To me, from scratch means all basic ingredients to start with. Especially with baking. Homemade could mean a pre-prepared item but prepped and cooked at home. I usually bake from scratch but I do make BBQ baked beans starting with a can of pork and beans and adding my own ingredients, so there is probably a blurred line there. I rarely use anything pre-prepared such as canned spaghetti sauce, etc. but I do occasionally use pre-prepared things such as boullion, etc., canned tomatoes, etc.

Ritaweeda, thanks for chiming in. :)

Sorry, everyone, for the Subject line. I forgot that tags don't work there. I see that it just transforms angle brackets. Sigh. The tags do pretty well as emphasizers, a la asterisks, however. :)

I don't know the exact legal definition of "Made in USA" and "Assembled in USA"

Perhaps "From scratch" & "Home made" can be defined similarly, based on % of actual purchased ingredients and hand made ingredients.

dcarch

This is very interesting. I've never given it much thought.

I do know that I *never* buy a frozen meal and heat it in the microwave and other short-cuts like that.

I buy canned tomatoes, to be sure, but also freeze a bushel of romas when they are available in stores into sauces. I make my own chicken stock when I roast a chicken or turkey, but I also buy the cartons when they're on sale for 99c or slightly more. I make mayonnaise and our favourite types of salad dressings. I make a house blend of spices to flavour a lot of our food.

I don't buy frozen packages of meats and meals......M&M type of stores.

I like buying dried black beans, cooking and freezing them.
I'm not even going to consider making pasta, so will always buy that in packages.

I love making our own bread though. I don't like the frozen tart shells, so I make my own pastry for tarts and pies.

Thanks for starting this pllog!

I have my own personal standards that I don't expect others to use but I do enjoy identifying with those that do.
I have always lumped homemade and scratch in the same category and doctored in another.
If I make a cake that uses a cake mix, I am almost always apologetic about it but if it is from a regular cake recipe (and it turns out good) I am proud it.

I am very involved in hospitality at my church and once for an all church luncheon, I baked some frozen yeast rolls, the kind that are set out as frozen rectangular dough blobs to rise then baked and brushed with butter. They are tasty, easy peesy and sufficient for that group when needing hundreds. Well, they were publicly praised over and over and I was so embarrassed.
I wanted to scream that they were frozen store bought rolls.

I like everything as long as it tastes good and is reasonably non toxic, I don't worry too much about how it lands on the table. However, I don't consider it cooking.

I lump "from scratch" and "homemade", too. It means taking basics and making the dish from them. Now, I would say it's from scratch even if I use a canned or jarred product if the main part of the dish isn't based on it.

For instance, my daughter and I made an apple tart. We made the dough, sliced the apples, but used jarred jam to drizzle over the top. Most of it was "from scratch", so that counts in my book. If I bought the tart and drizzled home made jam over the top, it would be "doctored".

I will "doctor" a jar of sauce, for instance a spaghetti dinner, and won't call it home made because I didn't make the sauce. I will call a sauce home made if I use canned tomatoes, though, because I added the herbs/spices and simmered the thing for a day! I'll say it's home made if you buy dried pasta, even though I've made noodles "from scratch" on occasion.

When we took this subject up several months ago I shared the Ziggy cartoon a number of friends sent me...

Ziggy is sitting watching a lady on TV saying - Today on 'Cooking With Cindy' ... We'll teach you to prepare a meal from scratch! ...So first... plant some wheat! ;-)

-Grainlady

This post was edited by grainlady on Sat, Aug 9, 14 at 7:22

I only think of the word "scratch" as referring to baking..for example a cake. I don't associate that word with making main dish type stuff. I consider a cake mix cake "homemade" but not from scratch! I don't much care whether the sauce is made from canned tomatoes or fresh ones...if it is cooked and simmered and flavored it is homemade enough for me. I don't really try to define other types of food. If I cook it in my kitchen from mostly basic ingredients it is homemade to me.
Joann

I also think "homemade" and "from scratch" are sort of the same . . . "doctored" to me is that can of frosting that you'd add a smidgen of Grand Marnier to and then use it to frost a cake (store bought or homemade) or the chicken salad that you take out of the package, throw in some herbs and put it in a bowl; or the bought rolls that you brush with olive oil and sprinkle with herbs and bake.

And to me, from scratch doesn't mean that you start with a chicken to get your eggs. . . but rather "whole" ingredients although some may be "convenience" foods (i.e. canned tomatoes, canned beans, etc.) I would assume by that definition that the infamous Green Bean Casserole would be considered "from scratch"? Even though all the ingredients come from one kind of can or another.

I think some restaurants use the term "home baked" which people translate when they read as "homemade" for some of their dishes (especially breads or other baked goods)

It's an interesting topic.

