Food Jargon Watch

Food Jargon of the Day: Housemade

2009-05-29T16:50:00.003-04:00

housemade
Term used by restaurants to indicate food items prepared from scratch such as "housemade pickles," "housemade gnocchi," and "housemade horseradish." Replaces the more amateur-sounding "homemade." Courtesy of Newsweek.

Food Jargon of the Day: test tube meat and schmeat/shmeat

2009-05-26T10:09:00.002-04:00

test tube meat
Meat produced via in vitro processes, i.e., grown in test tubes, rather than on farms. Test tube meat is an attempt to create humane, slaughter house-free meat.

schmeat/shmeat
Schmeat or shmeat, depending on your preferred spelling, is another term for "test tube meat." Coined by Dr. Vladimir Mironov, a biologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, who is working to culture meat from animal tissue.

Food Jargon of the Day: Wildharvesting & Urban Foraging

2009-05-22T10:22:00.002-04:00

wildharvesting
fancy term for foraging.

urban foraging
foraging in urban spaces - finding wild foods and edibles in local fields, backyards, playgrounds, public land.

Food Jargon of the Day: Meat Cards

2009-05-12T09:15:00.003-04:00

Meat Cards
Business cards created from "100% beef jerky" - contact information is seared onto the jerky with a laser. Seriously.

Food Jargon of the Day: Aporkalypse Now!

2009-05-04T09:09:00.003-04:00

Aporkalypse Now!
term du jour used by journalists to refer to the swine flu epidemic.

Food Jargon of the Day: Gourmonsters

2009-04-26T08:22:00.001-04:00

Gourmonsters
Food snobs, food police. Courtesy of the New York Post. Also see "Arugulance".

Food Jargon of the Day: Dry farming

2009-04-24T13:29:00.002-04:00

Dry Farming

a type of farming practiced in arid areas without irrigation by planting drought-resistant crops and maintaining a fine surface tilth or mulch that protects the natural moisture of the soil from evaporation.

Food Jargon of the Day: S.O.L.E./ S.O.L.E. Food

2009-04-24T08:58:00.003-04:00

S.O.L.E./ S.O.L.E Food
An acronym for "sustainable, organic, local and ethical" eating; a theory of eating that takes into account the numerous factors related to each of these concepts.
See also: http://tinyurl.com/dmxefj

Food Jargon of the Day: Arugulance

2009-04-23T08:22:00.003-04:00

Arugulance
Food snobbery, typified by a penchant for arugula. From "The Aura of Arugulance," a NY Times Op Ed piece by Maureen Dowd. Used by Alice Waters in response to criticisms of arrogance and condescension:

“I’m just put into that arugulance place. I own a fancy restaurant. I own an expensive restaurant. I never thought of it as fancy. People don’t know we’re supporting 85 farms and ranches and all of that. And so my first thing I say, it’s going to cost more and I want to pay for my food. I go to the farmers’ market; it makes me feel like I’m making a donation.”

Hmmm....

Food Jargon of the Day: Community Supported Forage

2009-04-02T14:29:00.002-04:00

Community Supported Forage (CSF)
Modeled on Community Supported Agriculture organic-farm boxes, forageSF, a San Francisco-based foraging subscription service, provides clients with a biweekly allotment of seasonal foraged products. This week's box includes: four kinds of wild mushrooms, foraged oranges, wild onions, sea beans and miner's lettuce

Food Jargon of the Day: Twecipes and Recessipes

2009-04-01T12:02:00.005-04:00

twecipes
An extremely abbreviated recipe, published via Twitter, that provides cooking instructions in no more than 140 characters. The Observer reports:"There is a growing trend for people, including some leading chefs, to create micro-recipes - a single paragraph that tells users how to make an entire starter, main course or dessert - then transmit them via Twitter."

recesspes
Cost-saving recipes for cooking in a recession economy. ABC News reports: "Times are tough, and many of us are rediscovering the benefits of a home-cooked meal. The folks at the Food Network discovered that recently more people are searching the network's Web site looking for recipes that are easy on the waistline, as well as the wallet. In response, the Food Network has created what it is calling "recessipes" -- meals that will leave both your stomach and bank accounts full."

Today's Food Jargon Watch courtesy of The Food Section

Food Jargon of the Day: Traceability

2009-03-27T18:39:00.005-04:00

Traceability
Web sites such as Find the Farmer, and special labels on the packages that let buyers learn about and even contact the farmers who produced their food. Courtesy of the NY Times. See The Oprah-ization of Food and Provenance of Food.

