Review
“Ever wonder about the origin and social life of food words and their ability to evoke powerful reactions, both positive and negative? Ina Lipkowitz takes us on a fascinating journey through the history of names for various foods and the reasons why some prevail in Northern European languages while others proliferate in the south; why some refer to the animal in the field and others to the food on the plate. Here is one delicious rumination for lovers of the gastronomic lexicon, ranging from apples and leeks to milk, beef and bread. Nothing less than an etymological feast.” --Ken Albala, author of Beans, Eating Right in the Renaissance and The Lost Art of Real Cooking
“Ina Lipkowitz's passion for food and language leaps off every page of Words to Eat By, as she lovingly dissects the relationship between the food that goes into our mouths and the words that come out. The combination of two such rich subjects means the result is packed with tasty morsels.”--Tom Standage, author of An Edible History of Humanity and A History of the World in 6 Glasses
“What an engaging book! Words to Eat By is not just for foodies; it is a lively account of the history of words and of our intersections with different cultures, so appropriate for any history lover. Lipkowitz’s narrative is fascinating, reminding us that what we eat is shaped by attitude and imagination and the power of language. It is an important contribution to the literature of food and our relationship to the different cultural languages of the edible world.”--Janet Theophano, author of Eat My Words
"A thought-provoking book that savors the primordial stew of our language.”--Nichola Fletcher, author of Charlemagnes’s Tablecloth and Caviar: A Global History
Product Description
You may be what you eat, but you’re also what you speak, and English food words tell a remarkable story about the evolution of our language and culinary history, revealing a vital collision of cultures alive and well from the time Caesar first arrived on British shores to the present day.
Words to Eat By explores the remarkable stories behind five of our most basic food words, words which reveal fascinating aspects of the evolution of the English language and our powerful associations with certain foods. Using sources that vary from Roman histories and early translations of the Bible to Julia Child’s recipes and Frank Bruni’s restaurant reviews, Ina Lipkowitz shows how saturated with French and Italian names the English culinary vocabulary is, “from a la carte to zabaglione.” But the words for our most basic foodstuffs -- bread, meat, milk, leek, and apple -- are still rooted in Old English and Words to Eat By reveals how exceptional these words and our associations with the foods are. As Lipkowitz says, “the resulting stories will make readers reconsider their appetites, the foods they eat, and the words they use to describe what they want for dinner, whether that dinner is cooked at home or ordered from the pages of a menu."
Contagious with information, this remarkable book pulls profound insights out of simple phenomena, offering an analysis of our culinary and linguistic heritage that is as accessible as it is enlightening.
