this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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Showerthoughts
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We have some oddly obtuse language for cooking in English.
We use the same phrase to describe foods that are high in temperature and contain lots of capsaicin (hot). We can use spicy, I suppose, but it gets a little odd describing foods with lots of spices that aren't chili pepper. I generally say "well-spiced" and that gets the message across. We hardly have a way to distinguish "types of spicy" flavoring, such as that from chili, horseradish or peppercorns. I've seen some people start to say mala (loan word, 麻辣) for numbing spice, but that's uncommon and new.
That's just a few examples.
Most of our more precise language for cooking comes from other languages, like French. To saute, to braise, bain-marie, julienne, sous vide, etc. I'm not sure why English has so many lexical gaps specifically around cooking.
It's gotten WAY better. Some recipes from, like, the colonial era, have instructions like "cook well in a cold oven until done", so progress has been made, it's still often imprecise and clumsy.
The English royal court became french speaking after the normands invaded, around 200 or 300 years ago. Nobles and royalty can afford lavish meals and dishes.
They can also regularly afford meat, whilst it was the peasants who tended to the animals. Thus pork (from porc) vs pig, beef (from boeuf) vs cow, poultry (from poulet) vs chicken.
It doesn't explainall of the gaps, but it's an important part of the explanation.
And the well-heeled like keeping the distinction between them (French-speaking) and commoners (English-speaking).
It's interesting, because that's part of why Shakespeare was such a big deal - not only writing and performing in English for the Common Man, but was skewering the well-heeled while also expanding English.
Neat stuff.