Food Jargon of the Day: Organic Junk Food/Vegan Junk Food

2009-03-24T12:32:00.004-04:00

Organic Junk Food
Courtesy of Marion Nestle. Whether it's organic Oreos or regular Oreos: "Organic junk food is still junk food.”

Vegan Junk Food
(aka Vegan OK Junk Food )
Junk foods not made from any animal products nor animal by-products.

Food Jargon of The Day: Food Stamp Challenge

2009-03-23T11:42:00.003-04:00

Food Stamp Challenge
Individuals who aren't on food stamps live on the allocation for their state for one month or one week. In 2007, in an effort to help raise hunger awareness, Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee took the “Food Stamp Challenge,” and lived on just $21 - or $3 per day - for one week. In a recent LA Times article, a journalist and his wife take the Food Stamp Challenge to save money to buy a house: "A couple takes the Food Stamp Challenge and discovers it is possible to eat healthfully on a tight budget. Careful planning and a home garden help." Right...

Food Jargon of the Day: The First Locavore

2009-03-23T11:18:00.002-04:00

The First Locavore
New title given to Michelle Obama (formerly know as the "First Lady") after breaking ground for an organic garden at the White House.

Food Jargon of the Day: The Oprah-ization of Food

2009-01-29T12:56:00.004-05:00

The Oprah-ization of Food

From an article in Advertising Age, "The Oprah-ization of Food" refers to the need for "our food to come with compelling stories." For example, Dole organic bananas are branded with a number you can enter on the company's website and find out to where it was picked and discover by whom. See food provenance.

Food Jargon of the Day: Edible Cocktails/Solid Cocktails

2008-11-16T10:55:00.002-05:00

edible cocktails/solid cocktails
Cocktails that you eat instead of drink. According to an article in today's NY Times, solid cocktails offered by restaurants in NYC include a gelatinized Cuba Libre, a Ramos gin fizz marshmallow and a martini in the form of a pickle. Adult jello shots, anyone?

Food Jargon of the Day: Urban Gleaning

2008-10-31T23:05:00.003-04:00

Urban Gleaning
Gleaning is the practice of collecting leftover crops from farmers' fields after they have been mechanically harvested, or from fields that are not economically profitable to harvest. Urban gleaning is the practice of salvaging fruit from trees located in cities to provide low income residents with access to fresh fruit. For more information, checkout the Portland Fruit Tree Project, a gleaning initiative that organizes people in the Portland, Oregon to gather fruit before it falls, and make it available to those who need it most.

Food Jargon Watch: Imitation Edibles and In Vitro Meat

2008-10-09T16:23:00.005-04:00

Imitation Edibles
All manner of fake food - from faux meats to near beer and liquid smoke. Mock foods seem to be the gastric meme of the moment with the current edition of VegNews focusing on faux meats, Emily Nunn's recent article in the Chicago Tribune on fake foods (from which the term "imitation edibles" is culled), and PETA's challenge to scientists to step up research into in vitro meats (see below).

In Vitro Meat
Laboratory produced meat "grown" from animal stem cells. In vitro meat is not yet a reality, but PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is offering a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and make in vitro meat available to consumers. According to the PETA website, in vitro meat would enable the production of meat without killing any animals.

Food Jargon of the Day: Faux Meat

2008-09-30T15:24:00.004-04:00

Faux Meat
Meat substitutes used by vegetarians and vegans. Some meat substitutes - tofu, seitan, tempeh - have been used by eastern cultures for eons, while others like tofurkey, meatless riblets, and vegan haggis are new additions to the vegetarian kitchen. Also known as "meat analog" and "mock meat."

Food Jargon of the Day: Cookzine

2008-09-28T18:30:00.005-04:00

cookzine
Self-published, do-it-yourself (DIY) cookbooks. Often focusing on vegan diet and cuisine, cookzines sprang from punk culture in the 1980s and continue to be published today. Cookzines contain recipes, info on veganism, personal testimonies, and commentary by the writer. Classic cookzines include Soy Not Oi! and Bark+Grass: Revolution Supper. Both Microcosm Publishing and AK Press carry a selection of old and new cookzines.

Food Jargon of the Day: Food Insecurity/Food Security

2008-09-10T11:10:00.001-04:00

Food Insecurity
The inability to access enough nutritious foods to fulfill caloric needs.

Food Security
The availability of, and access to, a safe, nutritionally adequate, and culturally acceptable diet.

Food Jargon of the Day: Humane Meat, Mindful Meat-Eating, Post-vegetarian

2008-09-08T10:39:00.001-04:00

Humane meat
Humanely-raised meat which comes from farms that try to give each of their animals a more pleasant life - i.e., animals are not caged, fed hormones or antibiotics, and are pasture-fed.

