Tuesday, October 28, 2008

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. 

Saturday, October 18, 2008

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.



Thursday, October 9, 2008

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.  

Sunday, October 5, 2008

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.