Absurdly vague cooking terms

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Eamon Burke

Eamon Burke

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Is anyone else bothered by this?
My wife is watching Masterchef, and Graham Elliot gives the most useless feedback I've ever heard. His culinary vocabulary is about that of a parrot. "Oh, the cook on this is really good", "it tastes yummy", "its actually very nice".

Yummy?

The Cook?

What next? The cook was nice, and the look was really good, but the eat was not yummy. Me no like.

Reminds me of some coworkers at the sushi bar who used to say "this has no taste". 'This food has no ****ing taste at all', 'They were all "oh it's so goood" and I tried a piece and there was no taste'.

DRIVES ME NUTS. What the eff are you talking about? What is it?



Corollary to this pandemic is using the same word for everything in a kitchen. My last job it was "Grill", the job before that it was "cut".

Instead of "He doesn't know how to break down the whole fish because his knife skills are poor and his knives are dull", they'd end up saying "He can't cut the cut-fish because he can't cut and his knives have no cut".

Instead of "Can you ask the Short-Order Cook to sear some par-cooked chicken breast on the flat-top for me?", they'd say "Hey, tell the grill to grill some grill chicken on the grill".

Words. They mean things.
 
Heh...what do you expect from a show that is so choreographed and phoney that it's emetic, with three arrogant, know it all pricks in charge? ;-)
 
Being on a scripted show is no excuse! I couldn't talk like that about something unless you kept me awake for 40 hours and beat me up first.
 
After I sent the last post I got to thinking....it's so scripted that the comments from the chefs should be perfect, not monumentally inane and meaningless as you indicated. shrug
 
Good point. I didn't think of it that way, since I just assume they have to talk down to the audience. It's TV. But really. There has to be a stopping point short of "The steak...the cook was good." If I was told that, I'd be tempted to say "Thanks for nice talk."
 
America generally doesn't like complexity....this is just one dimension of that phenomenon. IMNSHO, of course :)
 
Well, true. Although it's difficult for me to sufficiently express my disdain for the intellectual acuity of the American public, one would think that people who watch this program would be at least slightly interested in food and would expect a bit more than the drivel which Eamon described.
 
For what it's worth I enjoyed it. Last nights episode was especially fun. Like me, the contestants are enthusiastic home cooks, not pros, and seeing the 3 old geezers/special guests was a thrill. We've all said stupid sh... stuff.
 
It's not just food tv. I can't comment about the use of English in other English speaking countries, but what you're describing is common in many other industries. In my opinion, it's basically the dumbing down of the English language.

Acronyms are used instead of complete phrases. People spell words incorrectly on a regular basis, write grammatically incorrect sentences, and use incorrect/inappropriate words (e.g. "the cook on this is really good" instead of "this was well cooked"). Look at many major newspapers and you'll see obvious errors (e.g., "your" vs. "you're") that you would generally assume the writer (who should have a good command of the English language) and copy editor (who also should have a good command of the English language) should never write in the first place. Even in my profession (I'm an attorney), I see more and more examples of very poor writing to the point that finding a well written document is now the exception, not the norm. (I use acronyms regularly here so I'm certainly not above some of these trends as well.)

For some people, I do happen to think that these words/phrases are being used because the person thinks he/she knows what he/she is saying and believes that he/she is correct. On the other hand, I think some of these terms/phrases are being used by people trying to be cool and "create" new words/phrases. Nonetheless, it starts a horrible trend. Other people use these words/phrases thinking that they're correct without knowing that these words/phrases are incorrect, and the trend continues unabated. But, the worst thing about this, to me, is the fact that we're moving way from descriptive, vivid, and emotion-inducing writing that can engage and educate a reader.

I would also venture that a lot of it happens to do with time - a lack of time. Good writing takes time. Most people can't be bothered to take an extra ten minutes to write something better. (Again, I'm guilty of this as well.) But sometimes, it's really worth taking that little extra time so that you can really accurately communicate what you want to communicate. Words are important.
 
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Just another case of the American mass audience being perceived to glorify ignorance. It's not cool to know a lot about something. I think that's garbage and you don't actually need to talk down to people. Even the ones that don't know exactly what you're saying or may miss a word will get the gist of it and might learn something. *insert rant about terrible corporate media in the USA and Americans hero-worshiping idiots on reality TV*

I feel better now.
 
mhlee said:
Very erudite, Michael, but I'm not gonna attempt to address your points, all of which are true. Just a question. Am I the only one who has observed that the words "effect" and "affect" have virtually disappeared from the language in the media? Many people don't know the difference in usage, and I defy you to find me an article, or newscast, in which both these words have not been replaced with the word...."impact", which they seem to think is a replacement for both words. I'm serious....pay attention next time you watch Newshour (or whatever) or read a newspaper. ;-)
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bikehunter said:
Very erudite, Michael, but I'm not gonna attempt to address your points, all of which are true. Just a question. Am I the only one who has observed that the words "effect" and "affect" have virtually disappeared from the language in the media? Many people don't know the difference in usage, and I defy you to find me an article, or newscast, in which both these words have not been replaced with the word...."impact", which they seem to think is a replacement for both words. I'm serious....pay attention next time you watch Newshour (or whatever) or read a newspaper. ;-)
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That's a really interesting observation. I will look for it.

