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jwsg's review
4.0
I love food lit and most of the books I’ve read from the genre have approached the topic through personalities (think all the chef memoirs or food writer memoirs), place/culture, or well, through ingredients and the dishes created from them. Jurafsky’s book examines food through the lens of language.
The bulk of the book centres on how the name of certain foods and ingredients can give us a clue as to their origins and how they have evolved to what we are familiar with today. So we learn about how ketchup, that tomato based condiment, has its origins in the fermented fish sauces of Southeast Asia. And how these fermented fish sauces inspired such diverse foods as sushi in Japan and Indonesian sauces like kecap manis. Or why the bird we know as a turkey seems to be named after a country, whatever language you use (e.g. turkey in English, dinde in French, hindi in Turkish, dik habash (Ethiopian bird) in Arabic, and Peru in Portuguese. Or that fish and chips, ceviche and tempura all have their origins in a sweet and sour stewed beef dish with vinegar that one of the Persian rulers in the 6th century loved to eat. Fascinating stuff.
But what Jurafsky also does in his book is to give you an appreciation for what he calls the “grammar of cuisine”, or how different cultures categorise ingredients and structure their meals very differently. These categorisations determine how ingredients are combined in a particular cuisine, creating that particular flavor profile of the cuisine. In terms of meal structure, there are broad similarities in American and European cuisine, where there are appetizers, a main and a dessert at the end. There are some differences: in Italy for instance, the grammar of the cuisine is such that there is a distinct pasta/risotto course, the primo before the meat based course, the secondo. In Chinese cuisine by contrast, the grammar of the cuisine is based not on distinct courses, but on two categories of ingredients – starch (e.g. rice) and non starch (sung). I’ve grown up eating both Western meals and Chinese cuisine and never really thought about how food was categorized and how meals were structured very differently until I read Jurafsky’s book. One of those observations that is basic and mind-blowing at the same time (why did I never think about that?).
The bulk of the book centres on how the name of certain foods and ingredients can give us a clue as to their origins and how they have evolved to what we are familiar with today. So we learn about how ketchup, that tomato based condiment, has its origins in the fermented fish sauces of Southeast Asia. And how these fermented fish sauces inspired such diverse foods as sushi in Japan and Indonesian sauces like kecap manis. Or why the bird we know as a turkey seems to be named after a country, whatever language you use (e.g. turkey in English, dinde in French, hindi in Turkish, dik habash (Ethiopian bird) in Arabic, and Peru in Portuguese. Or that fish and chips, ceviche and tempura all have their origins in a sweet and sour stewed beef dish with vinegar that one of the Persian rulers in the 6th century loved to eat. Fascinating stuff.
But what Jurafsky also does in his book is to give you an appreciation for what he calls the “grammar of cuisine”, or how different cultures categorise ingredients and structure their meals very differently. These categorisations determine how ingredients are combined in a particular cuisine, creating that particular flavor profile of the cuisine. In terms of meal structure, there are broad similarities in American and European cuisine, where there are appetizers, a main and a dessert at the end. There are some differences: in Italy for instance, the grammar of the cuisine is such that there is a distinct pasta/risotto course, the primo before the meat based course, the secondo. In Chinese cuisine by contrast, the grammar of the cuisine is based not on distinct courses, but on two categories of ingredients – starch (e.g. rice) and non starch (sung). I’ve grown up eating both Western meals and Chinese cuisine and never really thought about how food was categorized and how meals were structured very differently until I read Jurafsky’s book. One of those observations that is basic and mind-blowing at the same time (why did I never think about that?).
charsiew21's review
4.0
A book about the relationship between food and language - that's like catnip to self-identifying artsy-foodie types like me. So much so that I'd already read about a fair number of the subjects mentioned in Jurafsky's book. But not in such detail, and it was still an enriching read.
josiemi's review
informative
slow-paced
3.75
Found this book really intriguing and I loved the incorporation of recipes. I got a little bored with the format as each chapter seemed a bit repetitive in structure (not in content). I think it touches on some awesome cultural points.
anajurs's review
2.0
This book dragged and dragged and dragged. I find the subject inherently interesting, and there was a lot of great information to learn from this book, but it suffered terribly from Jurafsky's writing. I stuck with it just because I don't like to give up in the middle, but I'm sure there's far more interesting etymology books about food that you could pick up. Skip this one.
roschelle's review against another edition
funny
informative
fast-paced
3.5
Informative and had great examples. It felt more relatable as someone who lives in the Bay Area since many of the anecdotes were based in SF.
jennycz's review
3.0
this is fun. would make a good gift for anyone interested in food, history, and language.
slhandy45's review
3.0
Interesting stuff on the language of food, on this history of food, and on linguistics in general. As for the cutesy personal parts, less would be more.