erinja:
The pie issue is tricky in Esperanto. I have had quite a few debates with Esperanto friends from other countries on the definition of a "torto" versus a "kuko"

Bottom line -- it seems to me, from my native-English perspective, that a torto is OBVIOUSLY a pie (as in, layers of pastry surrounding a filling of meat or fruit or whatever), and a kuko is OBVIOUSLY a cake, something more like a rich bready thing, like a chocolate cake or whatever.

My European friends find it equally TOTALLY OBVIOUS that a "kuko" is layers of pastry surrounding a filling of fruit or whateve, and a torto is OBVIOUSLY something fancy like a chocolate cake, more bready.

Erinja, perhaps you could consider "Googling" the word "torte". It might provide you with reason to change your mind.

Benson translates paté de foi gras as anser-pasteĉo

So my original question now becomes :

How does Esperanto distinguish between:

Pies, Pasties, Pasta, Pastries, Paté and Paste

PS for me the distinction between apple pie and apple tart is that the former is completely enclosed in pastry, whereas in the latter the baked fruit is exposed.

I know perfectly well what a torte is. But then you end up with a situation where every single word describes what I would call a "cake", and nothing describes what we'd call a "pie" or a "tart", though such a concept is common worldwide.

Perhaps someone of greater ability than myself could post photographs of these various items to the Esperanto language section of the forum with the aim of achieving a consensus among speakers of differing native languages and cultural backgrounds.
Perhaps by adding scone, biscuit, and pancake to the list we could provide a way for speakers of American and British English to communicate these concepts without misunderstanding

If the word 'pasto' means dough as well as paste (an unfortunate confusion) then pasta is certainly a pastaĵo.

However this means that other pastaĵoj are lumped together with pasta, for example a pie or a pasty.

If I wanted to order pie and chips I might end up with spaghetti and chips.

One way out of this might be to use rule 15. I'm pretty certain that 'pasta' is internationally recognizable so 'pastao' could serve in Esperanto for pasta.

And using 'pateo' for paté would avoid the current confusion between paté and pie/pasty with the term pasteĉo.

However I have no suggestion at the moment as to how to distinguish dough from paste, or pastry. Any ideas?

A question one can ask is whether you really need such a differentiated terminology outside the haute cuisine.
Somehow I got along quite well both in Esperanto and in German with the few terms pasto, kuko, torto, pasteĉo.
Some languages have a subtlier subdivision of the semantic space than others, and the dissent between the native speakers of English(es) I've seen here doesn't really seem attractive to me, especially as the delimitation of the terms in E-o is rather clear-cut.*

*It seems the PIV definition of kuko is even to narrow, as Z uses macokuko in the bible, which is not made of sweet dough.

Pie and chips is definitely not haute cuisine, Kirilo.

The problem in a nutshell is that we have too few terms in this area for too many different (and ordinary) things.

By the way, if you will forgive the observation, comments about different languages having different semantic spaces is not very helpful.

The man in the street, comme moi, just wants to know what he needs to say to communicate.

Quite often when the usage is not there to guide the Esperantist, either rule 15 or the word-building system provides a 'fidinda' answer. But in this case neither gets us out of difficulty.

French obviously has a very well developed culinary vocabulary, and still manages to get away with a single word "pâte" for dough, paste, and pastry.

To an English speaker's ear, it sounds lke we need more than one word for these concepts that to us seem very different, but somehow French gets by without it.

• In French, pâte is paste or dough, since dough is actually just water with flour, and hence it also refers to pasta (noodles) though it is then usually used in the plural – les pâtes. Of course, one can mix flour (faruno) with things other than water and produce a paste (for example with butter – beurre manié). When the French word pâte means dough, it is sometimes modified by adding à (pâte à pizza, pâte à pain, etc.). Pâtisser is prepari kukon and patisserie (pastry) is kukaĵo or kukejo. Pâtir in French (which also means to suffer- suferi- or malprosperi) also means to knead/knedi. French also uses tarte (torto) and gateau (kuko) as well as tarte à la crème (kremtorto/kremkuko) – as well as quiche (kiŝo). We can add to that viennoiserie which include Baguette viennoise nature ou aux pépites de chocolat
• Boule de Berlin
• Brioche nature, au sucre, aux pépites de chocolat, ou aux pralines
• Bugnes
• Croissant
• Chausson aux pommes
• Chausson napolitain ou chausson italien
• Chouquettes
• Cougnou (Belgique et nord de la France)
• Drops ou suisse
• Oranais
• Pain au lait
• Pain au chocolat ou chocolatine ou couque au chocolat
• Pain aux raisins (appelé escargot quand il est en spirale)
• Palmier
• Sacristain
• Rissoles
And of course, boulangerie and boulangerie fine.
So basically, French has a number of nuances – as do the different Englishes and other languages as well. Since cuisine is so culturally intricated, it may be best to modify nouns when ordering food. For example, if you really want a pasteĉo kun terpomfingroj you may mean a pâte en croute (krusta pasteĉo?) you might ask the kelnero what is meant by the indication on the menu. I would not recommend ordering something in a restaurant that the cooks are not used to making. Even if the chef comes up with the recipe, it will probably not turn out to your liking.
I am working on cooking vocabulary in Esperanto since I am taking culinary courses 40 hours a week with the goal of a certificate.

Robb, if you Google Gastronomia Terminaro, you will find a link on the first page of results to a pdf of the 4-language 1958 Terminaro of cooking terms.

Erinja, in the early days of Esperanto French was the established international language, to the point that Zamenhof even said that if one couldn't find a suitable word for something in Esperanto you should borrow the word from French. So a defence against some confusion of terms was at least that the French used the same word for both ideas.

You can still today see the influence that French had on Esperanto. However the situation has changed somewhat with the emergence of English as the new international language.

Of course you can't actually go into a café, and successfully order Pie and Chips in Esperanto but the finvenkista position has been for years that Esperanto should be developed to be ready for its application in many fields.

The 1958 terminaro supports the use of 'pasteĉo' for pie eg Eel Pie, Pigeon Pie but WELLS would have it as paté, pie and pasty.