The Language of Food: "Mouth-watering and sensuous, a real feast for the imagination" BRIDGET COLLINS

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When you hold someone in such high esteem and then discover something they have hidden that brings them down to a human level again you are highly disappointed, and this became the downfall of the two women's relationship. there's basically two different avenues explored here. one is tracing food through time and place and learning how it evolved into the food we know today, both in name and ingredients. the second focus is the one that really got my brain juices a-stirring, and it's more about food and language with an advertising slant. one of the chapters focuses on the language used in menus throughout time and a mini-study on the relationship between the language used and the average price of the restaurant's meals. so many subtle manipulations at play - the length and number of the words used, the use of french terms, the inclusion of the protein's birthplace, the occurrence of "filler words," the level of complicity the diner has in their own meal (i.e. - "your way" or "your choice.") it's fascinating stuff. The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs is definitely a book to savour, but be prepared to salivate as you visualise and imagine the dishes being tested, prepared and devoured. Abbs provides phrases to roll around your tongue and plenty of description so you can immerse yourself in the sensual writing and imagine yourself in the character's shoes. I particularly related to Ann Kirby, and enjoyed this section describing the first three days of her employment by Miss Eliza Acton: Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2020-08-27 10:01:02 Boxid IA1916602 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier This is an interesting book on food, language and history; story of culinary influence that can go around the globe, with change into a recipe and such possibly happening along the way. There is also some interesting facts of history and word origins, plus some recipes that one might want to try. The author got interesting in writing this book over a question about the origins of ketchup, which is one of the subjects in one of the chapters here.

All this calling food by seductive names has been going on a long time. In 1066, when the Normans (who were originally Norsemen) defeated the English, they brought with them French, which became the language for the upper classes. But everyone soon adopted these upscale words for food - pork, not pig, boeuf - beef - for cow, mouton - mutton - for sheep. Latterly we say 'jus' rather than gravy, and often 'cuisine' rather than cooking. A menu written in French will be presumed to be of higher class, better cooking and more expensive than a similar one in English. Eliza Acton wrote a collection of poems and had arranged for it to be published through a publisher. At this point she had been writing poetry for a few years. The book sold well and had several reprintings. Upon writing another collection of poems this one was declined at the publisher, and she was told to write a cookery book. She took ten years to write her cookery book and it was aimed at the English middle class. The book was the first of its kind to list ingredients and a suggested cooking time. As part of this French invasion, sometime in the thirteenth century, a word spelled variously flure, floure, flower, flour, or flowre first appeared in English, borrowed from the French word fleur, meaning “the blossom of a plant,” and by extension, “the best, most desirable, or choicest part of something.” [...] “Flower of wheat,” ... meant the very fine white flour created by repeatedly sifting the wheat through a fine-meshed cloth. Each pass removed more of the bran or germ, leaving a finer and whiter flour." there are some unexpected, appreciated connections. i mean, how often do you think tupac turns up in linguistic tomes?Trivia that I listened to but did not retain involved the long journeys of the words “ketchup” and “turkey” into English. Eliza Acton, despite having never before boiled an egg, became one of the world’s most successful cookery writers, revolutionizing cooking and cookbooks around the world. Her story is fascinating, uplifting and truly inspiring.

I was so excited to get approved for this ARC. A time period that I enjoy (Victorian) with a story that centers on women breaking boundaries and finding meaning? Sign me up! I always know I'm reading a great book when I want to recommend it to friends before I've even finished it and that was certainly the case here. The Language of Food by Annabel Abbs is an absorbing historical fiction novel for those who love the poetry of food, the magic of a kitchen and anything to do with cooking, baking, chopping, saucing, stirring or tasting food. Highly recommended! The fact that it was by Dan Jurafsky made a lot more sense when I figured that bit out. Because of course he's doing corpus work. Before I started reading it I was just like, well, I guess everyone likes food.)

Table of Contents

it's fantastic stuff and very easy to read. there's a bit too much of the personal anecdote dropped in, and it is very san francisco-centric, but there's at least one entertaining, thought-provoking fact in each chapter, which is pretty good for a book about something as niche-y as food and linguistics. This was a beautifully written and very engaging read for me right from the start. I enjoyed following the two women’s lives and both narratives. They two kind of run in continuum with each other since they are for the most part working together on the book, but there are segments where we also follow each of them individually as certain subplots unfold. I've noticed how the creation of verse mirrors the creations of the kitchen - the sense of being truly alive, the utter concentration so that one exists solely in the moment of exertion. These apply equally when I prepare a dish or when I write a recipe and must use the perfect prose." (pp.214-5)However, the women's contentedness is threatened when Eliza receives a marriage proposal from aging but sympathetic spice merchant Edwin Arnott. Should she accept his offer and submit to her pre-ordained future as a well-to-do society wife, thereby relinquishing any hope of the social and financial independence she craves? Or will a scandalous secret from her past threaten her future and all the plans she and Ann have? For example (if I remember correctly), study of a large data set shows that a one-letter increase in median word length in the description of menu items correlates with a 19 cent increase in price. On the other hand, the average number of words used on menu descriptions, when compared with price, shows a normal-curve (i.e., inverted “U” shape) distribution, that is, both the cheapest and most expensive restaurant use very few words compared to the mid-range restaurants (wordy culprits are identified as TGI Fridays and Olive Garden, among others).