Project Idea

For my final project, I want to conduct a study on how menus influence people's expectations of a restaurant in several different categories. I will give people different menus with the prices and name of restaurant taken away and then have them fill out a survey saying how expensive they expect the restaurant to be, how good they expect the food to be, and how well they think the restaurant is critically rated. I think I might try using two menus each from two different cuisines to see whether it is easier for people to infer about the restaurant depending on what kind of restaurant it is. I think it will be interesting to see whether people make judgements about restaurants based on only the menu, and how strong those judgements are. 

Food Metaphors

When I started to think about metaphors in the broader context, I realized that a lot of what we talk about is metaphorical, even when we think we're being literal. And, since food is one of the most common and universal things we all share, a lot of these metaphors relate to food in some way. One of the main metaphors that I think we use all the time without really realizing it is any desired item, or even concept, is food. There are tons of examples of this metaphor that are used in many different contexts, such as:

He was hungry for victory.

She was starved for attention.

Those shoes are so sweet!

She has an appetite for life.

That was a piece of cake!

Give me some sugar.

The same is true for the opposite: things that are undesirable are associated with foods or tastes that are undesirable.

That was a bitter loss.

That conversation left a bad taste in my mouth.

What a sourpuss!

What am I, chopped liver?

Ignore her, she's bitter she lost.

I think the reason we associate anything thats good with things that taste sweet and anything thats bad with things that taste bitter or sour is that everyone automatically understands because eating is one of the few things that no matter where we live or what our culture is, we have to do it. So many other sources of pleasure are complicated and dependent on many factors, but when you're eating something sweet, the reaction is simple and everyone can relate to it. The same is obviously true for the reverse: there are not many things as disgusting as biting into something with an awful taste. Even thinking about it, I make a face automatically, so it makes sense that we would use that as a metaphor for something unpleasant or gross. I think the universality of food is a key reason why food metaphors are so prevalent in many different languages and cultures.

Seattle's Best Coffee

For my linguistic analysis of a food package, I will be looking at a package of Seattle's Best Coffee. The first thing I noticed about this package of coffee was that there were a lot of words on it. On every surface of the bag there are different paragraphs about different aspects of the coffee, from instructions for brewing 'the best cup of coffee' to in formation about the farmers that grow the coffee. On the front of the bag, the flavor of the coffee is described as 'Big: intense, bittersweet with hints of dark chocolate'.  I find that description interesting because they are using a lot of the same words that people use to describe different kinds of wine. On the side of the bag, it says:

"Our darkest coffee is roasted in the great French Roast tradition so that it is smoky and bold, yet still incredibly flavorful and drinkable. Of course, this intense, bold coffee is an acquired taste, but coffee lovers who seek a classic brew have been heard to exclaim after sipping our cup: "Vive La French Roast!" "

This paragraph carries the wine metaphor even further, talking about the great French tradition it is a part of and referring to it as an acquired taste. The descriptions also make it seem like only the sophisticated connoisseur of coffees would be able to appreciate it. However, they are also trying not to seem too intense or exclusive by saying that even though the coffee is bold, it is also 'drinkable'. 

On the other side of the bag, there are two even longer paragraphs. The first is a history of the coffee company, which emphasizes the 'revolutionary' history of the company and the 'pioneers' who founded it. They also talk about their unique 'slow-roasting process' and how they are known for their coffee's 'distinct smooth flavor'. These phrases continue to create the impression that this coffee is specially created by artisans for people who truly appreciate fine coffees. The second paragraph is about the 'social and environmental responsibility' the company takes when growing and purchasing their coffee. They talk about the 'sustainability' of their practices and the 'community-building programs' they put in place for their farmers. I think the effect of these terms is to make people feel like they are doing a good thing for the world when they buy this coffee, so that they will choose it over some other brand that does not mention any of this stuff on the package.  

Cooking Verbs

Personally, I had a hard time pinpointing the differences between roast and bake, partially because they both can mean a lot of different things when they are used in different contexts. I thought it was interesting, though, that even though we could not agree on a specific distinction between the two verbs, everyone seemed to have the same vague connotations about what they meant and specific uses of them. To find out more about the 'official' definitions of these two cooking methods, I looked them up in the cooking dictionary at www.epicurious.com. Here is how epicurous defined them:

bake- to cook food in an oven, therefore surrounding it with dry heat. It's imperative to know the accurate temperature of the oven.

roast- to oven-cook food in an uncovered pan, a method that usually produces a well-browned exterior and ideally a moist interior. Roasting requires reasonably tender pieces of meat or poultry. 

I think these definitions are a lot different from what we were thinking of, because they make it seem like roast is a hyponym of bake. At first it seems like these definitions are clear and make sense, but after thinking about our discussion in class, I don't think they are complete because they don't consider a lot of the ways in which we use these verbs. For example, one of the uses of roast we were having trouble fitting in to a category was roasting marshmallows, which clearly does not work with their definition, which seems to be limited to meat. Other things can be roasted in the oven as well, like vegetables and potatoes. 

