émietté

A miette is a crumb. The cheaper tins of tuna, crab and other fish are émietté de thon or émietté de crabe. Crumbled cheese like feta can be émietté. A dish called an émiettée or émietté can be anything—bits of crab, duck, etc—that binds them all together.

A sweet or savoury tarte émiettée has a crumble crust. The French have also adopted the English word ‘crumble’ although a French crumble is often savoury, as in a crumble de pommes de terre et de canard émietté (like a shepherd’s pie with shredded pieces of duck).