With all the wine talk this past week, we thought we'd introduce you to a bit of wine trivia you may not have heard before!

Botrytis cinerea, a.k.a. Noble Rot (noun): a kind of mold that grows on grapes late in the growing season.

But don't let the idea of moldy grapes fool you! This noblest of rots is a crucial component to many fine wines.

When noble rot sets in, the grapes shrivel up like raisins, concentrating the sugar inside. Much of this sugar remains after the grapes are fermented, eventually producing an intensely sweet white wine. More

Oven Spring noun: In bread baking, the final burst of rising just after a loaf is put in the oven and before the crust hardens.

When the dough hits the hot oven, it can puff up to as much as a third of its size in a matter of a few minutes. This oven spring is a good indicator of the crumb of your bread: more oven spring means a light and airy interior and little oven spring indicates a dense, compact crumb.

More on how oven spring works after the jump! More

Mother Sauce (French: sauce mere): The mother sauces were established by 19th century chef Antonin Careme as the foundations upon which all other sauces are built. There are five different mother sauces: Hollandaise, Mayonnaise, Bechamel, Veloute, and Espagnol.

And with emulsions on the brain, you guessed it--each sauce relies on some kind of emulsion to hold it together. More

Dorure (dough-rour): In baking, the process of applying a wash of egg, butter, milk, or a combination to the surface of shaped dough just before baking.

In American recipes, this is commonly referred to as a 'wash' or specifically an 'egg wash.' We've heard this term used interchangeably as a noun ("...apply the dorure...") and as a verb ("...next, dorure the surface..."), though the French can feel free to correct us on this one! More

Moreish adj. Addictive or nearly addictive; most often used to describe food or drink so good that you want more (primarily British and Australian in usage).

We are big fans of Agatha Christie; her books are unfailingly entertaining and satisfying, the perfect bedtime reading. She also wrote under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, and in one novel published under that name she makes a little joke around this classic British word... More

Mirepoix (mirh-pwah) noun. In French cooking, a mix of carrots, onions, and celery, usually finely diced, and used as the seasoning base for a meat dish or sauce.

A mirepoix is often the only seasoning we use for a good pot of beans, like the one we posted yesterday. But when we looked for a post mentioning mirepoix to link back to - nada! Oops. Mirepoix is one of the foundations of the classical Western kitchen, and we rely on it heavily in our soups and stews.

You probably do too - you may just not have known that it had this pretty French name. Mirepoix was actually named after a duke... More

Salsify [ˈsalsəfē; -ˌfī] n. A plant in the daisy family with a long root like that of a parsnip.

We posted a recipe on Tuesday for Buttery Salsify Puree with Horseradish, and there were several comments asking how the name of this uncommon vegetable is pronounced. According to our dictionary it can be pronounced with either a long or short "i" - salsa-fee or salsa-fye.

However you choose to pronounce salsify, it turns out that there have been even more great words attached to this vegetable in its long and international career... More

Acidity n. Term for the bright, dry taste notes in coffee - not to be confused with unpleasant sourness.

Like wine, coffee has its own set of jargon and terms that may mean one thing when you're not talking about the latest bean from Jamaica, but quite another when you are. More

Cacao [ka KOW] n. the seeds and the tree, Theobroma cacao, from which cocoa, cocoa butter, and chocolate are made.

The word cacao is thought to come from the Aztec word cacahuatl, which means "bitter water." Its Western scientific designation, however, means "food of the gods." Cacao's journey from cacahuatl to Theobroma has been long and studded with history.

Today, the word cacao is usually used to refer to the bean or plant itself, instead of the end result - chocolate, or cocoa. This helps differentiate between the tree, the pods, and the beans themselves - which are all very different from the final sophisticated product we know as chocolate.

What makes this tree so special, and how do we get such a precious commodity as chocolate from these tropical fruits? More pictures of cocoa pods below (the insides may surprise you!)... More

Vacherin [vash RAN] n. Dessert of several meringue rings stacked and sandwiched with ice cream, fruit, or pastry cream.

Vacherin, a classic French dessert, is not to be confused with vacherin the cheese (VASH ran) - a rich and creamy variety made from cow's milk. (We've talked about Vacherin Fribourgeois and Vacherin du Haut-Doubs, so we're big fans of the cheese too.)

The cheese and the dessert varieties of vacherin are equally delicious, but the meringue vacherin is a baked dessert that is especially good in the winter. Here are some ways we like to serve it... More