I thought 'The Culinary Triangle' was an interesting way of thinking about how humans universally look at cooking, but I didn't fully agree with a few of the points it made. I'm not sure about the connection between the triangle of raw-cooked-rotted and roasted-boiled-smoked. I do think that some forms of cooking can be closer to nature and some are more human-involved, but I don't think there is as clear a connection between these two concepts as the author did.  Also, I'm not sure if this is a contemporary analysis or if it is old, but I think that the three cooking methods used in the triangle could be updated. Especially smoking. First of all, smoking is not really that common of a cooking method in everyday life, and also, smoking seems more on the raw side than the cooked side to me. 

Tortilla de Patata Recipes

When I went to Spain, I noticed a lot of differences in the way people cook and eat there from the way we do in the United States, and I think a lot of the differences reflect larger differences in our cultures. One of the most common dishes I ate there was Tortilla de Patata, which is like a frittata with potatoes and onions, so I decided to compare a Spanish recipe for this dish to an English recipes designed for Americans. Both of these recipes follow the same general format, with a list of ingredients in bullet points and then a paragraph about how to combine them, but there are differences in the wording of the instructions and in the expectation of knowledge of the person preparing the food.

Starting with the ingredients list, the American recipe is already a lot more specific, indicating the amount of olive oil to be used and that the onion should be yellow and chopped. The Spanish recipe just says 'aceite' and 'cebolla', with no reference to what kind or how it should be prepared for cooking. In the instructional paragraph for how to make the tortilla, the American recipe is still a lot more specific. It includes instructions to put the potatoes in 'carefully' and tells the cook what to do if the accidentally stick together. However, the Spanish recipe is a lot more vague in its directions, telling the reader to remove the pan from the heat 'de vez en cuando', or once in a while. The American recipe also gives more explicit instructions for how to get the tortilla from the pan onto the serving platter, while the Spanish recipe assumers the reader will know how to do that. 

I think a lot of the differences between these two recipes make sense based on the cultures they come from. In Spain, the attitude towards most things, cooking included, is very laid-back, so there is no need for troubleshooting advice in the recipe. In American cooking culture, people making the dish are more likely busier and will have less patience to try and figure out when the eggs are cooked enough or start over if something goes wrong. Although these two recipes have similar ingredients and similar results, the way the methods are portrayed to the audience can tell us a lot about the culture they come from.

Menu Language

One of the things that stood out the most for me in the readings was the point in the study about the menu register that some restaurants purposely word their menus in ways that people will probably not understand what everything means. I thought the restaurant in Ohio that put the menu entirely in French was especially surprising. I have been to a lot of restaurants where the waiters encourage you to ask them questions about the menu if there is some ingredient or preparation method that you do not understand. For example, a lot of restaurants use an unusual name for some type of green that has a more common name that people are more likely to recognize. I think two reasons that they do this might be to make the food seem more rare and specialized than other restaurants and also to let the waiter describe a menu item in a way that is more descriptive and appealing than a menu would have room to print. Also, if the customer feels that they have a personal relationship with the waiter, they might be more likely to remember the restaurant and come back or tell their friends about it. 

Another thing I haven notices about menus is that some kinds of restaurants have much longer and more extensive menus than others. For example, French menus tend to have only a few appetizers and entrees while Chinese restaurants usually have so many options that I wonder if it's even possible to make that many dishes. Also, Chinese menus and menus in restaurants with other types of Asian food usually divide items by what type of meat they are made with or if they are vegetarian while in French and Italian menus all of the entrees are put in one category. I am not sure whether this only applies for these kinds of restaurants in America or if these traditions are from the actual countries. Also, in France, what we think of as appetizers are called entrees and what we think of as entrees are called plats. 

Introduction

Hi! My name is Amelia and I am taking this course because I love both language and food. I like studying foreign languages, like Spanish, and I also like studying language itself. I took an Introduction to Linguistics seminar last year in high school and it was really fun and made me want to learn more about many of the topics we studied, such as the brain's role in language and sociolinguistics.

 Of course, I also love food. I have always loved eating, but recently I have started cooking a lot and really enjoying that aspect of food as well. I especially like cooking Italian food, but I also love eating food from many other countries, like Indian food, Thai food, and Mexican food. I love all of the different types of food that are available in the Bay Area, and I have learned to love a lot of kinds of food that I did not like at all when I was younger. I also love going to farmers markets and getting fresh produce that's grown locally, and going to the various food stands they have, whether it's tamales or naan.

My native language is English, and that is what I speak at home with my family. Although I wish I had learned another language fluently when I was younger, I am only fluent in English. I am able to converse and get by with Spanish as well, however, because I took Spanish classes throughout high school and studied for a month in Spain two summers ago.