Understanding The Etymology of Stocks and Broths

For more than a century, the importance of a good stock has been overshadowed by convenience. Now you have a better chance of finding quality ready-made stocks where they belong—in the refrigerator or freezer—and from a trusted source.

When you make soup, do you start with stocks or broths? The answer is, it depends.

To help clear up any culinary confusion here’s an excerpt from Mastering Stocks and Broths by Rachel Mamane

As if taking cues from the Great Depression, our society is showing a greater interest in cooking, a way to save money in a challenging economy. Shoppers continue to express a desire to know where their food comes from; farmers, butchers, and chefs are being heralded as heroes. In restaurants where it used to be bad etiquette to take home leftovers, it is now encouraged to waste nothing.

Despite the hardship on jobs and wages across many trades, the specialty food industry grows year over year, and our DIY curiosity is leading trends in homesteading—from turning beautified lawns into food-rich gardens, to raising backyard chickens for personal egg and meat consumption. Here, too, we begin to see the emergence of broth-based restaurants and product companies that make use of bones and vegetables from local farms. Now you have a better chance of finding quality ready-made stocks where they belong—in the refrigerator or freezer—and from a trusted source.

These days, passionate home cooks and responsible chefs have something in common: a shared belief that the excellence of a dish is directly related to the quality of its foundation. To a farmer, stocks reflect the health of their harvest: Bones are the structural component that connects land to animal. The value of stock to a butcher is that nothing goes to waste: Using bones honors the entire animal. A chef employs stocks not only to enhance the dish, but also to break down tougher cuts of meat; even a baker can use stock to develop a starter. To a nutritionist, stocks promote digestive health, among other restorative merits. Stocks make your pantry go further and are satisfying to consume.

There is much modern-day confusion about the difference between stock and broth.

Culinary definitions vary from commercial interpretations. Nutritionists base their distinction on nutrient density of gelatin and mineral content rendered from bones. To further confuse you, chefs often use the terms interchangeably. Sir Balthazar Gerbier’s proverb, “Too many cooks spoil the broth,” seems appropriate here.

To understand the difference, you must start with a fond, the French culinary term for foundation. To the French, stocks are considered le fond de cuisine— the essence of ingredients diffused in water, to be used as a building block for cooking. A fond can start with bones and water in a stockpot or develop into a sauce when crusty bits of meat and juice on the surface of a pan are loosened by deglazing with water, stock, or wine. Stock, then, is the foundation by which a broth—the collection of ingredients suspended in stock—is built.

Let’s dig a little deeper into the etymology of stocks and broths.

The word stock is of Germanic origin, meaning “trunk” in Old English. Similarly, stock is commonly used to reference shipbuilding materials and has evolved to have many related meanings around the idea of supplies and foundation. A wordsmith can have fun with the word stock, illustrating its use across many industries, from nance to rearms, finding all roots in the strength of a foundation.

While stocks have presumably been around since the discovery of fire, their first codified use for culinary application was in the eighteenth century when sauces were categorized within the classic French system. Stock was used as a general term to refer to the foundation of cooking: the use of basic materials to bring harmony and balance to a dish. Stocks were intended to be a fundamental ingredient, full of bones and clarified in advance of building soups and stews, used for braising meats and generally adding character to dishes that appeal to the eye.

Georges Auguste Escoffier, often referred to as the father of modern French cookery, said of sauce made from stock: The partie capitale of cuisine!

By contrast, broth is a more specific term with Germanic roots going back to 1000 CE. Broth is related to the Old English words bru, or brew, and refers to a substance that is prepared by boiling. From its earliest documentation, a broth could be vegetable or animal; by the seventeenth century, it was largely associated with a meat base. Traditionally, broth contains more meat than bones and is simmered for a shorter period of time before getting strained and seasoned. Today this definition extends to extracting the essence from vegetables, not only bones. The goal is to develop a light, flavorful liquid that is served as a part of the dish itself. Think of broth as the enhanced liquid in your bowl.

Similarly, the French word bouillon means “liquid in which something has boiled.” Credit for the invention of bouillon is given to the Duke of Godfrey, who was said to have developed a clear, flavorful soup in his castle in Bouillon, Belgium. It wasn’t until the early twentieth century that bouillon was processed into a granulated cube.

The Italians use the term en brodo, literally “in broth,” to describe dishes that use an animal or vegetable stock as its own broth. Tortellini is often seen en brodo. Matzah ball soup can be considered the Jewish version of en brodo, using chicken stock as the base by which to oat the matzah balls.