Potted Meats, Pâtés and Terrines, Brawns and Galantins Potted Fish

There is no real difference between French pâtés and terrines and English potted meats. The French word pâté means ‘paste’: in fact the meats concerned have been reduced to the consistency of a paste. The English equivalent is potted meat: meaning that the meats have been reduced to a form convenient for keeping in a pot; i.e. to a ‘paste’. The word terrine also simply means the earthenware pot in which, in this instance, the paste is kept, but the French use it only for a pâté which is not completely smooth and in which the best parts of the meat, neatly cut into strips or oblongs, are reserved and arranged at the bottom of the pot and then in layers in the fine pounded mincemeat; olives, pistachios, truffles, etc. are also often added. In England we have no equivalent of the internationally famous and enormously expensive gourmets’ dish, pâté de foie gras, but this in its proper form is a specialist’s dish, requiring that the geese be forcibly fed so that their livers reach an enormous size, and is not to be attempted at home or by the ordinary manufacturer.