[Label] Food Culture (Social Sciences and Humanities)

Why do we toast at breakfast and then at dinner?

Why is the turkey often eaten on Thanksgiving the name of this country?

Professor Ren Shaotang, winner of MacArthur Genius Award, reveals the subtle subtext behind the adjectives "rich" and "refreshing", and analyzes the rhetorical devices we unconsciously use when commenting on restaurants, as well as the subtle language skills in potato chip advertising copy. The ancient recipes in Sumerian ballads, the colonial ships connecting the East and the West, and the evolution of the names and preparation methods of foods around us, such as tomato sauce, almond cakes and salads, together constitute a language food guide map drawn from a global perspective and running through thousands of years of history, which is slowly spread out under your three meals a day and desserts.

Food Linguistics is an interesting work, from ice cream to potato chips and ketchup, which spans Europe and Asia and explores the relationship among food, language and cultural exchanges. Some ingredients in daily life, as can be seen from the name, such as tomato sauce, are widely used in the west. This weird English word actually comes from the pronunciation of "sauce" in China Minnan dialect, and "ketchup" means "fish with pickled vegetables". Although the materials are completely different, the language has left traces of history.

Excerpts from food linguistics;