Food For Thought
Last spring, we offered an acrostic based on a quotation from Christina Tosi’s book Dessert Can Save the World. This week’s quotation comes from a 2014 publication that returns us to the theme of food, but with a different angle on the subject. Its author, Dan Jurafsky, is a Stanford University professor who focuses on both linguistics and computer science, two disciplines that he brings to bear in his perceptive treatment of The Language of Food. The book includes fascinating examinations of how linguistic choices in restaurant menus influence our reactions to the offerings.
The particular quote we selected highlights the fact that certain foods we identify with particular countries – in the case of the United States, for example, hamburgers, French fries, and ketchup – often originated elsewhere. Those examples got us to thinking about fast food and junk food which, while not Jurafsky’s primary focus at all, did point us to a variety of clues and answers that probably caused us to gain weight merely thinking about them, e.g., Slurpee, nuggets, ganache, and frappe.
We wish to thank our NYT colleagues who suggested two words in Estonian (jäätis and kohupiimakreem) to plump up Clue K. If, like us, your Estonian is a bit rusty, those terms turn out to refer to ice cream and curd cream, the latter a particular delicacy in Estonia:
Finally, in case you haven’t seen Unfrosted, Jerry Seinfeld’s 2024 movie about the history of Pop-Tarts that popped up in Answer B, we found it quite funny. On second thought, perhaps it’s something of a stretch to say that Unfrosted presents the history of Pop-Tarts in, say, the way that Ken Burns presented the history of the Civil War:
What did you think?
Patagonian Toothfish comes to mind.
Another savory Acrostic that whets the appetite.
Thanks for the treat.
My Estonian is non-existent, but it filled in eventually. The creamy dessert photo looks sooo good. The quote brought French toast to my mind, which with some searching, is thought to originate in Roman times, “pan dulcis.” AI also notes that the closest French equivalent is “pan perdu.” When I lived in Japan was the last time I visited a “Ma ku do nu ru do” or MacDonald’s where I had a “ha mu ba ga” with teriyaki sauce. Fun quote. Anything about food is always a treat.
Another fun acrostic. The theme was pretty easy to spot, but I didn’t have as many gimmes as usual in going through the clues. But after a bit I was able to spot the country names in the quote, and the signature foods of those countries soon followed and the whole acrostic fell into place. I was also helped by the fact that OSIRIS (of the green skin) had been clued in the NYT crossword recently.
Another very enjoyable one. So, where did burgers, fries and ketchup originate?
I can say that “ketchup” and its variants like “catsup” come most recently from a Malayn fish sauce, which came from an earlier Chinese word for fish sauce.
I could not figure out how “tomatoes” derived from those Italian words when…of course!–Grandma and Grandpa grew pomadori in their backyard (smack!)
We had the same puzzlement. Thanks for explaining!
– I think Chinese chicken salad is another food item whose name doesn’t reflect its true origins (which are apparently in pan-Asian or fusion cuisine).
– I initially didn’t understand how “golden apples” might refer to tomatoes until I realized (duh!) that tomatoes come in many colors (including yellow).
– Things I learned from today’s acrostic: jäätis / kohupiimakreem, escabeche, hammam, and financiers (as rectangular almond cakes)
– Finally, thanks for the link to the clip with Jerry Seinfeld and Ken Burns. An unlikely pairing made for a very funny (if ultimately unsuccessful) appeal to Ken.
Yet another thoroughly enjoyable acrostic!
This turned out to be on the easy side for us, getting a bunch more clue answers on the first pass than usual. Alas, that shortens the solve and somewhat diminishes the feeling of triumph at the end.
But we loved every second of the solve, and after the first pass on the clues we went to town upstairs on the quote, nailing a lot more words than usual, enabling us to solve the remaining clue-answer holdouts like nobody’s business.
We’re glad we could provide intellectual nourishment in the form of a mouth-watering puzzle this week.
Indeed, as some of you inferred, the tomatoes first introduced into Italy were apparently yellow, explaining their “golden apple” appellation. As for the origins of those three all-“American” favorite fast food items, there seems to be no clarity on whether hamburgers were in fact invented in Germany, but historians assert that French fries first appeared in Belgium, and the author of our quote’s source agrees that “ketchup” derives from the word for “fish sauce” in a dialect of China’s Fujian Province (which also gave us the word for “tea”).
Thanks for the mention of Patagonian toothfish, sometimes also marketed as Chilean sea bass. Dave, who spent a lot of time working on international fisheries matters, agrees that the fish comes neither from Patagonia nor from Chile, but from the waters of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica.
Here’s an idea for a new party game: creating a list of foods whose names are misnomers.
Very fun, but my one quibble is that I don’t recall Slurpees being carbonated.
Loved this one. But then, I love almost all the NYT acrostics. Such a great type of puzzle. Thank you!