| Part of a series on |
| Meals |
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| Common meals |
| Breakfast · Brunch · Lunch · Tea · Dinner · Supper |
| Components & courses |
| Amuse-bouche · Appetizer · Cheese · Cocktails · Dessert · Drink · Entrée · Entremet · Fruit · Main course · Nuts · Salad · Side dish |
| Related concepts |
| Banquet · Buffet · Cuisine · Eating · Etiquette · Food · Global cuisines · Outline of cuisines · Snack |
A main dish is the featured or primary dish in a meal consisting of several courses. It usually follows the entrée ("entry") course, and the salad course. In North American usage it may in fact be called the "entree".
The main dish is usually the heaviest, heartiest, and most complex or substantive dish on a menu. The main ingredient is usually meat or fish; in vegetarian meals, the main course sometimes attempts to mimic a meat course. It is most often preceded by an appetizer, soup, and/or salad, and followed by a dessert. For those reasons the main course is sometimes referred to as the "meat course".
In formal dining, a well-planned main course can function as a sort of gastronomic apex or climax. In such a scheme, the preceding courses are designed to prepare for and lead up to the main course in such a way that the main course is anticipated and, when the scheme is successful, increased in its ability to satisfy and delight the diner. The courses following the main course then calm the palate and the stomach, acting as a sort of dénouement or anticlimax.
"Entrée" is sometimes used as a synonym for the main course in English in North America. In 1970, Richard Olney, an American living in Paris, gave the place of the entrée in a full menu: "A dinner that begins with a soup and runs through a fish course, an entrée, a sherbet, a roast, salad, cheese and dessert, and that may be accompanied by from three to six wines, presents a special problem of orchestration".[1] In 1967 Julia Child and her co-authors[2] outlined the character of such entrées, which— when they did not precede a roast— might serve as the main course of a luncheon, in a chapter of "Entrées and Luncheon Dishes" that included quiches, tarts and gratins, soufflés and timbales, gnocchi, quenelles and crepes.