Mindful Meat-Eating
Ethical meat eating, i.e., eating only humanely-raised meat.
See also, Careful Carnivore/Caring Carnivore/Conscientious Carnivore.

Post-vegetarian
Individuals who were formerly vegetarian, but now eat meat.

Food Jargon of the Day: Mobile Slaughterhouse

2008-09-06T17:41:00.004-04:00

Mobile Slaughterhouse (a.k.a. Slaughterhouse on Wheels)
A retrofitted diesel truck that serves as a slaughterhouse for farmers in remote areas of Washington and Oregon without easy access to U.S.D.A. approved butchering facilities. The mobile slaughterhouse is federally sanctioned and comes complete with a 300-gallon water tank, a cooling locker with carcass hooks, and a butcher.

Thanks to Gerard for the heads-up on this bit of jargon.

Food Jargon of the Day: Anti-Restaurant

2008-08-27T21:38:00.004-04:00

Anti-restaurant
Another moniker for underground restaurants. Anti-restaurants are unlicensed restaurants in apartments and other private spaces run by individuals who do not necessarily aspire to full-time restaurateur-status or, in the words of a recent NY Times article, do not want to mess "with overhead and investors and the health department — a k a The Man — telling them what to do." Resistance, so it seems, can be tasty.

Food Jargon of The Day: Partisan Cookbooks

2008-08-27T11:26:00.000-04:00

Partisan Cookbooks
From a recent LA Times article by Betty Hallock, partisan cookbooks are cookbooks created to gustatorily critique or promote the values of a political party. Examples of partisan cookbooks include the classic "Many Happy Returns: The Democrats' Cook Book, or How to Cook a G.O.P. Goose" published in 1960 as well as more recent entries such as "How to Eat Like a Republican" and (our favorite) "The Axis of Evil Cookbook."

Food Jargon of the Day: Mocktail

2008-08-20T18:30:00.003-04:00

Mocktail
A nonalcoholic - or "mock" - cocktail.

Food Jargon of the Day: Passive Overeating

2008-08-19T10:50:00.000-04:00

Passive Overeating
Eating whatever is put in front of you, even to the point of discomfort. In passive overeating, neither we nor our bodies recognize the extra calories and reduce the quantity of food accordingly.

Food Jargon of the Day: The Life Cycle of Food and Distavores

2008-08-13T16:50:00.000-04:00

the life cycle of food
The total amount of energy that goes into the production of a food item over the course of its entire life cycle (from farm-to-fork). Food miles - how far food travels to get to your table - may not be the best standard when judging the environmental impact of food.

distavore
A farm-to-plane dinner created from items culled from faraway sites. Coined by Joel Stein in a snarky Time Magazine article entitled Extreme Eating, that aims to critique locavore eating habits.

Food Jargon of the Day: Lunch-line Cameras

2008-08-05T08:23:00.001-04:00

Lunch-line Cameras
Surveillance cameras placed in school cafeterias to monitor student food-theft. School officials in Fairfax County Virginia are installing security cameras throughout the school system to combat what they claim is an estimated $1.2 million worth of prepared food lifted from secondary school cafeterias in the past year.

Food Jargon of the Day: Semivegetarian

2008-08-04T09:09:00.005-04:00

Semivegetarian
A recent poll on vegetarian and vegan consumer trends found that 13% of adult Americans identified themselves as "semivegetarian" consuming meat with "fewer than half" of their meals. Also known as flexitarians.

Food Jargon of the Day: Chewable Ice and The Chew Belt

2008-07-26T21:37:00.002-04:00

Chewable Ice
Tiny, pellet-sized "cublets" created by ice makers to satisfy compulsive ice chewers. Developed by Scotsman Ice Systems, chewable ice is sold under a variety of brands including Chewblet, Nugget Ice and Pearl Ice.

The Chew Belt
a.k.a. the Southern U.S., home to the greatest concentration of compulsive ice chewers.

Food Jargon of the Day: Entomophagy

2008-07-24T10:36:00.003-04:00

Entomophagy
The practice of dining on insects.

According to a recent article posted at The Economist.com, the practice of dining on bugs is common in over 100 countries with insects providing more nutrients than beef or fish (gram for gram, that is). Oddly enough, feasting on insects also makes good ecological sense: bug consumption has little environmental impact and insect dining can even help bolster crop production. To that end, the Thai government encourages its citizens to collect and eat locusts to protect local crops and even distributes recipes for how to cook the insects. More info on bug cuisine and cricket farming in the Khon Kaen area of Thailand can be found at 36shots.com.

