Pâte, Pâtes, Patte, Pâté, Pâtée: Tasty and Not-So-Tasty Homophones

By Marie-Claire Lander

La pâte, les pâtes, la patte. Le pâté, la pâtée. How can a slight variation in spelling make such a difference in meaning? Which one of these homophones has legs? Which one is of the edible kind? Which one is a spread and which one is pet food? Can you guess? So many questions that we are about to answer in this lesson.

Let's begin with a homophone of the edible kind, les pâtes. This is the French word for "pasta," and unlike its English translation, it's always in the plural. You can learn how to make some delicious pâtes alla putanesca (pasta alla putanesca) in this cooking video:

Le temps de faire chauffer l'eau des pâtes et de les faire cuire suffit à préparer la sauce.

The time to heat the pasta water and cook them is sufficient for preparing the sauce.

Captions 31-33, Whoogy's Une recette italienne iconique, rapide et pas chère - Part 1
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When you make pâtes singular, la pâte, you get the word for "dough," "pastry," and "batter." You will have to rely on context to guide you as the culinary term la pâte will have different translations in English depending on the type of mixture. For instance, the word pâte can mean “bread dough,” which gave birth to a popular expression, mettre la main à la pâte, back when people mostly kneaded bread by hand. It literally means “put your hand in the dough” or “get to work”:

Je suis prête à me salir les mains et à mettre la main à la pâte.

I'm ready to get my hands dirty and to put my hand in the dough [get to work].

Captions 4-5, Marie et Sandra Atelier d'art - Part 17
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And now for a different kind of pâte, we have pâte à crêpe (crêpe batter). In her cooking video, Sophie explains that the consistency of pâte à crêpe is not as thick as pâte à pain (bread dough):

Tu mélanges, tu mélanges et là t'en rajoutes jusqu'à ce que tu obtiennes une pâte qui soit assez épaisse, moins que la pâte à pain, mais assez épaisse pour faire un ruban

You mix, you mix, and then you add some until you obtain a batter that is quite thick, less than bread dough, but thick enough to make a ribbon

Captions 29-33, Sophie et Patrice Les crêpes
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Still in the kitchen, we have yet another type of pâte, “pastry." How do we know it’s pastry? Because we are making pâte à choux (choux pastry), as Asma explains in her cooking video:

...en attendant de faire notre biscuit pâte à choux.

...while waiting to make our choux pastry sponge cake.

Caption 51, Asma Le roulé mangue, vanille et fruits de la passion - Part 1
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There's another type of pastry called pâte feuilletée (flaky pastry or puff pastry), which is what the delicious pain au chocolat is made of:

C'est constitué d'une pâte feuilletée avec à l'intérieur du chocolat.

It's made of a puff pastry with chocolate inside.

Captions 11-13, Leïa Le petit déjeuner
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Moving on to more savory flavors, how about une pâte (paste) to go on top of your pâte (dough)? Une pâte de tomate (tomato paste) is the perfect topping for une pâte de pizza (pizza dough), as Lionel demonstrates in his video:

Donc la garniture, on a commencé par tapisser la pâte de tomate.

So the topping, we started by covering it with tomato paste.

Captions 30-31, Claude et Lionel La pizza
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Note that une pâte can refer to any kind of paste including the non-edible kind. You can find more of its meanings here.

If we add an accent to the e in pâte, we get the masculine noun le pâté, as in pâté de foie gras (goose liver pâté). This is a French favorite during Christmas time:

Le pâté de foie gras est une spécialité gastronomique française.

Goose liver pâté is a French delicacy.

While un pâté de foie gras may be a delicacy, its feminine counterpart, la pâtée, is not for human consumption! This is the word for “pet food,” or “swill” for pigs. It usually comes in a mushy wet mix sold in cans at the supermarket.

Le chat a mangé la pâtée du chien, et il n’est pas content !

The cat ate the dog’s food, and he is not happy!

Speaking of animals, let's take a look at our final word, la patte, a feminine homophone of pâte but spelled with a double T and no accent. We are now talking about an animal part, the paw:

Piggeldy plongea sa patte avant droite dans l'eau.

Piggeldy dipped his right front paw into the water.

Caption 33, Piggeldy et Frédéric Le ciel
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Did you know that les pattes d’éléphant (literally, "elephant paws") were once a fashion item? These are known as "bell bottoms" in English, though the word can refer to any type of long pant:

Avec un beau jean pattes d'eph [d'éléphant], et tout, tu vois.

With nice elephant paw [bell bottom] jeans and everything, you see.

Caption 62, Elisa et Mashal Les fringues
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Now that you've familiarized yourself with the various meanings of the words pâte(s), pâté(e), and patte, you will be able to make safe choices at the supermarket and have a better grasp of French recipes. Thank you for reading!

Topics Vocabulary