The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu (49 page)

Some of the chapters grew out of pieces I wrote for
Slate
,
Gastronomica
, and the
Stanford Magazine
, where I am very lucky to have had great editors: Laura Anderson, Daniel Engber, Ginny McCormick, and especially Darra Goldstein and Juliet Lapidos.

Finally of course, this book would not have been possible without the ideas, edits, suggestions, and support of my wife, Janet.

Many people over the years gave me advice and ideas, answered questions, suggested resources or people, and spotted flaws; thanks to Alan Adler at Aron Streit, Inc., KT Albiston, Domenica Alioto, Mike Anderson, Mike Bauer, Pete Beatty, Leslie Berlin, Jay Bordeleau, Jason Brenier, Ramón Cáceres, Marine Carpuat, Alex Caviness, John Caviness, Victor Chahuneau, Karen Cheng, Paula Chesley, Fia Chiu, Shirley Chiu, Anna Colquohoun, Alana Conner, Erin Dare, Melody Dye, Penny Eckert, Paul Ehrlich, Eric Enderton, Jeannette Ferrary, Shannon Finch, Frank Flynn, Thomas Frank, Cynthia Gordon, Sam Gosling, Sara Grace Rimensnyder, Elaine Hahn, Eric Hahn, Lauren Hall-Lew, Ben Hemmens, Allan Horwitz, Chu-Ren Huang, Calvin Jan, Kim Keeton, Dacher Keltner, Faye Kleeman, Sarah Klein, Scott Klemmer, Steven Kosslyn, Robin Lakoff, Joshua Landy, Rachel Laudan, Adrienne Lehrer, Jure Leskovec, Beth Levin, Daniel Levitan, Mark Liberman, Martha Lincoln, Alon Lischinsky, Doris Loh, Jean Ma, Bill MacCartney, Michael Macovski, Madeleine Mahoney, Victor Mair, Pilar Manchón, Jim Martin, Katie Martin, Linda Martin, Jim Mayfield, Julian McAuley, Dan McFarland, Joe Menn, Lise Menn, Bob Moore, Petra Moser, Rob Munro, Steven Ngain, Carl Nolte, Lis Norcliffe, Barry O’Neill, Debra Pacio Yves Peirsman, James Pennebaker, Charles Perry, Erica Peters, Steven Pinker, Christopher Potts, Matt Purver, Michael Ramscar, Terry Regier, Cecilia Ridgeway, Sara Robinson, Deborah Ross at The Manischewitz Company, Kevin Sayama, Tyler Schnoebelen, Amin Sepehri, Ken Shan, Noah Smith, Peter Smith, Rebecca Starr, Mark Steedman, Janice Ta, Deborah Tannen, Paul Taylor, Peter Todd, Marisa Vigilante, Rob Voigt, Dora Wang, Linda Waugh, Bonnie Webber, Robb Willer, Dekai Wu, Mei Hing Yee, Courtney Young, Linda Yu, Samantha Zee, Katja Zelljadt, Daniel Ziblatt, and Arnold Zwicky.

Image Credits

Index

Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.

Page numbers in
italics
refer to illustrations.
Page numbers beginning with 191 refer to notes.

Abbasid Dynasty, 12, 38–40, 131

Abd-al-rahman II, 173

Account of the Trade in India, An
(Lockyer), 57–59,
58

acetic acid, 40, 47

Adamson, Melitta, 42

adjectives, as linguistic status clues, 17–18

Adrià, Ferran, 177

advertising techniques, 5, 159, 189

customized for target audiences, 114–15

for junk foods, 108–16, 118

TV, 103

Africa, culinary contributions from, 84, 91, 157

African American food, 91, 143

Aga stove, sales manual for, 114–15

Agirre, Eneko, 188

Agra, 152–53

Ahn, Y. Y., 182

Ain-I-Akbari
, 153, 206

Akbar the Great, Mughal Emperor, 152–53,
152

Akkadians, 72–73, 76,
122

à la Française
, 25–26

al-Andalus, 173–74

à l’Anglaise
, 25

à la Russe
, 26, 28

Albala, Ken, 177

ale,
see
beer, ale

alembic, 75,
75

Alembic, 77

Alioto’s, 30

Allen, Robert C., 61

almonds, almond paste, 131–34, 135, 136–37, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143

