Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[rodent]

Dear Experts,

I was wondering if anyone could help me about a difference between British and American English? My students asked me what is the English for "a la minute (food)" which most dictionaries list as "short order (food/meal)" but explicitly state it's North American....I was wondering what the English use in this particular case....I could see that loads of websites in English use the phrase "a la minute"...no dictionary, however, lists such entry which puzzled me greatly, it turns out that something widely used fails to make it into any prestigious dictionary:-)....Anyway, if anyone has any idea what's the British English phrase for that, I would appreciate your help!!!

Thanks in advance,
Nadya

[redset]

Hmm, I think the fact you're seeing it on so many English websites is down to the way people like to use French words and phrases when talking about cooking! I'm British and I don't really know of any specific phrases for this kind of thing - we have 'minute steak', which is meant to be cooked in a minute or so, 'fast food' usually means something like McDonalds... I think there are sometimes vacancies here for 'short-order cooks' though. Honestly, I'm not sure there's an equivalent - given the number of variations on 'quick and easy', 'meals in minutes' and so on used here we may be missing a nice concise phrase