Eat Your Words: The Definitive Dictionary for the Discerning Diner

by Paul Convery

Overview

“An outstanding contribution to the field of food language and lore and an accessible reference book for professional and amateur foodies alike.” —Susannah Seton, author of Simple Pleasures of the Kitchen

Eat Your Words is a gloriously gluttonous glossary of all things grub and gastronomy: It’s a true treat for anyone who loves language as much as they love food. With witty and fun definitions of everything from aeroponics to zoosaprophagy, this compilation offers definitions of six thousand unusual and unfamiliar terms across twenty-one fact-packed courses.

For bon viveurs and verbivores alike: Are you a gourmet who knows the difference between Maldon and Morton salt? Maybe you’re an expert on the properties of heat in cooking. Or you’re a cocktail connoisseur with a taste for tequila. Eat Your Words is a surprising treat for anyone who loves learning about food and cooking.

A delight for word nerds: For Scrabble stars and anyone who excels at Words with Friends, Eat Your Words is a clever guide to little-known culinary terms that will give you that special edge.

In Eat Your Words, you’ll find terms about:

• A cornucopia of culinary treats from around the world
• The cultivation, selling, and serving of every food you can imagine
• The appetites of diners and their dinners across all species

This new dictionary is the fun reference book you didn’t know you wanted. Fans of Tequila Mockingbird and On Food and Cooking will enjoy this fascinating journey into the language of food and eating.

“Now I can impress my food-snob friends with more than my ratatouille and learn some great food-related Scrabble words as well.” —Nina Lesowitz, author of The Party Girl Cookbook

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781642501353
Publisher:	Mango Media
Publication date:	07/22/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	452
Sales rank:	564,088
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Paul Convery is a "word doctor" with 20 years’ experience as a proofreader, copy-editor and magazine production manager. A lifelong logophile, he is the author of Drinktionary: The Definitive Dictionary for the Discerning Drinker (Book Guild, 2017), and has independently published Inkhorn's Erotonomicon: An Advanced Sexual Vocabulary for Verbivores and Vulgarians (Matador, 2012). His earlier academic grounding includes postgraduate language studies (University of Strathclyde) and doctoral research in modern European history (University of Glasgow).

Read an Excerpt

Tasting Notes: Flavour, Freshness (and so forth)

acerbitude * sourness or sharpness of taste, as with unripe fruit

acescency * tartness or asperity of taste

acetarious * denoting vegetables or plants used raw in salad, such as lettuce or cress

acetosity * the quality of being sour-tasting or vinegarish

acidulousness * a degree of sharpness or bitterness in flavour

ackerspritted * said of gathered potatoes that have sprouted prematurely

acridity * an uncomfortably corrosive bitterness of taste

acrimonious * extremely pungent to taste

acritude * an astringency in food that is irritating to the organs of taste

addleness * the degree of putrefaction or rottenness of eggs

agerdows * an early anglicization of agrodolce or aigredoux–‘bittersweet’

al dente * of pasta, cooked firmer to the bite, not soggy or soft

alimonious * nourishing, full of goodness

alliaceous * tasting of garlic, leeks or onions; garlicky 

amarulence * bitterness of taste

ambrosiate * exceptionally sweet and pleasing to savour

ampery * a regional descriptor for cheese that is starting to reek and decay

amygdalaceous * having the flavour of almonds

amylaceous * starchy; applies to non-nitrogenous foods

apiaceous * savouring of parsley or similar herbs

appetizing * mouth-wateringly tasty

areastiness * rankness or rancidity in food

argute * sharp of taste

Table of Contents

Part One – Food, Glorious Food!

Of Flora, Fauna and Food

1 Foodstuffs: Classes and Categories

2 Items and Ingredients from the Plant World

3 Items and Ingredients from the Animal World

4 Fishing, Farming and Food Production

Dainty Dishes and Choice Cuisine

5 A Cornucopia of Culinary Treats from the English-speaking World

6 A Cornucopia of Culinary Treats from the Rest of the World

What's Cooking?

7 Culinary Arts and Artisans

8 Tasting Notes: Flavour, Freshness (and so forth)

Something to Digest

9 The Physiology of Consumption

10 Food Science and Nutrition

Part Two – All the Trimmings

You Aare What You Eat

11 Dietary Regimes and Feeding Routines

12 Picas, Phagias and Other Perverted Appetites

13 Eat or Be Eaten: Nature’s Food Chain

Whet Your Appetite

14 Feast: Gluttony and Greed

15 Fast: Denial and Disgust

16 Famine: Hunger and Starvation

Catering for Every Taste

17 Supplying, Selling and Serving

18 Kitchen and Table

Come Dine with Me

19 Dinners: Making a Meal of It

20 Dining: Gastronomy and Gustation

21 Diners: A Glossary of Gourmets and Gourmands

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Now I can impress my food-snob friends with more than my ratatouille and learn some great food-related scrabble words as well.”

—Nina Lesowitz, author of The Party Girl Cookbook