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dmarina-

I've seen some restaurants describe a dish containing EXOTIC mushrooms like shitake, oyster, hens nest, etc as WILD, when in fact they are not.
In my state, the use of REAL wild mushrooms (shrooms picked by hand out in the forest, NOT cultivated) is illegal. I agree with this because its a tricky business. MOST, but not all mushroom poisoning cases involve asian immigrants who pick shrooms that appear like those from their home country. In many cases they are not. In my case, my family is from Italy. We picked only 3 kinds that we KNEW were safe, one being the now cultivated hens nest mushroom. Even so, I remember one unpleasant evening spent paying for a misidentified mushroom feast.

I was always taught to say homestyle becaues homemade implies made at home, after all it is made in a restaurant. So I guess I would rather have a server say all the dressings are made in house rather than house made.

housemade by housemaid?

Housemade seems more accurate to me than homemade, frankly.

um...I don't think the author of this article fully understands exactly what "housemade" means, or what "homemade" means.
All "housemade" means is that the product is made in-house, rather than being brought in pre-made. for instance, at my cafe, the hummus is housemade, because we make it ourselves, rather than having tubs of the stuff shipped in.
homemade implies that it's made with an eye toward traditional preparation; stuff that you could make at home.
So no, homemade /=housemade. they are two completely different terms, used to describe two very different things.

I'm sure some of the "housemade" descriptions are pretentious in nature (but this is the restaurant business, the only PHONIER bunch are in hollywood)

But, I know is at least SOME cases, its called "HOUSEmade" instead of "HOMEmade" because of health department restrictions. In my district, the word HOMEMADE can't be used because according to these anal retentive weirdos, actual products made at HOME are NOT allowed to be sold to the public. Don't you have something to do? Important?

Oh well, we can't use the words "wild" mushrooms either. That I understand more because WILD and EXOTIC are two different things, but actual wild mushrooms are a no no too. And in the case of some ethnic restaurants, probably not a bad idea.

The problem I'd have with a restaurant tagging an item "house-made" is that it brings into question the pedigree of everything else on the menu. So the soup of the day is house-made, but everything else is pumped from 55-gallon drums of goo...?

I'd rather see a notation that "All our soups, dressings and sauces are made in-house." and that answers the whole question of how much is actually made from scratch.

Which reminds me of a waiter's description of a fresh-baked peach pie, made with local peaches, that we should save room for because it was soooo good. After dinner I ordered the pie and was told that it would be a few minutes, because the pies just got there. It was my fault that I assumed that a fresh-baked pie was made on the premises, but then again, "fresh-baked" could have meant that it was baked on premises after arriving fully-formed and frozen. So I guess if it was made fresh locally it was better than baked fresh from frozen.

It's kind of sad that items made in-house are the exceptions that need to be pointed out on a menu.

@dmarina: A properly trained chef should know more about food, but this distinction screams pretentiousness.

@cassaendra, i should hope restaurant chefs/menu writers know more about food than others. that's why i pay to eat there!

@pourgirl: we do ACTUALLY whip up mayonnaise "in house" with eggs and oil at most restaurants i've worked at.

with the majority, i like knowing said sausage, condiment, cheese, mayo is not from sysco.

House-made works for me in the context of a restaurant/cafe setting because it indicates (or should if they are being truthful) that the item was made "in-house". "Homemade" would be the pie I might buy at some country stand where the seller actually made it in their own kitchen of their own house.

Just another term to make some people feel like they know more about f[food] than others.

"Housemade" was first used by the late New York Times food writer John L. Hess in 1973-1974. As with "foodie" and many other terms, however, the later users probably independently coined the term and did not know that he had used it first.

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/housemade/

I can go either way . . . they are both conveying the same message. Housemade seems to be used in more upscale restaurants these days. However, if you want to be REALLY correct about it from a syntax standpoint . . . it might be better to say "made on premises" or "made in our kitchen" , as the item is not really being made in someone's house OR home but in the restaurant. Well, unless someone HAS made said item at their home (house) and brought it to the restaurant to sell : ) Personally, I think it's much ado about nothing.