Talk:œuf à la coque

RFD discussion: April–July 2021

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œuf à la coque

French: œuf + à la coque? I have no strong feelings about this Yellow is the colour (talk) 11:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

The culinary term à la coque may derive from œuf à la coque, not the other way around, but perhaps à la coque is SOP. Œuf à la coque means “egg (prepared) in the shell”, in contrast to other preparations in which the egg is extracted from the shell – on ne fait pas d’omelette sans casser des œufs. When you prepare eggplant à la coque,^[1], banana à la coque,^[2] or coquilles Saint-Jacques à la coque,^[3] it does not really mean “soft boiled”. You cook the eggplant in its skin, the banana in its peel, and serve the scallops on the half shell.  --Lambiam 23:10, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Keep. PUC – 19:16, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Un œuf à la coque, in French, means "a soft-boiled egg" (i.e. with liquid yolk and coagulated white), nothing else. ("A hard-boiled egg" is un œuf dur.) I've never met any of "bananes à la coque", "aubergines à la coque", "coquilles Saint-Jacques à la coque", and my mother language is French. (My Babel box is there.) They may be used in English as pseudo-French phrases; or if they are used in French it may be as fancy chefs' inventions; every French-speaking person, on the other hand, knows what des œufs à la coque are. (Potatoes in their shell aren't à la coque either but any of pommes de terre en chemise, pommes de terre en robe de chambre, pommes de terre en robe des champs. The latter, more recent than the other two, seems to be a hypercorrection.)

The TLFi, under œuf has among others: Œuf à la coque* resending to coque, and under coque:

− ART CULIN. Œuf à la coque. Œuf plongé dans l'eau bouillante et cuit dans sa coque. Il se faisait un œuf à la coque (Céline, Mort créd., 1936, p. 96).

Rem. «(...) on ne dit plus guère une coque d'œuf, mais une coquille d'œuf. Coque ne reste usuel et obligatoire que dans œuf à la coque (...)» (Dupré 1972).

No other expression there for à la coque. Keep. Tonymec (talk) 23:18, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I have added info on the page. In particular, the etymology of *coque* is not related to *coquille* (egg shell) but to coquus (a cook in Latin). Hence *à la coque* means "prepared in the manner of a chef", not "in the manner of a shell". — This unsigned comment was added by Futal (talk • contribs) at 20:16, 2 May 2021 (UTC).

This is nonsense, and I've reverted you. 2A02:2788:A4:205:EC01:FB23:BEB8:84A3 13:05, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Keep per WT:JIFFY and compare the Italian uovo alla coque. Imetsia (talk) 18:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

RFD-kept. Imetsia (talk) 18:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)