Crème fraîche in the context of Tarte flambée

A dip or dipping sauce is a common condiment for many types of food. Dips are used to add flavor or texture to a food, such as pita bread, dumplings, crackers, chopped raw vegetables, fruits, seafood, cubed pieces of meat and cheese, potato chips, tortilla chips, falafel, and sometimes even whole sandwiches in the case of jus. Unlike other sauces, instead of applying the sauce to the food, the food is typically placed or dipped into the sauce.

Dips are commonly used for finger foods, appetisers, and other food types. Thick dips based on sour cream, crème fraîche, milk, yogurt, mayonnaise, soft cheese, or beans are a staple of American hors d'oeuvres and are thicker than spreads, which can be thinned to make dips. Celebrity chef Alton Brown suggests that a dip is defined based on its ability to "maintain contact with its transport mechanism over three feet [1 m] of white carpet".

Cream is a dairy product composed of the higher-fat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, the fat, which is less dense, eventually rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream, this process is accelerated by using centrifuges called "separators". In many countries, it is sold in several grades depending on the total butterfat content. It can be dried to a powder for shipment to distant markets, and contains high levels of saturated fat.

Cream skimmed from milk may be called "sweet cream" to distinguish it from cream skimmed from whey, a by-product of cheese-making. Whey cream has a lower fat content and tastes more salty, tangy, and "cheesy". In many countries partially fermented cream is also sold as: sour cream, crème fraîche, and so on. Both forms have many culinary uses in both sweet and savoury dishes.

Fresh food is food which has not been preserved and has not spoiled yet. For vegetables and fruits, this means that they have been recently harvested and treated properly postharvest; for meat, it has recently been slaughtered and butchered; for fish, it has been recently caught or harvested and kept cold.

Dairy products are fresh and will spoil quickly. Thus, fresh cheese is cheese which has not been dried or salted for aging. Sour cream may be considered "fresh" (crème fraîche).

Sour cream (sometimes known as soured cream in British English) is a dairy product obtained by fermenting regular cream with certain kinds of lactic acid bacteria. The bacterial culture, which is introduced either deliberately or naturally, sours and thickens the cream. Its name comes from the production of lactic acid by bacterial fermentation, which is called souring. Crème fraîche is one type of sour cream with a high fat content and less sour taste.

A dip or dipping sauce is a common condiment for many types of food. Dips are used to add flavor or texture to a food, such as pita bread, dumplings, crackers, chopped raw vegetables, fruits, seafood, cubed pieces of meat and cheese, potato chips, tortilla chips, falafel, and sometimes even whole sandwiches in the case of jus. Unlike other sauces, instead of applying the sauce to the food, the food is typically placed or dipped into the sauce.

Dips are commonly used for finger foods, appetisers, and other food types. Thick dips based on sour cream, crème fraîche, milk, yogurt, mayonnaise, soft cheese, or beans are a staple of American hors d'oeuvres and are thicker than spreads, which can be thinned to make dips.

Ossetra (also Osetra, Oscietra, Osetrova, or Asetra) caviar is one of the most prized and expensive types of caviar (eclipsed in price only by Beluga caviar). It is obtained from the Ossetra sturgeon, which weighs 50–400 pounds (22.6–181.4 kg) and can live up to 50 years.

Ossetra caviar varies in color from deep brown to gold. Lighter varieties are more sought after, as they have the richest flavor and come from the oldest sturgeon. Golden Ossetra is a rare form of Ossetra caviar and is golden-yellow with a very rich flavor.