Irrefutable facts of culinary classification

[muckefuck]

Ever since reading Lakoff, I've been sensitivised to conceptual categories. It's always fun to realise that your brain has classified something in a way that's non-obvious to other speakers, but is so natural to you that you're not even aware of it until there's a miscommunication.

For instance, last night at dinner monshu talked about serving something "with the beans". I had to think about it for a moment, because I was sure he'd said that our starch was going to be potatoes (a.k.a. "the Great Satan"). Turned out he was referring to the green beans, which I never in hundred years would've classified as "beans". They're a green vegetable; they require no soaking or boiling in order to eat. Canned is not an acceptable substitute. I wouldn't put them in a soup or a stew. And so on and so forth.

Other revelations which employ the same type of interaction-based logic:

1. "Chickpeas" are not "peas". Neither are "pigeon peas". Only "green peas" are "peas" (to the point that "green peas" sounds pleonastic to me). And for those of you who call them "garbanzo beans", they aren't "beans" either.
2. "Hot dogs" are not "sausages". And this holds whether you call them "franks", "frankfurters", "red hots", or god-know-what. It doesn't matter that they are encased meats or that bratwursts and their ilk also show up regularly on buns.
3. "Cream cheese" is not "cheese". Neither is anything that looks and tastes similar, like Quark/Topfen or Neufchâtel. I'm not sure what to do with mascarpone, but ricotta is also "cheese" and "cottage cheese" isn't. (As far as I'm concerned, cottage cheese isn't even edible, but that's neither here nor there.)
4. "Soda water" is not "soda". "Soda" is artificially coloured and flavoured and sweetened.

I don't expect all of you to agree on these, and I don't think that difference is necessary dialectal; it wouldn't shock me if my own brother, raised with the same (godawful) food traditions differed with me on one or more of these. (After all, he's wrong about so many, many things.)

Comments

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

What is the differentiating factor between hot dogs and sausages? And which side of that line would a saveloy fall?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Never having had saveloy, I couldn't really say. Certainly not if it were battered.

I'm not sure how to define "hot dog" beyond "the meat product sold in plastic packs labeled 'hot dog' or 'frankfurter' in the USA". The internal consistency is softer and more finely minced than other types of sausages eaten hot. It generally lacks noticeable specks of fat, spice, or anything. But, of course, such a definition would exclude the offerings of Hot Doug's which I still recognise as "hot dogs" (and, in fact, the absolute pinnacle of hotdoggery) rather than "sausages".

For more of my British friends, a "hot dog" is simply a "sausage" on a bun. Does that definition work for you?

[grahamwest.livejournal.com]

That's why saveloys are tricky. They are sold battered and not, their skin is significantly thicker than other sausages (and a very bold orange-red) yet they have the internal consistency, fat and spicing like other sausages.

It doesn't really seem satisfactory to say that the presence or absence of a bun changes whether something is a sausage or not.

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

It doesn't; under such a definition, "hot dog" is just a particular preparation of sausage in the same way that "toad-in-the-hole" is.