Food Jargon Watch: Lazy Locavores and Urban Farmers

2008-07-23T16:34:00.005-04:00

Lazy Locavore
City dwellers who insist on eating food grown close to home, but have no inclination to get their hands dirty. Culled from Kim Severson's July 22nd NY Times article, "A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss." Lazy locavores hire personal gardeners to plant, weed, and harvest their backyard veggie plots, invest in animal shares at local farms, and employ personal chefs to deliver fully cooked "local" meals, right to their doors.

Severson's article has sparked a lively discussion on the comfood listserv as well as a great op ed piece by Josh Friedland, at The Food Section.

Urban Farmers
City dwellers who have a small space next to their homes for growing food for themselves and/or small-scale city-based farmers, who produce crops for sale. Distinguished from lazy locavores by their desire to actually get their hands dirty. For more info on urban farming visit CityFarmer.org or read this May 2008 NY Times article.

Food Jargon of the Day: Vegetable Plagiarism

2008-01-14T16:58:00.000-05:00

Vegetable Plagiarism
What comedian Jerry Seinfeld's called claims by author Missy Chase Lapine that his wife, Jessica, had plagiarized parts of her best selling cookbook Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Getting Your Kids Eating Good Food, from Lapine's book The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids Favorite Meals. Both Seinfeld and his wife are now subject of a lawsuit filed by Lapine. Jessica Seinfeld is being sued for plagiarism and Seinfeld for defaming Lapine the David Letterman's show.

Food Jargon of the Day: Agflation

2008-01-04T13:01:00.000-05:00

Agflation
Investopedia defines agflation as "an increase in the price of food that occurs as a result of increased demand from human consumption and use as an alternative energy resource. While the competitive nature of retail supermarkets allows some of the effects of agflation to be absorbed, the price increases that agflation causes are largely passed on to the end consumer." For example, rising demands for biofuels will likely cause the prices of corn and soybean oil to rise further due to agflation.

Food Jargon of the Day: Rawvolutionary

2008-01-02T17:51:00.000-05:00

Rawvolutionary
Gina Mallet's politically-inspired alternative for "raw foodist." Individuals who believe that cooked food is dangerous and eat only raw, uncooked, unprocessed foods. From Last Chance to Eat.

Food Jargon of the Day: Vores

2007-12-28T12:55:00.000-05:00

Having a hard time figuring out where you fit on the food chain these days? In honor of locavore's designation as the New Oxford American Dictionary 2007 word of the year, we offer a list of -vores for you to choose from. The suffix -vore comes from the Latin word vorare, meaning to devour, and is used to form nouns indicating what kind of a diet an animal has.

Careful Carnivore/Caring Carnivore/Conscientious Carnivore
Ethical meat eaters who eat only humanely-raised meat.

Humanocarnivore
Introduced by Micheal Pollan in a 2002 NY Times article to define a dietary category wherein individuals limit the meat they eat to nonindustrial, non-factory farmed animals.

Conscientious Omnivore
Individuals who choose to eat sea animals rather than land animals because they are lower on the evolutionary ladder (i.e., scallops don't feel pain)

Localvore
Vermont locavores.

Yokelvore
Individuals who eat only what they grow and/or produce.

Burgervore
From a 2006 Wendy's TV commercial. According to Fast Food Nation, the typical American consumes approximately 3 hamburgers every week.

Food Jargon of the Day: Culinology

2007-12-27T10:28:00.000-05:00

Culinology
"The blending of culinary arts and food technology." Coined by the Research Chefs Assoication which is hosting the 2008 Culinology Expo March 6 - 9 in Seattle.

2007 Word of the Year: Locavore

2007-12-26T20:04:00.000-05:00

The New Oxford American Dictionary 2007 word of the year is....locavore. Locavore - coined by four women in San Francisco who proposed that residents should try to eat only food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius - won out over such other 2007 key phrases as "colony collapse disorder," "cougar," "mumblecore," "previvor," and "upcycling"

Food Jargon of the Day: Vegansexual

2007-12-22T19:45:00.000-05:00

Vegansexuals
Individuals who do not eat any meat or animal products, and who choose not to be sexually intimate with non-vegan partners whose bodies, they say, are made up of "dead animals." Annie Potts, co-director of the New Zealand Centre for Human and Animal Studies at Canterbury University, coined the term after doing research on the lives of "cruelty-free consumers."

Food Jargon of the Day: Fleischgeist

2007-12-20T19:16:00.001-05:00

Fleischgeist
Coined by the editors at Meatpaper. "Fleischgeist (flish'gist') n. from the German, Fleisch “meat” + Geist “spirit.” Spirit of the meat. From Zeitgeist, “spirit of the times.” Fleischgeist is the idea of meat.

