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Shelf Number | Material Type | Copy | Shelf Location | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 641.32009 JUR | Book | 1 | Standard shelving location | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Ketchup began as a fermented fish sauce from China's Fujian province: ke for fermented fish, tchup for sauce. The British were the first to add tomatoes to their anchovy "catsup" in 1817. A century later, Heinz changed the spelling again--and added sugar.
In The Language of Food, Dan Jurafsky opens a panoramic window onto everything from the modern descendants of ancient recipes to the hidden persuasion in restaurant reviews. Combining history with linguistic analysis, Jurafsky uncovers a global atlas of premodern culinary influence: why we toast to good health at dinner and eat toast for breakfast and why the Chinese don't have a word for "dessert". Engaging and eclectic, Jurafsky's study reveals how everything from medieval meal order to modern menu design informs the way we drink and dine today. Tuck in!
Author Notes
Dan Jurafsky is the recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant" and professor and chair of linguistics at Stanford University, where he specializes in computational linguistics. He and his wife live in San Francisco.
Reviews (2)
Booklist Review
Except possibly for sex, no other aspect of human language holds as much fascination for both the professional linguist and the layperson as do the words we use for food and eating. Jurafsky doggedly hunts down the origins of words such as turkey and sherbet. He offers a marvelous story showing that an Egyptian meat stew, sikbaj, migrated west and north across the Mediterranean basin, eventually becoming England's signature fish and chips. Traveling even farther and with greater consequence for the world's palates, ketchup began as a condiment made from fermented fish and journeyed from China and Southeast Asia to become an ecumenical phenomenon after the discovery of the New World's tomato. Liquors and other alcoholic drinks have their own ancient vocabulary, and it's believed that the world's oldest surviving recipe is for brewing beer. Jurafsky's parsing of the vocabulary used in online restaurant reviews should serve as an object lesson for all presumptive food critics.--Knoblauch, Mark Copyright 2014 Booklist
Choice Review
This book by noted Stanford linguist, MacArthur Foundation "genius grant" winner, and San Francisco gourmand Jurafsky engages readers in a culinary and linguistic history of various foods, including seviche, sherbet, and turkey, as well as food ingredients such as flour and salt. The breezy narrative also contains interesting tidbits of culinary information, such as why corned beef is called "corned" beef even though it does not contain any corn. (It actually has to do with the grains of salt used in the preserving process.) He explains how the seemingly ubiquitous catsup enjoyed today is a descendant of a Chinese fish sauce. Interspersed among the historical chapters are chapters in which Jurafsky uses statistical and linguistic methods to deconstruct menus in order to characterize restaurants, analyze food advertising, and explore the relationship between the sound of food-related words and their meanings. Even though the tone of the book is generally light, the narrative is occasionally bogged down by the many foreign language terms the author uses in tracing etymology. Further, the narrative sometimes meanders. The chapter on turkey, for example, seems to devote more time explaining the holiday than the food. Nonetheless, general audiences will find this volume an enjoyable read. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower- and upper-division undergraduates. --David M. Gilbert, Maine Maritime Academy
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| 1 How to Read a Menu | p. 7 |
| 2 Entrée | p. 21 |
| 3 From Sikbaj to Fish and Chips | p. 35 |
| 4 Ketchup, Cocktails, and Pirates | p. 49 |
| 5 A Toast to Toast | p. 64 |
| 6 Who Are You Calling a Turkey? | p. 78 |
| 7 Sex, Drugs, and Sushi Rolls | p. 92 |
| 8 Potato Chips and the Nature of the Self | p. 107 |
| 9 Salad, Salsa, and the Flour of Chivalry | p. 117 |
| 10 Macaroon, Macaron, Macaroni | p. 130 |
| 11 Sherbet, Fireworks, and Mint Juleps | p. 144 |
| 12 Does This Name Make Me Sound Fat? Why Ice Cream and Crackers Have Different Names | p. 159 |
| 13 Why the Chinese Don't Have Dessert | p. 171 |
| Epilogue | p. 187 |
| Notes | p. 191 |
| References | p. 211 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 229 |
| Image Credits | p. 231 |
| Index | p. 233 |