Have you tried learning another language? Then, you know it takes practice, but there are tricks and best practices to make it easier for you to succeed at learning another language. Here we take the same most effective ways to learn another language and apply it to learning the language of food.
You can become fluent in food writing. Writing about food flows easier with a rich bank of vocabulary. With practice, you’ll be able to describe the deeply chocolatey brownies with a burst of melting dark chocolate; the melted cheese oozing out of a sourdough sandwich that sizzles, crisps and browns on the skillet, bubbling and gurgling like a hot molten volcano; the juicy, ripe figs with a pleasing little crackle bite from the fig seeds.
Whether you’re a food blogger, a professional chef, home cook, or just love talking about food, this post can help you cook and talk smarter about food. These 10 best practices can help you become a master of what we call “food language.”
Food language or the language of food= the words used to describe all things related to food, including growing, preparing, buying, selling, making, cooking, and eating food.
10 best practices to learning the language of food
1. Define your purpose
Know why you want to improve your knowledge of food and the language used to describe it. Having a good reason will keep you motivated. Wanting to improve your restaurant sales or increase your food blog audience may be enough to keep you committed. No matter your reason, consciously commit to being a learner of food language.
“Ok, I want to learn the language of food. Therefore, I will make every effort to learn as much as I can about food, how to talk about food, and how to use the food language.”
2. Get company
Find a partner or group to join you on your language-learning food journey. It can be your friend who is just as passionate about baking cupcakes as you are, or your dinner party club, or your online food blogging forum. Talking about food with someone is a great way to build connections and also share ideas.
3. Keep it relevant
Is your specialty in bbq? Learn everything you can about the grills, rubs, marinades, and different cuts of meats. If you make it connected to your niche, you are less likely to feel overwhelmed by all the different things to learn about food language. Talking to experts will keep the learning process relevant to you and you’ll keep current.
4. Seek Food Events
Seek out fun food-related events like Food & Wine’s festivals or local festivals that celebrate specific foods in the area such as a Strawberry Festival or Pumpkin Patch Festivals. Integrate your interest in food into everything you do, including off-work time. You’ll learn words specific to the festival, such as descriptions of wine flavor or techniques in pumpkin carving. For example, check out this helpful site on wine tasting from Wine Folly. Smelling wine includes aromas that are savory: cheese rind, roasted nuts, autumn leaves, old tobacco, cured leather, or mushroom.
5. Have Fun with Food
Try using your food language and skills in creative ways.
- Practice writing a food poem.
- Sketch a food comic strip.
- Jam a food song and SnapChat it.
- Play board games like Pictionary but make up the cards so that there are only food-related words.
6. Leave your comfort zone
Be willing to take risks. Try a new recipe. Try a new technique. Enroll in a cooking school. Many workshops and cooking schools are offered online.
Here are a few virtual cooking schools
Do you want to take the plunge and enroll in formal culinary training? Seek longer programs, such as New York City’s Institute of Culinary Education or The Culinary Institute of America. Do you have a favorite chef and love their cooking flavors and style? Check out their bios and see what culinary training they have received. That will give you direction in where to start your own cooking path.
Putting yourself in new situations will challenge you and push your skills, both linguistically and technically. The more often you push yourself, the bigger your comfort zone becomes and the more risks you’ll be willing to take.
7. Listen to Food Experts
Learning a new languages requires listening. You listen before you speak. Each language has its own sounds and patterns, but the more you hear it, the more you’ll pick up on the patterns and the more familiar it becomes. Listening to experts use words like mirepoix and sofrito can be challenging at first, but before you know, you’ll be using them too.
- Listen to podcasts such as The Splendid Table where Lynne Rossetto-Kasper interviews guests and takes your calls about food.
- Watch food and cooking web shows such as PBS that can help you cook smarter, plus tell beautiful kitchen vignettes, learn the lexicon of sustainability, or even the origin of food.
8. Watch Chefs Talk and Cook
Watching native speakers talk activates an area of your learning with the combination of visual and audio cues. Similarly, watch cooking shows and see how the chefs and cooks work and talk about food.
- Food Network and Cooking Channel both stream Full Episodes of videos for free. The archive is rotated weekly.
- Netflix streams Netflix Original episodes like Chef’s Table, to older Food Network episodes (Iron Chef America, Beat Bobby Flay, Giada at Home), to food and travel (Anthony Bourdain), to food documentaries (Jiro Dreams of Sushi).
9. Read food literature
Read about food. Go to your local library and check out a variety of food literature, from memoirs to food dictionaries to cookbooks. Check out The Diner’s Dictionary by John Ayto as an extensive dictionary and history of food terms.
Subscribe to the major food magazines such as Bon Appetit and Food & Wine and the top magazines in your niche, whether it is paleo, baking, or vegetarian cooking, or restaurant cooking, catering, and food truck cooking.
Read food blogs. Check here and here for the greatest food blogs.
Subscribe to food writing blogs such as this one!
10. Dive in!
You’re committed. You’re ready to go. How to proceed? There is no right way to go about learning the language of food. Try one, try them all. The most important thing is that you act. Practice every day and your knowledge of food will grow exponentially.
We’re here to help you and cheer you on.
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How do you learn about food? Do you watch cooking shows? Do you read food magazines? If so, which ones? We’d love to hear how you learn about food! Please share your comments.
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