Food Jargon Watch: Confirmation Bias

2007-12-20T18:42:00.000-05:00

Confirmation Bias
Tasty descriptors that help condition reluctant eaters to accept new foods - from Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab. Confirmation bias tricks the taste sensors by using sensory words like “tender,” “succulent” and “velvety'’ to describe foods. Apparently, once these taste sensors are activated, people become preprogrammed to think a dish tastes good.

Food Jargon of the Day: Globesity

2007-08-13T14:36:00.001-04:00

Globesity
Coined by the World Health Organization. From the words global and obesity, "globesity" refers to the "escalating global epidemic of overweight and obesity that is taking over many parts of the world."

Food Jargon of the Day: Culinarian

2007-08-13T10:11:00.000-04:00

Culinarian
A culinary professional such as a chef or caterer.

Food Jargon of the Day: LOHAS, Flexitarian, Opportunivore

2007-08-07T14:59:00.000-04:00

LOHAS
LOHAS (lifestyles of health and sustainability) is a term that refers to consumers who are focused on issues such as health and fitness, the environment, and sustainable living. LOHAS consumers - or "Lohasians" - are interested in products and services ranging from socially responsible investing and "green stocks" to alternative healthcare, organic food, yoga, and eco-tourism.

LOHAS companies provide these goods and services using environmentally sustainable business practices. A LOHAS business conference is held annually to discuss industry trends.

Flexitarian
Individuals who favor a vegetarian diet, but occasioanally eat meat, poultry and seafood. NYC's first "flexitarian restaurant," Broadway East Restaurant, Cafe and Wine Bar, is slated to open in October 2007.

Opportunivore
1. Another term for flexitarian, i.e., a person who favors a vegetarian diet, but will eat whatever food is available.
2. Another term for freegan, i.e., a person who forages for free food and eats whatever they find.

Food Jargon of the Day: Video Recipe Sharing

2007-07-30T17:34:00.000-04:00

Video Recipe Sharing
Cooks looking to share their favorite recipes with other foodies have ditched handwritten index cards and text-heavy blogs text in favor of video recipes. Amateur cooks record themselves demonstrating how to make chili con carne or Spanakoptia, and then uploaded the video recipe to sharing sites like imcooked, ifood.tv, and foodgeeks. Actor Christopher Walken recently rocked the video recipe sharing community when he posted this video recipe demonstrating how to prepare roast chicken with pears.

Food Jargon of the Day: NPR Farmers

2007-07-29T12:51:00.000-04:00

NPR Farmers
This tasty-bit of food jargon comes courtesy of Warren Howell, who promotes agricultural businesses in Loudon County, Virginia. "NPR Farmers" are enthusiastic newcomers who sell their goods locally through farmers' markets and CSAs, or to near-by restaurants specializing in local food.

Food Jargon of the Day: Kopi Luwak & Crappacino

2007-07-13T11:31:00.000-04:00

Kopi Luwak
From the Indonesian words for coffee (kopi) and civet (luwak), kopi luwak is a highly coveted coffee culled from the droppings of wild civets. The cat-like animals eat the the red fruit of coffee plants and expel the interior beans which humans separate out - by hand - from the civet dung. The beans are then shipped to gourmet food shops around the world, where they sell for upwards of $600 per pound.

Apparently, a civet's digestive system removes some of the caffeine and bitterness from the coffee, making for a smoother cup of joe. For more info, check out this LA Times article by Paul Watson.

Interested in buying some kopi luwak? You can order on-line at www.buy-kopi-luwak.com.

Crappacino
Another name for kopi luwak.

Food Jargon of the Day: Beef with Benefits

2007-07-11T13:21:00.000-04:00

Beef with Benefits
"Beef with benefits," or grass-fed beef, possesses nutritional advantages it's factory-raised, corn-fed brethren lack. Source - Kate Clancy in the August 2007 edition of Food and Wine .

Food Jargon of the Day: Taste-Blind

2007-03-23T12:16:00.000-04:00

Taste-Blind
“In America we eat, collectively, with a glum urge for food to fill us. We are ignorant of flavour. We are as a nation taste-blind.”

"Frederick the Great used to make his own coffee, with much to-do and fuss. For water he used champagne. Then, to make the flavour stronger, he stirred in powdered mustard.

Now to me it seems improbable that Frederick truly liked this brew. I suspect him of bravado. Or perhaps he was taste-blind."

Coined in 1937 by M.F.K. Fisher in Serve It Forth, "taste-blind" is as useful a descriptor of the American palate now as it was then.

