Showing posts with label Mise en place. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mise en place. Show all posts

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Mise en place

Mise en place, literally,  "put in place", pronounced "miz en plaz". Mise comes from the French root verb mettre, to put or place. Mise is the participe passé or past participle of the verb. The phrase translates in English to mean, "everything in place". Ready to go.

In the culinary world, the phrase is used to describe the setting up of the kitchen. An organized cook has all the pots and pans ready, the bowls all in a row, the spices pre-measured and the ingredients cut and chopped. This makes it so much simpler to cook.

But cooks don't own the phrase. It is used often in other contexts to suggest that everything is in place and ready to go. The theatrical world uses a similar phrase mise en scene to mean that the stage is set and the show is ready to go. But, it seems every organizer of complex tasks adopts the phrase.

Here, for example, is a message from Overblog, the French blogger, about their new features.
Comme indiqué dans la newsletter précédente, nous souhaitons que votre arrivée soit parfaite, dans un vrai cocon, et attendons donc la mise en place des fonctionnalités que vous connaissez et appréciez sur OverBlog ..., ou encore la personnalisation/mise en forme de vos textes, le tout en conservant l’intégralité de votre contenu, jusqu’à votre design si vous le souhaitez.
Interestingly, Google Translator uses "implementation" as a synonym for la mise en place. Not bad, but it misses a point. Gentil lecteur, let this be a reminder that nuance is more than a mere word.

Nuance est plus d'un simple mot.