his own book was so good, contrasted it with some other books which were:

stuff’d with ragoos, and other dishes a-la-mode de France, as they call them; in which the mixture of spices is so great, and the expence so extravagant, that it frightens most people from using them; or, if any be so curious as to try them, and follow their rules punctually, instead of meats that are healthful, and agreeable to the palate, they will find a hotch-potch, destructive to an English constitution.