Food Jargon Alert: Zombie Brands

2007-03-22T01:04:00.000-04:00

Zombie Brands
Daniel Gross's name for dead or dormant products that have been revived for a second or, even, third time. Food-related zombie brands include Tab Soda, and fast-food products advertised as being available for a 'limited time only,' such as McDonald's McRib sandwich.

Related Stories
Attack of the Zombie Brands
Attack of the Zombie Brands, Part II

Food Jargon Watch: Culanthropy

2007-03-08T10:04:00.000-05:00

Culanthropy
Cuilinary philanthropy. Term used by the CulinaryCorps, a sort of AmericCorp for food, to describe the nexus of social activism, volunteerism and culinary activity. We're all for that!

The term "culanthropy" is a welcome addition to the culinary lexicon, but food professionals have a long history of generosity. From Food Not Bombs to relief efforts on behalf of the New Orleans culinary community to Chef Jose Andres' on-going support for DC Central Kitchen, the activities of culanthropists is food for thought.

Food Jargon of the Day: Sparkling Beverages

2007-03-07T17:02:00.000-05:00

Sparkling Beverages
New carbonated drinks from Coke and Pepsi - Diet Coke Plus and Tava, repsectively - that are fortified with vitamins and minerals. According to the NY Times, the soda companies are "...not calling them soft drinks because people are turning away from traditional soda, which has been hurt in part by publicity about its link to obesity."

Food Jargon of the Day: Nutrition Scold/Food Scold

2007-03-04T20:57:00.000-05:00

Nutrition Scold/Food Scold
Slightly derogatory term applied to Eric Sclosser, Marion Neslte, CSPI, and others who are critical of the food industry and/or give critical advice on healthy eating.

Food Jargon of the Day: Nonundelow

2007-03-02T12:47:00.000-05:00

Nonundelow
Coined by LA Times writer Emily Green in 2000, nonundelow refers to processed foods such as low-fat peanut butter and non-dairy creamer which have had supposidly "unhealthy" ingredients partially or entirely removed. A combination of the prefixes (non-, un-, de- and low) that are used to describe such products. Nonundelow has resurfaced in Barry Glassner's new book, The Gospel of Food, which calls a return to pleasurable eating that does not include nonundelow food products.

Food Jargon of the Day: Know Your Good Bacteria

2007-03-01T21:04:00.000-05:00

Probiotics
"Good," or probiotic, bacteria reside in our gastrointestinal tract along with a host of their nasty cousins. It is believed that eating probiotics - foods that contains probiotic bacteria - will help to increase the population of good bacteria and ward-off disease and infection. Probiotics include yogurt, kefir, buttermilk, kim chi, and miso soup.

Prebiotics
Bacteria that live in our GI tract use partially digested food to grow. Prebiotics are foods that nourish good bacteria in the intestine and allow them to survive and multiply. Prebiotics include chicory, onions, garlic, artichokes, bananas, and asparagus.

Synbiotics
Nutritional supplements comprised of probiotic bacteria and prebiotic sugars. Synbiotics work to both add good bacteria to the GI tract and encourage the growth of the good bacteria already in residence. Synbiotics are not found naturally in foods, but are added to products such as Activia Light yogurt.

Food Jargon Watch - Super Taster Article

2007-02-28T12:25:00.000-05:00

Super-taster
Super-taster - an individual who has more specialized taste buds on the tip of his or her tongue than the average person - is not new to the culinary cultural lexicon, but an article by Susan Bowerman for the Tribune Newspaper group does a good job of tracing the evolution of the super-taster theory.

Food Jargon of the Day

2007-02-28T11:05:00.000-05:00

Verrine
Defined by the LA Times as "an appetizer or dessert that consists of a number of components layered artfully in a small glass. (The word verrine refers to the glass itself; literally it means "protective glass.")"

Custody Fat
Coined by the folks at Slate Magazine, to refer to an attempt by government officials in Britan to remove a 218 lb. eight year old boy from the care of his mother.

Food Jargon of the Day: Hybrid Horribles

2007-02-28T10:18:00.000-05:00

Hybrid Horribles
Name given to chain restaurant "fusion food" by health and nutrition advocates. Hybrid horribles are mash-ups of tired and true fast food classics, like bacon cheeseburger pizzas or buffalo-chicken stuffed quesadillas. Double the junk food, double the calories, fat, and cholesterol!

Food Jargon Watch: Wine and Spirit Technology Edition

2007-02-22T10:10:00.001-05:00

Cybersommelier
Applied to an array of digital wine advisments from e-commerce sites to cute robots that use infra-red technology to identify wines.

Syncorks
Short for synthetic corks. Made by Supreme Corq and other producers from “biomedical grade thermoplastic elastomer." Syncorks were created to combat "cork taint", a defect caused by natural cork closures that makes wine undrinkable.