I feel that I'm a "from scratch" cook but obviously, I do use some "help" in canned or frozen goods that I use to make dishes.

Linderhof1208, that's why I make a differentiation between "homemade" and "scratch". The infamous green bean casserole qualifies by my lights as homemade, but it's anything but from scratch!

I've started milling my own wheat for the flavor, but I do think that bread from boughten flour still qualifies as from scratch!

Alex9179 makes a good point about the jam. Jam is a pantry staple, but has a lot of presence in the drizzle over the pie, unlike when you put a spoon of it in a sweet and sour. I agree, however, that the pie was scratch. I guess it's a matter of proportion in this case.

What about a jam tart? Crust from scratch, bought jam. Since jam is the star, I'd put that one in the homemade column with the cake mix.

I agree on the canned tomatoes, especially if they're not seasoned, but I'd be willing to put extruded pasta in the pantry staple column, too. Homemade sauce with box spaghetti could be called "scratch" even though spaghetti is one of the main ingredients. Hm... If it's mostly pasta, just wetted with sauce, then no. Arguably yes if there's a rich, lumpy sauce like a good bolognese or primavera. That is, if the pasta is the point, boxed isn't scratch. If it's just there to convey a marvelous sauce, arguably yes. Normal people--including restaurant chefs--don't generally make extruded pasta from scratch. But, that statement kind of negates what I said before.

Maybe there needs to be a special category for prepared foods like bread and pasta and jam? Made up foods that are still pantry staples to be used as ingredients in other dishes? Where a judgement of their impact on a dish decides which side of the homemade/scratch line they are?

Fascinating! I love these ones that straddle the line. So much fun to pull them apart.

Definitely an interesting topic!
And one I have never given any previous thought to.
As long as it tastes good, who cares? ? ?

Well, I would be very upset if I made a pie
and someone thought I'd used a purchased
frozen crust and canned filling.
So I guess I do care.

But, as interesting as the reading has been,
I find the subtle differences in 'categories'
wa-a-a-a-ay too nit-picking for me.
And that is definitely NOT intended as any kind of insult
to anyone at all! ! !
It is simply a statement of my opinion,
Respectfully submitted!

Rusty

Rusty, I agree. I'd rather cook than split hairs. It's way different cooking every day vs. cooking for guests.

Beachlily, you're right. This is a digression and not about cooking at all really. I find nomenclature interesting, as well as the hair splitting, and I find that it helps to order my mind, which, in the end, also helps my cooking.

Rusty, opinion respectfully understood and appreciated. It is nitpicking, and not of interest to many people, I'm sure.

I have certain language bugaboos with cooking. I'm entirely aware that they're my issues, and not something that I expect others to cleave to or participate in. It doesn't bother me if people call purchased prepared food that they've doctored "homemade". To me, that just means they have a different definition of homemade. So be it. I do, however, have an issue with opened a bunch of cans and dumped them in a dish being called "from scratch". Again, I realize that my having an issue with what people want to say about their food is entirely my own problem, not theirs.

In the USA, at least, there's a tradition of food snobbery in which "from scratch" demands a level of respect. I don't say "from scratch" about my cooking or baking, even when it is. If someone asks, I'll say I made the crust, or whatever, and might even use "it's from scratch" if asked about the process, but it's not a way I identify myself or my work. It goes with the kind of snobbery that insists that something hand sewn is superior to something machine sewn (not counting computer programed sewing machine work, which is its own category). Good results are good results, no matter which tools you use to achieve them. The grated cheese issue is a bagatelle: it's really all the same whether you pare it, grate it by hand, grate it in an FP, or buy it grated. The main reason for doing it oneself is that one often buys tastier cheeses than they put up pre-grated, and it keeps better as a block.

Since we have that culture of admiration for the scratch cook, I think the person claiming the honors ought to be honest about it. I wouldn't think ill of anyone who doesn't put the line exactly where I do. That's why I started this thread--to learn where others put the line. But if you tell me that you made a frozen green beans, condensed mushroom soup and French's canned fried onions casserole from scratch, I'm going to think you're awfully naïve...

My other bugaboo is people who don't know what the words mean extending them to mean other things. Again, totally my own issue and the world marches the way it does without regard for it. But hummus means "chickpea" not paté or puree, many hummus dishes use whole, not mashed, chickpeas, and you can't make chickpeas out of black beans. Aioli means "garlic oil", not flavored mayonnaise, and can be made without egg yolk (i.e., not like mayonnaise), but not without garlic. Some aiolis aren't sauces at all, but more like a paste or relish, but all have garlic and oil.

So, I've learned a lot about how far the words "scratch" and "homemade" can extend without breaking and some points over my own lines that cooking people allow. I hope more people will contribute their ideas. And for those who just don't care, thanks for letting us know that too...