amaretti
, 139

America:

culinary contributions of, 25, 26

global culinary influence on, 49, 59, 91

New World cultural blending in, 43–44, 79–83, 88–91

slave trade in, 91, 128, 157

see also
United States

American Cookery
(Simmons), 89, 147

anchovies, 53–54, 60

Andalusia, 4, 89, 136, 147, 173–174, 194

Anglo-Saxon language, 118–19

Anna Karenina
(Tolstoy), 96

Anne of Austria, 138

Anne of the Island
(Montgomery), 95

Antwerp, as trading and financial hub, 84–86

Antwerp Bourse, 85,
85

Apicius
, 124, 127

Appert, Nicolas, 128

appetizer course, 21, 23–25, 30

Arabs:

and cooling technology, 151

culinary contributions from, 3, 56, 76, 89, 117, 125, 130–31, 134, 136, 142, 146–47, 150, 157, 159, 173

in trade, 52

see also specific cultures

‘araq
, 76

“arbitrariness of the sign,” 161

arbitrary relationships, 160

arrack
, 2, 56–57, 59, 61, 76, 155, 188

Arranging the Meal: A History of Table Service in France
(Flandrin), 24

Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, The
(Glasse), 46, 196

asparagus, in smell perception, 98

aspic, 3, 43, 48, 188

Audiger, Nicolas, 150, 155

Austen, Jane, 60

authenticity, marketing appeal to, 111, 114

Aux Lyonnais, 23

Aztecs, 79–80,
80

Babylon, 40, 48, 53,
122

back vowels, 161–67,
161
,
163
, 207

bacon, 18–19, 118, 128, 171, 184

bacteria, 117

Baghdad, 12, 38–39, 40, 42, 131, 142, 172–74, 188

Bank Exchange, 30

banquets, 24–26

ba som
(sour fish), 50

Basques, 187–88

Batmanglij, Najmieh, 148–49

Bayless, Rick, 82

Bay to Breakers race, 107

beer, ale, 19–20, 56, 64–65, 68–69, 72–77

reviews of, 93–96, 99, 104

BeerAdvocate, 93, 95

Belon, Pierre,
87
, 149, 206

Bernhardt, Sarah, 126

Biber, Douglas, 98

bin Yehuda, Isaac, 40

Bi-Rite Creamery, 144–45

Blanco’s Restaurant, 28–29,
29

blogs, bloggers, 99, 163, 208

Boccaccio, Giovanni, 136

bolting, bolting cloths, 119, 121, 129

Book of Sent Soví, The
, 42

Book of the Wonders of India, The
, 40

bouba
/
kiki
(
maluma
/
takete
) experiment, 166–69,
168
, 207

Bourdieu, Pierre, 113

Borz
ya the scholar,
37
, 38

Bottéro, Jean, 40

“bow-wow” theory, 170

Boyle, Robert, 155

bragget, 69

bran, 118, 121, 128

brandies, 76

Braudel, Fernand, 22

bread, linguistic history of, 117–23,
120
, 202

Breakfast Experiment, 163

British Museum, 118

Brown-Bakers guild, 121

Brudo, Manuel, 46, 194

Buch der weißhait, Das
,
37

Burning Man, 107

Buttolph, Miss Frank E., 8

cabbage, 124, 127

California gold rush, 35, 57, 64, 181

caliscioni
, 132–36, 203

recipe for, 133

calisson d’Aix
, 135–36

Cambodia, 50, 51, 53

candy, 131

canning, 128

Canterbury Tales
(Chaucer), 69, 120

Cantonese language, 55, 96–98, 180, 195

carbonation, 156–57, 167, 169

Caribbean, 59, 128, 139, 142

Carnival, 107

Carol for a Wassail Bowl, A
(Foster), 67

Caruso, Enrico, 126

Cato, 124

Celts, 127

ceviche
, 3, 35–36, 48

recipe for, 44–45

Chahuneau, Victor, 10, 93

Chamomile High Club, 65

champagne, 65

Chardin, Jean, 149–50

Charles II, King of England, 145

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 69, 118, 120, 133