Food Jargon of the Day: Art of the Shocktail

2007-02-22T08:53:00.001-05:00

Shocktail (aka the Meatini or Carnivore Cocktail)
A cocktail made by mixing or infusing liquor with some sort of meat product.

File this bit of food jargon under "not for the faint of heart." Recently, Chow, the NY Times, and the Washington Post have all served-up articles featuring meat-based cocktails. In the nascent world of carnivore cocktails, mixology techniques seem to range wildly, from the easily digestible (bacon-garnished Bloody Mary) to the slightly queasy (pork-rind rimmed Margarita) to the gag reflex inducing (the Beefytini, featuring beef-jerky-infused vodka). Pass the Tums!

A Google search also revealed recipes from a cadre of self-styled shocktologists. The grandfather of them all, the Weeniecello, is created by soaking Hebrew National hot dogs in 100-proof vodka for five weeks.

Those interested in the shocktail's historical roots can check out an updated version of Lamb Liquor, an ancient Mongolian libation, at archaeology.org.

Recipe Links:

Andrew Fenton's Weeniecello

Josh Karpf: In Search of the Perfect Pork Martini

liquorsnob.com's Bacon Martini

archaeology.org's Lamb Liquor (scroll down page to Mongolian recipes)

Food Jargon of the Day: Provenance of Food

2007-02-21T18:43:00.000-05:00

As the demand for local and organic foods, fair trade coffee and tea, and humanely-raised meat and eggs increases, tracing the provenance of the food we eat is becoming an increasingly popular trend. Provenance strives to offer consumers “proof” of authenticity through origin narratives that detail where the food was grown, who grew it, when it was harvested, and who harvested it. Provenance can take a range of forms from a simple listing of a farm and its location to elaborate stories, origin denominations, and certificates of quality.

Food Jargon of the Day: Death of the Gastropub?

2007-02-18T16:20:00.000-05:00

The Spring 2007 issue of City Magazine has declared the term "gastrobpub" passé, claiming that "...gastropub came in and out of the culinary lexicon in 2006 faster than you can say bangers and mash."

Wikipedia defines a gastropub as a British term for a public house ("pub") which specialises in high-quality food a step above the more basic 'pub grub.' City Magazine suggests substituting any of the following terms: public house, tavern, brasserie.

Those who can't yet bring themselves to part with "gastropub", can check out the Gastropub Glossary, A Handbook of Helpful Terms at Epicurious.com.

Food Jargon of the Day: Pro-Offal

2007-02-18T16:19:00.000-05:00

An individual that promotes the consumption of offal - the entrails and internal organs of a butchered animal. As in "I'm pro-offal. Can you tell me where I might find rolled pig's spleen in Albuquerque?" The pro-offal worship Fergus Henderson, author of the 2004 cookbook The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. You can find the pro-offal online at the mouthfulsfood.com offal eaters forum.

Food Jargon of the Day: Cheftestant

2007-02-02T09:06:00.001-05:00

Heather Havrilesky's term for contestants on culinary-related reality shows such as Top Chef, Hell's Kitchen, and Iron Chef.

Food Jargon of the Day: The Piggy Confessional

2006-12-16T08:02:00.000-05:00

Coined by Sara Dickerman to describe a growing sub-genre of food writing. "In the piggy confessional, a dead pig—usually killed, butchered, or eaten by the author—provokes a meditation on the ethics and aesthetics of eating." Examples of piggy confessional writing can be found in The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan; Pig Perfect by Peter Kaminsky; and Heat by Bill Buford.

Food Jargon Alert: EVOO

2006-12-06T16:53:00.000-05:00

EVOO, an acronym for Extra Virgin Olive Oil popularized by Rachel Ray, will appear in the next issue of the Oxford American College Dictionary. According to Chow.Com, the entry will read: “EVOO: abbr. extra-virgin olive oil.”

Food Jargon of the Day: Make Room for the Beer Cellar

2006-12-06T15:20:00.000-05:00

Age-worthy Beers
High-alcohol beers (8% to 15% alcohol) that improve with age. According to the LA Times, examples of age-worthy beers include strong-brewed ales, barley wines, abbey ales, saisons, bières de garde, Christmas ales and Anheuser-Busch's vintage-dated Brew Masters' Private Reserve.

Mocktail
A non-alcoholic cocktail or "mock" cocktail.

Drinking Chocolates
Hot chocolate made with high-end ingredients and definitely not powdered mixes. Also known as European Drinking Chocolates.

