this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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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.
"cook well in a cold oven" at least makes sense in the context of the time. Ovens then were not supplied continuous heat - instead, they were fired up to a high heat, and then as it slowly cooled food was baked in them according to the current temperature. A cold or slow oven would be at the low end, and a hot or quick oven would be shortly after it was first heated.
This is a great point. It wasn't like every home had a thermometer in the oven and therefore they had to use different terminology and identifiers for indicating oven temperature. Similarly, this is why American recipes measure in volume vs weight, most homes didn't have scales, they had cups and spoons.
These were also "precise enough" for the era. Perhaps these lexical gaps form as more styles of cuisine become more common and other cooking methods are used.
I've noticed this with some Indian recipes. The instruction "to grind" specifically refers to using grinders, either mill or wet grinders, that just aren't common in the US and that can create some ambiguity in how finely to chop or grind something.
Have you seen British "cooking"?
Lol, have my upvote.
Now baking... The Brits seem to get that.
It's all a result of history.
Hell, Brits were still under austerity through the 60's, and didn't really recover financially from WWII until the 80's.
There are some great shows on Amazon done by historian Ruth Goodman and friends. Victorian Farm, Tudor Farm, etc. "War Farm" really shows how difficult the Brits had it until post-WWII. I'd watch them in sequence, because it's great insight to the different periods.
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.
Around 2 or 3 hundred years ago? William the Conqueror was 1066 homie.
You're right, thanks for the correction
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.