Archive for Language and food
Chinese and Japanese Terms for Food Textures
Catching up on some oldish e-mail, I came upon this interesting one from Francois Lang dated 5/9/23:
According to an article in yesterday's NYT, "A 2008 report in the Journal of Texture Studies lists 144 Chinese terms for food texture".
The NYT article also says "In Japan, such terms number more than 400. 'Too many,' a team of Japanese scientists demurred in a paper presented at the 2016 International Conference on Knowledge-Based and Intelligent Information and Engineering Systems".
It sure beats the old discredited trope about 100 Eskimo Inuit terms for "snow"!
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Oil separator / cooker
When I entered the Airbnb where I'm now staying, one of the first things that caught my attention was the following utensil:
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Tasting History
That's the name of a viral YouTube channel that I had never heard of, and now a popular book that Barbara Phillips Long called to my attention:
My son gave me a copy of Tasting History, by Max Miller, which takes very old recipes and gives modern approximations of them. The book is handsomely printed, well illustrated, and fun, with a wide range of random food trivia and loads of food history. You might find it intriguing.
There's a raspberry shrub recipe from 1911; I seem to recall Language Log having a post about shrubs and their origins.
There are also ten recipes credited to the Near and Far East, including recipes from Egypt, Baghdad, the Mughal Empire, India, China, Korea, and Japan.
So far, I have only read part of the book, although I paged through the whole thing. I did like this quote:
They say "history is written by the victors," but in my experience, history is written by those who write stuff down, and food is no exception.
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Use chili sparingly
From AntC:
Seen in a very typical (but delicious) corner eatery in downtown Hualien, Taiwan.
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Is it a rat's head or a duck's neck?
Main dish served as part of a college cafeteria lunch in Nanchang, China:
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Greater China Co-Prosperity Sushi and Ramen Kitchen
Shouldn’t that be Zhonghua Pan-Asian Kitchen Ramen Wok Premium Sushi? pic.twitter.com/tTUaWidjL3
— James Millward 米華健 (@JimMillward) June 4, 2023
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Phở
Since about the 90s, pho has been popping up all over the place. It has been especially conspicuous after the turn of the millennium, and I think it adapted well to the pandemic as a quick and ready kind of street food. I've often wondered whether it had anything to do with French "fire" or Cantonese fan2 粉 ("noodles; vermicelli"). Rather than continuing to fruitlessly speculate in my waking hours, as I did again this morning, I figured it's about time I looked up what the authorities say. So here goes:
Borrowed from Vietnamese phở.
(source)
That much we all agree on.
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TEAR here
The hotel where I'm staying in Morgantown, West Virginia kindly gave me a complimentary rectangular packet of freshmint toothpaste. At the top right corner of the packet, there was a dotted, diagonal line with the words "TEAR HERE" printed above it. Alas, no matter how hard I tried, I could not tear it open.
Then I thought that maybe I could RIP it open by pulling on the serrations along the upper edge of the packet. No luck.
Then I tried to BITE and GNASH the packet with my teeth. Abject failure.
Of course, I've been through all of this countless times before, and not just with toothpaste, but with packets of ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and all sorts of other things. It is especially dismaying when — after making a supreme effort — the packet bursts open and the contents spurt all over the place, including your clothing. The worst case is when soy sauce flies out and drips everywhere.
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