"Home-made" food? When dining out, and seeing "Home-made" used to describe a dish...?

Question

...What is the actual, legal, definiton of this statement? Whose "home" has it had to have been made in, or does this term include the kitchen of the dining establishment?

(If so, then this is not strictly accurate, as the place is a business and not a "home").

Also, the "made" part, does this mean created using just basic ingredients, or just throwing a "ready-made meal" into an oven for 30 minutes?

Thanks for any factual, positive answers.

Answer 1

I don't know if there is a legal definition of "home-made" food. To my understanding, a phrase such as "home-made" can only be considered misleading advertising if it lead a "reasonable" person to believe that such a statement must be true. Very few people in todays American society would think that because a menu item were labeled "home-made" that the cook actually created the dish at home and brought it to the business to sell.

I think that in a restaurant environment, if an item is listed as "home-made" or "home-style" or "just like grandma made, what they're generally refering to is that the dish was prepared in their kitchen, freshly made (as opposed to frozen) and not in mass quantities (not more than needed for that days service). So much of what is shipped to restaurants now is pre-packaged and frozen, that the dining experience often tastes generic.

If you're not sure what I'm refering to, try ordering items such as Chicken Fried Steak, Onion Rings, French Fires, Deep Fried Calamari or Clam Chowder. Quite often, if the restaurants primary supplier is a company like Sysco, the food will taste the same from restaurant to restaurant. Some may dress it up a bit like adding bacon bits to the Clam Chowder but many do not. A restaurant that offers Clam Chowder that is "home-made" will make it from scratch.

Answer 2

I think they mean it was made on site, a lot of restaurants use that term when talking about soups or desserts which are often brought in from outside vendors and not made by the actual on site kitchen

Answer 3

HOMEMADE FOOD IS WHEN YOU COOK IT AT HOME IN YOUR KITCHEN. HOMESTYLE FOOD IS FOOD THAT TASTES LIKE IT WAS MADE AT HOME

Answer 4

I've worked in a number of restaurants and have always had a bit of a pet peeve about the "home-made" descriptor on menus. A better choice of wording would be "house-made" or "made in house". In essence, if a restaurant is saying that an item is "home-made" (or more accurately, "House-made"), they are saying that they made the item from scratch, using raw ingredients - like taking whole pieces of meat, grinding it, mixing it with spices and then stuffing it into casings to prepare sausages in-house.

It is my belief that the reason menus consistently say "home-made" is because that's the phrase people are used to hearing, whereas "house-made" is far more accurate (and doesn't give the impression that the chef made the item in his home and then brought it in to the restaurant.) For example:

Home-made Jagerwurst on a bed of sauerkraut, braised in a beer and stone-ground mustard reduction.

A better description would be:

House-made Jagerwurst on a bed of sauerkraut, braised in a beer and stone-ground mustard sauce.

I hope that clears up the matter for you. :)

*Edit: I wanted to take a moment to add something... "home made", "house made" and "made in house" all essentially mean the same thing. However, the actual definition may vary greatly. Some restaurants may feel that they can say "home made" if they've taken the time to add a couple ingredients to a bag of frozen chowder, while other restaurants wouldn't dare think of calling it "home made" (or house made/made in house) if they didn't specifically create the item from start to finish.

Answer 5

Homemade is one of those words like 'light'.  It doesn't mean anything legally--it just lets you know what the company making it thinks the difference between that food and another food is.  

I'd say the restaraunt would have to sell you something that was made without preservatives or they are cheating you.  If they get their deserts from a bakery and they are delivered fresh, it could be considered homemade even though it isn't made in-house.  But if they bought it from a 'bakery' that put it in a cardboard box and added preservatives so it would keep a while, I say it is a lie to call that homemade.

Answer 6

I don't know I don't eat out for the vary reason that you get the consciousness of who every prepares the food. Mostly cooked food effects the consciousness. I only eat a Govindas' Restaurants (all over the world ) because they prepare and offer the vegetarian food to God with love and devotion. I only eat vegetarian food offered to God. Otherwise Krishna says in the Gita  that if one doesn't offer their food to Him, one eats verily only sin.  One will have to get the karma for food prepared for sense gratification.  Home made to me means offered to Krishna With Love. Then I can avoid all that so called other idea of home made.

Answer 7

I work as a waitress.. so I have a few ideas for you:

Generally, when a customer asks me if something is homemade, I reply with "It's made here." If someone tells you that, it probably means that it is something ready-made, and definitely not made from scratch.

On the other hand, if the answer to, "Is it homemade?" is yes, it is cooked there and made with ingredients in the kitchen. The term "homemade" refers to the kitchen portion of the restaurant, but that's just from my own experience, I can't speak for everyone else

Hope this helps you out :)