The Language of Starbucks

Discussing the rise of a wine-tasting culture, and, consequently, wine-tasting language in class last week got me thinking about the rise of another sort of enthusiast over the past few decades: the coffee enthusiast.  With the popularization of Starbucks and other coffee-drink offshoots (now even Burger King sells an iced mocha), Americans have begun to take interest in coffee the same way that baby boomers took an interest in wine tasting in the ‘60s.  It is hard to believe now, with a Starbucks on nearly every street corner, that the chain was once a single coffee shop in Seattle that boasted, according to the Starbucks website, “some of the world’s finest fresh-roasted whole bean coffees.”  

http://www.starbucks.com/menu/drinks/brewed-coffee/bold-pick-of-the-day?foodZone=9999

The elaborate descriptions that the Starbucks website gives for each of its brews offer ample data for a lexical analysis of words relating to coffee’s taste.  Just as Adrienne Lehrer observed in her article “Wine and Conversation: A New Look” that the term “texture,” while rarely used to describe food twenty years ago, has now become common in describing wines, especially when used in conjunction with words describing the human body.  By reading Starbucks’ descriptions of its coffees, we can see that this use of “texture” has extended into the realm of coffee: the cappuccino is described as having a “luxurious” texture–or, borrowing a word from wine enthusiasts, “mouthfeel”–while other roasts are described as “smooth,” “medium-bodied,” “dense,” “lush” or “rich” (it seems that the emphasis on hedonism that pervades wine-speak has influenced coffee-speak, as well).  

Taste-related descriptors abound on the Starbucks website, as well: you can read about the “clean, nutty taste of a good Colombia,” the “citrusy snap of a Kenya,” and the “herbal mellowness of a Sumatra.”  Other coffees are described as having “citrus flavors,” “caramel notes,” and tasting of “soft cocoa” or “lightly toasted nuts.”  The taste words can be generally placed into two groups: food-related (nutty, citrusy, caramelly, sweet) and non-food-related (sparkling, clean, mild, mellow, subtle, soft, stout, sturdy, full-bodied).  The coffees are personified, just as wines are: the Veranda blend, for example, has a “calm and laid-back character,” and is considered a “Blonde roast.”  Many of these descriptors can be organized into a scale, as Lehrer does with wine adjectives:

Citrusy --> Nutty

Soft               Sturdy

Mild, mellow Bold

Clean --> Smoky

The purpose of all this flowery language is, just as Lehrer points out in her article, to foster a sense of community as well as to enhance one’s sensory experience.  The key word at Starbucks is “experience”: drinking coffee is supposed to be a sense-enhancing moment (the coffee is described as “high-definition,” at one point) in which a “whole new world unfolds on your palate.”  And, judging from the lines that extend past Starbucks’ doors, we’re buying into it.  

A Sandwich By Any Other Name...

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When I was in preschool, my favorite after-school snack was something that I believed only my family’s housekeeper, who was from Colombia, could prepare properly: toast.  “Tosta,” as Alcira called it–presumably an abbreviation of the Spanish word for toast, “tostada”–was actually what most of us call “grilled cheese”: a slice of American cheese sandwiched by two slices of white bread, pan-fried in butter until crunchy and golden brown.  Although I eventually learned that “toast” referred to bread hardened in the toaster oven, I continued to use “tosta” as a synonym for grilled cheese.  However, when I read Adrienne Lehrer’s article, “Cooking Vocabularies and the Culinary Triangle of Lévi-Strauss,” it occurred to me that perhaps both Alcira’s and my terminologies were correct, leading me to do a little research on the verbs we use for the process of heating bread.  

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons
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According to Adrienne Lehrer’s article, when it comes to cooking, lexical overlap is common: for example, “grill” can be a hyponym of both “broil and fry, depending to some extent on dialect variation and collocation (grilled cheese sandwich rather than fried cheese sandwich)”  (157).  However, I would argue that, in the case of the grilled cheese sandwich, “to grill” overlaps with “to toast,” as well.  

So Alcira and I were both wrong, and yet both correct, in our sandwich-naming: the sandwich is neither grilled (heated directly, without fat or water) nor toasted, since it is pan-fried; however, because of the collocation of “grilled” and “cheese sandwich,” it is not wrong to say that a cheese sandwich is grilled–nor would it be wrong to call it toasted, due to the various ways of making the sandwich, which includes, particularly in England, toasting.  

