Harlan from Arlington, Virginia, thinks there should be a word to denote “the morsel that always escapes when moving food from a pan to a plate or chocolate chips to a mixer.” There’s always at least one, right? One fanciful possibility: kitchen slag, inspired by mining and metalwork, where slag refers to “leftover material.” Another is paying the transfer tax, and for that matter, finger tax might apply to the icing, batter, or chocolate chips that wind up inside the cook instead of the bowl. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Proposed Words for the Morsel That Always Escapes From Pan to Plate: “Kitchen Slag,” “Transfer Tax,” and “Finger Tax””
Harlan Messenger of Arlington, Virginia wrote us with this observation.
He says, no matter how carefully you try to transfer something in the kitchen from a pan to a plate or a plate to a container or chocolate chips to the mixer, there’s gonna be at least one piece that spills onto the counter or the floor.
There’s gotta be a word for that.
Oh, I love that.
I bet in smelting and mining and other metalwork industries, they have names for that.
Right?
Would you call that slag?
What would you call that?
Kitchen slag.
Something like that?
I don’t know.
But I’m sure people have household word to that.
What is that?
No matter how careful you are.
Yeah.
Crumbs or powder or something ends up on the floor and you’re, wait a second.
I was as careful as I could be.
Why do I have to sweet?
Yeah.
The only thing I could think of was maybe paying the transfer tax.
Oh, yeah.
But there’s but there’s, of course, also the finger tax.
Like, you you always gotta sample the sweets.
Right?
A little bit of icing, a little bit of batter, one or two chocolate chips.
They don’t make it into the bowl’ they make it into your mouth.
Well, yeah.
But is that called a finger tax?
I didn’t know that.
Well, I don’t know what it’s called.
Be.
But I know our listeners will have words for it.
Call or text toll-free.
