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Food, glorious (sounding) food

3 min read

In a recent study, people ate more vegetables if they had fancy names. It turns out people are more likely to eat a side of carrots or green beans if they’re called citrus-glazed carrots or sizzling, grilled green beans. The citrus-glazed carrots had a lemon squeezed on them before serving, and the sizzling, grilled green beans were just grilled green beans, but the words enticed the study’s subjects to consume the vegetables at a higher rate. If the same veggies were labeled “Healthy Choice Carrots or Green Beans,” consumers were less likely to order them.

We’re more likely to order a side of veggies if the aforementioned veggies sound more seductive. All food sounds better with a few extra adjectives.

We’ve evolved. My father had a very unappetizing name for creamed chipped beef on toast.

Face it, beer-battered or panko-breaded flounder on a brioche bun sounds much better than fish sandwich. It’s usually twice the price.

I know plenty of people who swoon when they hear any combination of the words “cider-brined, applewood-smoked bacon,” or “slow-roasted” pork shoulder. Somewhere there’s a pig unable to shrug.

I enjoy slow-roasted root vegetables, which is just oven-baked carrots, potatoes, turnips and rutabagas. Add an unusual color, and I’m even more impressed. I love purple carrots and blue potatoes. I feel like I’m eating food in the commissary of the USS Enterprise. I expect Spock to invite me to a game of three-dimensional chess while I chow down on blue potatoes or blue corn chips. Blue food is sci-fi food.

I will eat almost anything if you use the word “infused” to describe it. I will drink cucumber-infused or basil-infused water, which is water with a few slices of cucumber or basil leaves in it. It’s tap water with floaters.

Pappardelle pasta sounds better than flat wide noodle. Pasta is one of those weird categories wherein you give it a different name by the shape or texture: fusilli, capellini, mezzelune, perciatelli, and so on and so on … ad infinitum.

Some of them should never be translated. Barbina is a nest of thin strands of spaghetti that roughly translates into “beard.” Who wants to eat a beard of pasta? The next time you eat angel hair, you can order a beard to go with it.

At a restaurant in North Carolina recently, I ordered grilled, marinated king trumpet mushrooms with lemon and herb golden quinoa, grilled heirloom eggplant with piquillo peppers, charred tri-colored carrots, squash and zucchini in a lemon-tomato gravy. Yeah, they saw me coming. Basically, it was an expensive strip of veggies on a bed of quinoa. There were about four tiny mushrooms on the thing that was named after the mushrooms. But if you throw the words charred and heirloom on a menu, I’m going to toss you my credit card and let you have your way with it.

I will order pomme frites with curried chipotle ketchup instead of ordering french fries with spicy ketchup.

Shave your pecorino. I’m getting the farfalle.

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