By: Blonde Two
Every now and again things to do with words make me quite cross. You know the sort of misdemeanour, apostrophes used as plurals, cheap non-scanning music lyrics (for example, ‘Without your kisses I’ll be needing stitches’) and weird phonetic spellings such as GORJUS CLEAN and KUKD (cooked) . The latest lexicon irritant is the habit of relating weird deverbal (I had to look that up) adjectives such as ‘smashed’ and ‘crushed’ to food. I don’t eat out often but I can report that down here in Devon it is tricky to find a menu that doesn’t include ‘smashed avocado’ or ‘crushed potatoes’ which are both really just good old-fashioned mashed.
Just imagine if we started applying such farcical monickers to our local Devonshire cuisine. We would all be eating ‘wrapped pasties’ and having ‘stiffened cream’ with ‘fruited jam’ on our scones. If might be fun (or really annoying) to apply such facetious labelling to our outdoor camping food. For breakfast we could have ‘bubbled eggs’ and ‘sputtered bacon’ washed down with ‘scalded coffee’, how posh we would feel and how utterly pompous we would sound.
Me? I am going to stick to good old mashed, boiled and roasted grub. ‘Folded sandwich’ anyone?
If the British can’t celebrate a bit of culinary pomp then what can we do? It’s all we have left!
Well you do have a point there but I think it is far more British to munch on sausage and mash than fine dine on rolled meat and crushed new potatoes.
I enjoyed that: a “blonded” post.
Excellent news Conrad, it is always good to find a bit of blonde!
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As long as I can still have banana splits, bangers and mash, cheese dreams and dampers – – – –
But it is possible to have squished avocado. I was watching a cookery demonstration on TV & Lisa ………? (appeared on Strictly Come Dancing) demonstrated squishing perfectly. You slit your ripe avocado right round, pull it apart, and turn each half inside out. Give a little squish and out comes the flesh all ready for guacamole or anything else that needs squished avocado. No need to mash, bash, splash or crash it with a fork!
Nope, that is still just mashed… ‘squashed’ however would be if you sat on your avocado.
Tautology is to be deplored wherever it occurs. Menus are full of unnecessary words: “pan-fried” as opposed to “gasometer-fried” and aren’t all pasties folded? Even more superfluous are judgment adjectives supplied by the chef: he is not entitled to say “delicious jam and bread”, only we, the consumers, are.
Recently my grandson encouraged me to buy a packet of crisps (Yeah, yeah, in ten more years they’ll fur my arteries – so organise me a requiem mass.) labelled Ludlow Sausages And Mustard just to see if I could distinguish them from, say, Gloucester Sausages. Couldn’t truly say they were sausage-flavoured.
Ah the Ludlow sausage! Have you ever indulged in the Ludlow Sausage Trail Robbie? It has long been an ambition of mine.