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For the 'Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie' competition, entrants are judged according to the following criteria for their 'entremets glacé': 'Harmonie des saveurs, Harmonie des textures, **Tenue à la coupe**, Originalité du montage, Qualité de la finition, Qualité de la présentation'. Could they possibly be referring to how well the entry holds together ...?
Explanation: As Melissa has said in her peer comment to my reference comment, this is probably the simplest way of expressing it — albeit not sitting too easily in Asker's list of characteristics.
One might I suppose say "cutting quality", but personally, I don't really like that kind of formulation. Ditto 'cutability'!!
Or "un homme à Paris" (cf. "un homme dans Paris"). Of course the expression "tenue à la coupe" is standard. But I've found that people sometimes stretch standard usage to mean other things. Not saying that this is necessarily the case here, mind you.
Oh, and we only use 'à' in the expressions you mention because there is an active verb involving movement, where 'à' can have the sense of 'to' or 'into'. This is not at all the same situation as here, where 'tenue' is a noun, and there is no specific sense of 'movement' involved.
I know the use of "tenue à la coupe" to talk about knives, etc. I wonder if we know exactly what the 'entremets glacés' are in this case. I see plenty online that would indeed need to be cut, but in other places the results show desserts for which this is unlikely to be the case. We do sometimes use 'à' to mean 'dans': e.g. jeter à la poubelle; mettre à la cave. It's worth considering this from all angles.
I'm sure it wouldn't be that, because it simply doesn't fit well with the other list items. In addition, it's pretty specific, suggesting the entremets might be served in a sundae dish. Furthermore, I don't think in FR we'd say 'tenue à la coupe' in that sense — surely 'dans' would be the more applicable preposition? It is also, as I've said before, a standard expression referring to cutting quality...
Can't help feeling this is nothing to do with cutting in this instance. We are dealing with ices such as ice-cream, sorbets, etc. If you look here (http://docplayer.fr/53487924-Groupe-ii-classe-5-glaces-sorbe... it seems to me that what is being assessed is how well the ice cream (or whatever) holds together in the bowl in which it is served (i.e. how well it retains its shape rather than quickly dissolving into a liquid mess, which often happens with low-quality desserts of this nature). PS I can't seem to post the link so that it works, but the reference is this one: http://docplayer.fr/53487924-Groupe-ii-classe-5-glaces-sorbe...
I'm honestly not really sure: I rather feel that cutting cleanly is only one aspect of this 'tenue'; for example, it might cut cleanly, but then as soon as you removed the knife, it might collapse. I think the best idea is 'holding together', but of course that is a very informal expression that could not really be used here! I feel sure there probably is an official equivalent technical word in EN — but sadly, all my training has been here in France!
I did a France-specific search on DuckDuckGo and the limited results I found all bear Tony's reading out. I think my suggestion of coupe=cup/bowl can be safely discarded.
@Tony, out of interest, would you go with a wording around "clean cut" or "cuts cleanly"?
That's very curious, why your search results should be so wildly off?! I searched on "tenue à la coupe" + pâtisserie, and Google returned a respectable 48,100 results, many of which make the meaning of this term abundantly clear! Perhaps the fact that you are searching in the US rather than from France bars you from seeing certain results?
I'm not convinced it's a widely used culinary term. It gets 41 hits, and most relate to knives and metals. Wikipedia defines entremet as "a multi-layered mousse-based cake with various complementary flavors and textural contrasts".
What they are served in is irrelevant: 'tenue à la coupe' is a standard culinary term, which I am familiar with as a professional chef, and in my collaborations with local pâtisserie trainers.
@Tony, I don't know enough to be sure either way about tenue—you could well be right—but I don't see why a frozen dessert can't be served in a cup or bowl. For iced entremets my Larousse Gastronomique lists fruit ice creams, sorbets, iced cups, frosted fruits, ice cream, cakes, bombes, mousses, parfaits, soufflés and vacherins, most of which are quite at home in such a dish.
Thanks to both of you for your suggestions. As the criterion is so short, with no further explanation, I've gone for 'ability to hold its shape', which hopefully covers both 'when cut' and 'in the serving dish' :-)
Agree with Tony it means if the dessert stays put. But does à la coupe mean "when cut" or "in the serving dish" (being frozen)? Or would that be en coupe?
Explanation: As Melissa has said in her peer comment to my reference comment, this is probably the simplest way of expressing it — albeit not sitting too easily in Asker's list of characteristics.
One might I suppose say "cutting quality", but personally, I don't really like that kind of formulation. Ditto 'cutability'!!
Tony M France Local time: 00:03 Works in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 179
Grading comment
Thanks to everyone for your help on this and especially to Tony for getting to the bottom of it for me.
Reference comments
7 hrs peer agreement (net): +1
Reference: Just one Google result out of many...
Reference information: Out of the 48,100 results from searching for "tenue à la coupe" + pâtisserie here in France, here is just one that illustrates what we have been discussing — note it refers to a mix for making sponge cake, so no question of sundae dishes here!
Pâtisseries / Concentrés et Mixes / Panification Industrielle ...
Une large gamme de mixes faciles à utiliser pour des cakes gourmands ... 100%, Saveur légèrement vanillée, Texture fine et aérée, bonne tenue à la coupe.
Tony M France Works in field Native speaker of: English PRO pts in category: 179
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peer agreement (net): +2