A sandwich toaster
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/58-4235486SPA74UC692250M.jpg

French Onion Soup v. French Onion Soup: The Evolution of a Recipe

Americans love celebrities–an obsession that extends into all realms aesthetic, including the art of cooking.  As our access to mass media has increased over the past few decades and as we have become more and more detached from the process of food preparation, we have come to rely on cooking advice not from our mothers, but rather from celebrity chefs.  In looking at the language of recipes, I decided to compare one of the recipes of the 21st-century television personality Rachael Ray, to a recipe of her fifties’ counterpart, Julia Child. 

For a recipe to compare, I settled on French onion soup, since this is one of Julia Child’s most famous recipes.  A little history note from Wikipedia: onion soup has been considered a staple among the poor, dating back even to Roman times, since onions are so easy to grow.  The French  version originated during the 18th century and is made from beef broth and caramelized onions–ingredients common to both Ray’s and Child’s recipes.  

Since I have taken both Rachael Ray’s and Julia Child’s recipes from the Food Network website, they are similar in format, listing difficulty level (“easy”), number of people served, ingredients, and instructions.  Both recipes use ample descriptors that appeal to the senses: when describing how to caramelize the onions, Child says to cook them “slowly, until tender and brown,” and Ray instructs the reader to stir them until they are “sweet and caramel colored.”  However, you can still hear the stylistic difference in the recipes: Child’s is conversational, allowing the reader to make certain judgments (“let cool for a moment,” “add a little water if the liquid reduces too much,” “taste for seasoning”).  Rachael Ray’s instructions are more explicit, telling the reader where to stand in the kitchen (“next to the pot”) yet also less involved: Ray’s recipe can be completed in 35 minutes, while Child’s soup takes up to two hours (although, according to online reviews, it is well worth the effort).  This difference in instructional style is perhaps reflective of a greater trend in recipe writing; as people have come to rely less on family and cultural tradition in their cooking, they expect concise instructions that allow for little guesswork.  

The recipes’ titles differ in tone as well; Child calls hers simply “French Onion Soup,” while Ray calls hers “Oh So Good French Onion Soup,” presumably to make her soup stand out among the myriad recipes now available on line.  As for ingredients, the recipes are quite similar, aside from the addition of sugar, Cognac, and flour to Child’s version.  

http://dianasneighborhood.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/julia-child.jpg

Despite the fifty-year gap between the writing of these two recipes, they are quite similar–which, given that they both belong to the same tradition of food preparation (that is, the American cooking show), makes sense.  Now, to be truly American in our approach, we need to try out both recipes and perform a taste-test.  Either way, the outcome will be crusty, bubbly, and delicious.  

French Onion Soup

by Julia Child

Ingredients

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 8 cups thinly sliced onions (about 2-1/2 pounds)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon flour
• 8 cups homemade beef stock, or good quality store bought stock
• 1/4 cup Cognac, or other good brandy
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 8 (1/2-inch) thick slices of French bread, toasted
• 3/4 pound coarsely grated Gruyere

Directions

Heat a heavy saucepan over moderate heat with the butter and oil. When the butter has melted, stir in the onions, cover, and cook slowly until tender and translucent, about 10 minutes. Blend in the salt and sugar, increase the heat to medium high, and let the onions brown, stirring frequently until they are a dark walnut color, 25 to 30 minutes.

Sprinkle the flour and cook slowly, stirring, for another 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool a moment, then whisk in 2 cups of hot stock. When well blended, bring to the simmer, adding the rest of the stock, Cognac, and wine. Cover loosely, and simmer very slowly 1 1/2 hours, adding a little water if the liquid reduces too much. Taste for seasoning

http://images.wikia.com/foodnetwork/images/b/bd/30minutemealsrachel.jpg

Divide the soup among 4 ovenproof bowls. Arrange toast on top of soup and sprinkle generously with grated cheese. Place bowls on a cookie sheet and place under a preheated broiler until cheese melts and forms a crust over the tops of the bowls. Serve immediately.

