Savouring Words

Ah, the obvious – taste. Ultimately, this is the objective of food. There is no disputing the value of taste within the world of food writing; it is arguably what convinces us to try a dish.

Take the Bosh! ‘Tomato and Pomegranate Salad’; its ‘zingy fresh’, ‘sweet, juicy bursts’ and ‘fresh herbs’ allow the mouth to savour its textures and flavour profiles. Can you feel the food in your mouth? We begin to anticipate the acidity and crispness before anything has reached our palate. Instruction to ‘squeeze the juice into a large bowl, catching any pips in your other hand’ constructs dynamic and tangible sensory expectations.

The sounds of food and eating have also made their way into the gastronomic lexicon. Just one quick scroll through the BBC GoodFood website and the reader steps into a minefield of onomatopoeia: a ‘crunchy coleslaw’, ‘sizzling salmon’; phrases as simple as meals to ‘rustle up’ forage their way into our culinary vocabulary. And how can we forget the cultural significance of ‘Snap, Crackle, and Pop’? Cooking itself is an embodied experience; it’s prepared and consumed. It’s through this sensory language that readers connect to the recipe, creating an immersive experience and appreciation for food itself.

A Feast for the Eyes

Images alongside a recipe show us what we are supposed to be hungry for. Ottolenghi’s website proudly writes of his self-proclaimed flair, ‘creating comforting meals that burst with colour, flavour, bounty and sunshine’. Drawing upon exuberant hues, the language of Ottolenghi and his Test Kitchen perfectly complements its carefully curated photography, something increasingly relevant in an era defined by scrolling, sharing, and algorithms. The straightforward act of tying together food and illustrative vocabulary is by no means specific to Ottolenghi: in fact, the visual perception of food plays a significant role in almost every piece of food journalism.

‘Banana Bread Recipe’

Our infatuation with social media means apps like TikTok and Instagram can deliver recipes at an instant. Drool-worthy footage and thousands of videos for the same meal raise the question – is there any need for cookbooks beyond their aesthetic appeal? Well, the sensory experience of an online recipe is vastly different from that of a book.

A simple search, ‘banana bread recipe’, instantly presents us with an overwhelming number of webpages to sift through, blurring into one amalgam of banana-ry slop. An over-reliance on online recipes means we may no longer have the tactility of a book but instead the same sensation of scrolling on our phone that dominates our life. Looking through a cookbook may be slower to navigate, but in a world where convenience culture seems to always win, it can be a much more rewarding sensory experience.

‘Hey, wanna hear how I broke my leg when I was 8?’

This is the sort of detour familiar to anyone who has tried to search for a recipe online. Food is connection; it triggers memory and transports us to different places and moments in time. There are still meaningful elements of the online cookbook. Not every recipe is purely instructional, especially those web pages where ingredients are cleverly wedged in an unassuming memoir. Whilst frustrating in the case of actually needing a cooking method, there is something quite endearing about the family story behind a sticky toffee pudding, or how the failure of one recipe led a baker to the invention of another. It’s this personal connection entangled with the tactile, relishing jargon of the recipe that engages the reader and contributes to the large sensory experience of reading.

The material and social connection is where the ‘comfort’ of eating comes in. So much of food discourse boils down to the act of passing recipes from generation to generation, exchanging tips, creating large dishes to share with family, friends and loved ones. Returning to Ottolenghi’s ‘bounty’, the idea of plentiful eating evokes a kind of togetherness: abundance becomes something shared and experienced by everyone at the table. There are mountains of food idioms that signify intimate eating, ‘tear and share’, often relating to bread, is something so humble holding so much value in being broken, shared and passed between people at mealtimes.

Food for Thought

So, being a few hours away from dinner is not an excuse to reject the trusty cookbook or skip past the story behind a recipe’s curation. There’s enough time! Convenience culture has squandered our appreciation for the meaning behind cooking for others; we must re-engage our senses. The evocative nature of food photography flawlessly positioned beside a description of a meal provides an abundance of physical sensation. Phrases as simple as ‘an explosion of flavours’ transcend taste alone; the images feed our eyes, the feel of the paper feeds our fingers, and the words feeds our nose, ears and tongue. In one page we are transported to the table and fed a dish that we haven’t even made yet; we want more, we are inspired to cook.