Food Jargon of the Day: Eating Their Words

2006-11-22T15:29:00.000-05:00

From today's NY Times, lexical-gustatories are individuals who "involuntarily 'taste' words when they hear them, or even try to recall them." According to Dr. Julia Simner, a cognitive neuropsychologist and synaesthesia expert from the University of Edinburgh, lexical-gustatory synaesthesia is an extremely rare disorder. Only 10 lexical-gustatories indentified in the US and Europe.

A summary of Synaesthesia: The taste of words on the tip of the tongue, a report by Julia Simner and Jamie Ward, can be found online at Nature.

For more info, download the following articles on lexical-gustatory synaesthesia here:

Ward, Jamie, Julia Simner, and Vivian Auyeung. 2005. “A comparison of lexical-gustatory and grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Cognitive Neuropsychology; vol. 22(1): 28-41.

Ward, Jamie, and Julia Simner. 2003. “Lexical-gustatory synaesthesia: linguistic and conceptual factors.” Cognition; vol. 89: 237-261.

Food Jargon Resources

2006-11-14T16:08:00.000-05:00

Word Spy
Anyone interested in food jargon should check out the Food and Drink Index of Word Spy, an amazing Web-based resource devoted to lexpionage, or “the sleuthing of new words and phrases.” Word Spy takes it's logophilia seriously – a new term will only make the index if it has appeared multiple times in newspapers, magazines, books, Web sites, and other sources.

Sean Shesgreen on winespeak
Sean Shesgreen’s 2003 article, "Wet Dogs and Gushing Oranges: Winespeak for a New Millennium," is a critical introduction to the similes and metaphors (or “winespeak”) used by U.S. wine writers.

Wine X Magazine
Shessgreen’s article focuses on mainstream wine writing, but the next wave in winespeak is already being written by Wine X Magazine. Wine reviews mine the language of rock-n-roll, hip-hop, retro tv shows, and sex to demystify wine for new generation.

Food Jargon: Weekly Round-Up

2006-11-07T19:00:00.000-05:00

Tunageddon - John Tierney's tongue-in-cheek moniker for the impending (and, in his opinion, improbable) global seafood crisis that may see the world's fisheries depleted by 2048.

Food Manga - Japanese manga (or graphic novels) focusing on food. Titles include Yakitate!! Japan, which follows the adventures of a young bread baker named Kazuma, and Iron Wok Jan, which focuses on Iron Chef-like competitions. There is even a popular series dedicated to wine that features a crime-solving sommelier. Splicing together comics and cuisine, many food manga series actually include recipes and other food facts alongside typical action-packed narratives.

Underground Restaurants - unlicensed supper clubs like those sponsored by Ghetto Gourmet in San Francisco. Galleries, apartments, houses, farms, and parking lots have all served as venues for underground restaurants. Also known as culinary speakeasies and pirate restaurants. Check out articles in the LA Times and SF Gate.com for more info.

Anti-Restaurant Movement/Guerrilla Gourmet - the alternative communal dining culture spear-headed by Ghetto Gorumet (see underground restaurant above).

Food Jargon Watch

2006-11-07T18:51:00.000-05:00

This post originally appeared on Vinotheque.

In the March 8 Food Section of the Washington Post, Jane Mengenhauser shared a list of culinary euphemisms that she had culled from various print publications and the Web.

I know that at least one blogger deemed the article fluff, but I find the collision of cuisine and lexiocology interesting, even more so when certain phrases enter popular culture (food porn being my all-time favorite). WIRED magazine has a long history of tracking technology-related phrases with its Jargon Watch column. Why not do the same for food and drink?

So, here’s Vinotheque’s first official Food Jargon Watch listing:
Chefpertise
I found this on the American Culinary Federation Website. "Chefpertise" as in "I took a class with Chef Doe and found his chefpertise in the area of French cuisine invaluable."

Foodish
This phrase is from Jon Bonne's Amuse Bouche blog, which is subtitled “confessions of a foodish man.” I don’t know exactly what he means by "foodish" but I nominate this term as a replacement for the dreaded "foodie" and the elitist "foodist" (see below).

Whole Paycheck
I ran across this term last week in a Slate article. Denotes the seductive quality - and higher prices - of Whole Foods Market. As in " I ran into Whole Paycheck to just pick-up some lettuce and ended-up spending $70!"

Gastrotechnology
Term for technology-related food news coming from the Circuits section of the NY Times. Fom Michael Yee's foodstudies.net blog.

Paper Chef
One of my fav phrases from food blog culture. The title of "Paper Chef" is awarded to the winner of an online food blogger event.

Foodist
From Free Range on Food, a discussion with Washington Post Food section staff. meaning someone who is "discrimitive (or ultra snobby)" about food.