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…
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…
The Cocktail Chronicles (Part 7)
Brandy Blends In the previous article, we talked about fruit juices as modifiers, talking in detail about the basic ratios of base spirit, modifiers and balancers used in sour-type cocktails. Two of the most well-known examples of classic cocktails of this type include the sidecar and the daiquiri, both stalwarts of the cocktail collection, and…
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…
The Cocktail Chronicles (Part 6)
Fresh Fruit to the Fore So far, we went through two classic cocktails- the martini and the old-fashioned, and used them as a base to discuss the broader category of cocktails of ‘aromatic types’. These can be described as cocktails where an aromatic wine, or a bitter, or less commonly, a liqueur, is used as…
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…
The Gourmet Glutton 