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I would say that if it's in an agreed-upon dictionary, it's fair game. Roux appears both in Merriam-Webster's and American Heritage and has long since passed into the English language. I haven't taken the time to look up your other examples, but I would guess that they, too, are in standard American-English dictionaries.

shitake - 7 letters and less food-obsessed playes think you are either making it up or cursing.

I once scored something like 60 points using the word "ade", and people went absolutely nuts. Beyond that, I don't really think of food words as a different part of my vocabulary, so I probably use them but don't think much of it.

Absobloominlutely! Hardest part is getting someone to play with me. ;-(

Don't you just love it when you get challenged? Oh, how that improves the score and your opponent loses a turn. My mother was the Scrabble champ and I loved beating her - it didn't happen often though.

@Alyrmc ~ you would have fooled me with spatzle. I have only seen it spelled spaetzle and didn't know the variant. I must remember that one.

All words are fair game if it's in the dictionary. When I was a kid, my mother and I would also include Japanese words, as well as swearing, so we would be on fairly even ground. We used the same rules for Boggle.

@SSMom: It's spelled "shiitake" -- It's a major pet peeve of mine to see people, restaurants in particular, misspell it. For you, that now means it's an 8-letter word.

Spaetzle is the alternative to spätzle. Technically, "spatzle" would be incorrect because it lacks the umlaut.

@dhorst ROTFL you just made me bust my gut laughing. I just loved it that you proved them wrong for one and then getting triple points on top of that.....You go girl.

I was challenged on "ackee" a few months ago...totally not in the dictionary.