I wouldn't be surprised if editors/writers/etc. have been banned from using those words because they are used incorrectly so often.
 
JasonD said:
Just another case of the American mass audience being perceived to glorify ignorance. It's not cool to know a lot about something. I think that's garbage and you don't actually need to talk down to people. Even the ones that don't know exactly what you're saying or may miss a word will get the gist of it and might learn something. *insert rant about terrible corporate media in the USA and Americans hero-worshiping idiots on reality TV*

I feel better now.
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I don't know if it's 100% perception. How many smart kids are still bulllied because they're smart?

But, I do completely agree that there's no reason to talk down to people. From what I've observed, if you talk to people in an intelligent manner about intelligent things, especially children, they will also speak intelligently.
 
bikehunter said:
Very erudite, Michael, but I'm not gonna attempt to address your points, all of which are true. Just a question. Am I the only one who has observed that the words "effect" and "affect" have virtually disappeared from the language in the media? Many people don't know the difference in usage, and I defy you to find me an article, or newscast, in which both these words have not been replaced with the word...."impact", which they seem to think is a replacement for both words. I'm serious....pay attention next time you watch Newshour (or whatever) or read a newspaper. ;-)
Click to expand...

affect/effect
insure/ensure
your/you're

the list is long :)
 
mhlee said:
I don't know if it's 100% perception. How many smart kids are still bulllied because they're smart?
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As far as perception, I don't think it matters whether the perception is true or not since the producers/editors still seem to act as if it is. Look at the trend in programming on the usual "educational" TV channels: History, Discovery, TLC are moving to reality programming and Aliens building pyramids.

I would say that bullying may be a part of the problem. Our kids grow up in a culture where the "nerdy" kids can/ought to be picked on. Those kids then grow up and tell them that maybe that dorky kid needs to "toughen up" instead of complain about being bullied. Maybe things are changing a bit with "nerds" being the new cool thing. And as much I don't like the lensless thick rimmed glasses fad, I'm all for embracing intelligence culturally.

Back on topic. I think they need Jeremy Clarkson to go on that show to describe the food. "This steak is as good as smearing honey into Keira Knightly"
 
bikehunter said:
Very erudite, Michael, but I'm not gonna attempt to address your points, all of which are true. Just a question. Am I the only one who has observed that the words "effect" and "affect" have virtually disappeared from the language in the media? Many people don't know the difference in usage, and I defy you to find me an article, or newscast, in which both these words have not been replaced with the word...."impact", which they seem to think is a replacement for both words. I'm serious....pay attention next time you watch Newshour (or whatever) or read a newspaper. ;-)
Click to expand...

I don't know if that's true: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/06/u...-affect-presidential-race.html?pagewanted=all In the article the author uses the both effect and affect while abstaining from using impact. Consider yourself defied! :nunchucks:
 
Ya' well, I don't recall saying it was impossible, just not likely unless you go looking, when you clearly did. <g. Try 50 more articles and see what happens.
 
bikehunter said:
Ya' well, I don't recall saying it was impossible, just not likely unless you go looking, when you clearly did. <g. Try 50 more articles and see what happens.
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Sorry, we must have differing views on what the definition of defy is.
 
you guys take cooking enertainment too seriously.

Don't you know it's all........Hmmm, what's legal to say? Baloney?
 
Andrew H said:
Sorry, we must have differing views on what the definition of defy is.
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Clearly I should have used a milder way of expressing it, as you seem to have taken it as a personal challenge. Reminds me of several friends around whom I must be careful what I say in email, as their response will be several links to snopes or urban myths. ;-)
 
tkern said:
has anyone else said "behind you" at a grocery store and creeped someone else out accidently?
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I say 'behind' out of context all the time. Once, a guy replied 'oui chef!'.

Nice moment.
 
I guess Graham fills the role in this show as the kinda slow, wide/heavy and jolly guy... just sad.
 
tkern said:
has anyone else said "behind you" at a grocery store and creeped someone else out accidently?
Click to expand...

All the time. I worked at a crowded line once that made "behind you" a little tiresome. It was like standing with our legs interlaced, this line. So we got used to just bumping each other, just kind of walk up and get in their space and people move to accommodate. I still do it to my wife in the kitchen sometimes, and she doesn't move, it's very confounding to me. I do this to strangers, and it's confounding to them.
 
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