Oh So Good French Onion Soup

by Rachael Ray

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 6 medium onions, thinly sliced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme, picked and chopped or poultry seasoning
• 1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
• 1/2 cup dry sherry
• 6 cups beef stock
• 4 thick slices crusty bread, toasted
• 2 1/2 cups shredded Gruyere or Swiss cheese

Directions

Heat a deep pot over medium to medium high heat. Work next to the stove to slice onions. Add oil and butter to the pot. Add onions to the pot as you slice them. When all the onions are in the pot, season with salt and pepper and 1 teaspoon fresh thyme. Cook onions 15 to 18 minutes, stirring frequently, until tender, sweet and caramel colored. Add bay leaf and sherry to the pot and deglaze the pan drippings. Add 6 cups stock and cover pot to bring soup up to a quick boil.

Arrange 4 small, deep soup bowls or crocks on a cookie sheet. Preheat broiler to high. Once soup reaches a boil, ladle it into bowls. Float toasted crusty bread on soup and cover each bowl with a mound of cheese. Sprinkle remaining fresh thyme on cheese and place cookie sheet with soup bowls on it under hot broiler until cheese melts and bubbles.

The Menu-Speak of McDonald's

In exploring the menu as a genre, I was curious to see how much McDonald’s–a familiar, all-American fast-food chain that would presumably wish to bank on consumers’ nostalgia and need for “comfort” food–has been “continentalized,” or made to sound to more, well, chic.  When I went to the McDonald’s website to explore, I was greeted with a picture of softly-lit oatmeal, apple slices, and yogurt with the subtitle “Wholesome” in cursive letters.  Continentalized?  Absolutely.  A look at the menu, however, shows McDonald’s menu to be more in transition than the website suggested: it contains many familiar items with simple but accurate names (“Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese”) as well as branded items with the prefix “Mc-” (“McDouble, “McChicken,” etc.).  Yet the menu also contains items with more complex names, some of which incorporated foreign flavors, such as the “Angus Chipotle BBQ Snack Wrap,” or used descriptors common to menus across America (e.g. “Premium Crispy Chicken Classic Sandwich”).  Speaking of chicken, McDonald’s makes a distinction between “grilled” chicken and “crispy” chicken, which is battered and fried (an appetizing adjective that comes across as more neutral than, say, “fried,” to people watching their cholesterol intake).  The food names also suggest when the foods are intended to be eaten: small chicken nuggets are called “Chicken McBites,” and small wraps are called “Snack Wraps,” suggesting that these foods are consumed in between meals.  

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fortune/0805/gallery.royale.fortune/images/croque.jpg

To see if this kind of menu-speak translated into other languages, I consulted the McDonald’s France website.  The homepage features not a bowl of oatmeal, but a picture of a farmer (“McFarmer”) and a lumberjack (“McTimber”)–apparently the “Mc-” prefix is common to McDonald’s in other countries.  Although the farmer and lumberjack don’t appear very “continental,” in portraying rural, picturesque America, they might appeal to the French consumer who expects to get the “American” experience at McDonald’s.  As for the menu, much detail is given to descriptions of ingredients: we are told the diet of the chickens used to make the “McChicken” sandwich, and the various regions of France from which the wheat used to make the bun is gathered.  (This is similar to the American website, which has a link, “What We’re Made Of,” devoted to information about ingredients).  Items on the whole are similar to those on the American menu, often carrying the prefix “Mc-”, and distinguishing between “grilled” and “crispy” chicken; however, there are some differences.  The menu has a few items made clearly à la française: “Le McWrap Chèvre,” for example, or “Le Croque McDo,” a sort of round, simplified croque monsieur.  McDonald’s France thus is offering consumers an experience that is both delicious and nutritious, both all-American and yet also familiarly French.  

Hello, Linguist62N!

This class interested me because it explores the subject of food from sociocultural, psychological, and linguistic perspectives.  In high school, I had the opportunity to travel to Taiwan and India, as well as spend 3 months as an exchange student in France.  Visiting these countries was a feast for the senses, and I found that, by focusing particularly on the countries’ foods, I could learn a lot about these cultures as a whole.  In France, particularly, my food-related vocabulary expanded quickly, and with it, my understanding of social norms surrounding cooking and eating.  I am also looking forward to exploring linguistics in this course; having studied Latin for several years, I’ve had fun looking at word etymologies and learning about the evolution of our language, which I had formerly thought of as pretty stagnant.