Recipes are everywhere these days: from cookbooks to websites, from television to magazines. A recipe contains instructions to make a dish, but how detailed must those instructions be? Which recipe is better, the one that goes into excruciating detail or the one that is more open to interpretation? Can you cook without a recipe? To…
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The Argument for Authenticity
A well-established culinary stereotype is of the angry Italian pissed beyond belief at the insensitive American massacring their sacred cuisine. “Mamma mia! No gar-a-lic in-a carbonaaaara!” they would-a say with-a burning enthusiasm. Italia Squisita and Vincenzo’s plate in particular are two channels which feature angry Italians furiously gorging on sacrilegious YouTube content, and verbally bashing…
Chaul, Chow, Chai: Word Meanings
Semantics and Pragmatics So far in our series, we have examined etymology and phonetics, with interesting culinary digressions. This week, we will focus on two branches of linguistics that deal with meaning of words in a language. While semantics deals with the literal meaning of a word in a sentence, its counterpart, pragmatics, has an…
Cream, Crème, Crema: Word Sounds
Phonetics and Phonology Last time, we talked a little bit about etymology and word origins. This time, we’ll discuss the sound of words, which is the subject matter of phonetics and phonology. Phonetics refers to the study of sounds in language as a whole, while phonology refers to the specific sounds in a particular language….
Pesto, Pork, Potato: Word Origins
Historical Lingusitics and Etymology Linguistics is the scientific study of language. I’ve been dabbling with some of its basic concepts for the past couple of months and found certain aspects of it making perfect sense in a culinary context. This month, I’ll try my best to project my rudimentary knowledge of certain aspects of linguistics…
Food Words: Biscuits and Gravy
I’ve got a rather special series lined up for you this July. It is something I’ve been working on for months now, and combines two of my passions: food and linguistics. Through food anecdotes and examples, I will try to explain the multiple facets of languages around the world. My grip on linguistics is rather…
Rituranga : Barsha (Part 2)
Last time, we started our exploration of monsoon foods in Bengal, focusing primarily on the iconic plate of khichuri and ilish mach. It is time to move ahead and take a look at the rest of our meal. We’ve talked about the bhaja in the previous instalment, the array of fried goodies that provide texture…
The Unvanquished
No, I don’t usually do movie reviews, but I loved this one so much that I decided to give it a shot. There are some spoilers ahead, although this is the kind of movie where you enjoy the journey rather than get thunderstruck by the ending. Hope you like it…… I’m an old soul, an…
Rituranga : Barsha (Part 1)
“As children even the first sight of dark clouds rolling towards us from the distance southeast would set us skipping with excitement. The anticipation intensified as the winds gathered force, the low rumble of thunder was heard and the first streaks of lightning rent the sky. It is hard to remain on responsive to what…
A Tale of Mango, Coconut and Ginger
When you come home after a long time, you tend to gravitate to the familiar places, to further reinforce that sense of nostalgia that starts manifesting from the moment of touchdown. Over time, these places change, so the place you return to is never quite the place you left, be it your old bedroom, your…
The Gourmet Glutton 