Long before I read Seth Godin’s How to Title Stuff or Alex Witze’s SAA: How to title your paper I myself went to college, and there spent a lot of time mocking firsthand the evolution of sassy subtitles.  Back in the day you would write a man’s title for your paper: “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.”  There was only one subtitle, which was “My paper,” and beyond 6th grade it was implied.  Now every paper has a subtitle, and every student apparently plays Rock Paper Scissors to decide on which line to put the real title and on which to put the joke-title.  The youngest undergraduates  have never seen a real title on either line.  The portfolio-generation only knows to put their name and an unpronounceable symbol representing their feelings.  Even the Ph.D.s don’t go beyond “Tom Saw… what?: Visual Imagery in Twain’s Eleventh Book.”  And when those kids get out of school and quit writing papers gratia commentarii, they title everything in the only way they know how.  Grown up they wield a billion dollars to take a drug to market, then name it Abilify or The Purple Pill.  Demonstrative names are passé–marketing requires feelings and impressions.  Cars, chidren, recipes…

Imitating one’s grandma or her pies is old fashioned now. So for every child named “Boyce” there is a correlative apple pie christened “Freestyle Fuji: The Motion Streusel.”  If you look in a recipe book for “apple pie,” more often than not you’ll be sent to the impressionistically “apple pie -ish” section (because who looks under “freestyle”?)  If it’s a hip book, nothing in that section will use the word “pie,” and rarely will it use the word “apple.”  Ask a waitress what kind of pies they have for dessert and she’s just as likely to say “Rustic Autumn” as “apple.”   A bit of that is understandable–specialization generates perceived value, funky ingredients generate perceived value, and everyone wants a memorable name to prove that imitating oneself is the highest form of self-flattery.  The naming schemes that once were reserved for restaurants in San Francisco (“Slalom”, “Maisonchienne”, “Shack!”) have now mated with your friendly neighborhood meatloaf.

As such I remind the world of the following dessert-taxonomy equation from the Bethanyology Manual of Style:

Author + Adjective1 + Main Ingredient by Weight + Adjective2
* There must be at least one adjective, and at least one adjective must reference a desciptor, common to the region, of the style of cooking.

The BMOS taxonomy is what most cookbook publishers use, partially because it allows a lot of leverage.  So “Grandma Becky’s Rustic Rhubarb Flambé” is pretty far out there, but no less legal than “Mary’s fried chicken.”  The moving streusel referenced above is more properly rendered “Slalom’s Fuji Apple Pie.”  (Some restaurant review guides, in 2009, will allow “Slalom presents… Fuji Apple Pie.)  But notice the name, which shows humility because it does not vainly pretend that this is the definitive pie, but Slalom’s entry into an established and rotund corpus.  Subtitles are still allowed, as are descriptors on a menu, so you do have quite a wide range of freedom if your marketing absolutely needs something bastardized.

If you have any questions or are interested in having your menu audited and certified, please contact us below.

What about the rest of the description?  Well, the same cut of meat can be called a bunch of things.  In Googling how to cook my roast, I discovered a lovely site that may prove to solve my meat-labeling issues: The Cook’s Thesaurus.  Google took me to a page within this site that provided a reasonable explanation to this (and other) food jargon issue.  Here’s what it had to say about my roast:

The chuck section comes from the shoulder and neck of the beef, and it yields some of the most flavorful and economical cuts of meat.  The downside is that these cuts tend to be tough and fatty, and they have more than their fair share of bone and gristle.  It’s usually best to cook them slowly in a liquid.

shoulder roast = shoulder pot roast = English roast   Notes: This boneless cut is located right behind the arm roast on the carcass.  It’s rather tough, so it’s usually cooked in a liquid.   Substitutes: arm roast OR bottom round OR cross rib roast

Isn’t that lovely?!  Now I know how to cook it and what other names could be used for it.  And if I ever want to cook it again and can’t find a store that sells it under the “English Roast” name, I’ll be able to ask a butcher for the equivalent or a substitute in an educated way.

Speaking of butchers, there’s nothing worse than talking to a butcher you don’t know about something neither of you may know anything about.  I admit, I don’t know my meat-mongers at all. But I always wonder as I pass the meat counter whether they really know anything about meat (or cooking meat) beyond how to cut it.   They seem to always be hiding out, nearly out of sight, behind the counter just hoping that no one will bug them.  They also seem to usually be really short, skinny people who may or may not speak English.  Probably my love for Fiddler on the Roof has tainted my ideal of “the great butcher” by making me think that a butcher has to be a big, muscular, dominant man with an impressive personal presence exuding expertise in the field of all things meaty.  Why can’t I have a Lazar Wolf butcher? If you’ve never seen the movie, you can see Lazar Wolf at work about 2 minutes into this video:

Silly side note: Isn’t “thesaurus” a funny word?  It’s like the name of a dinosaur.  Or THE dinosaur.  Hmmmm…

What about the rest of the description?  Well, the same cut of meat can be called a bunch of things.  In Googling how to cook my roast, I discovered a lovely site that may prove to solve my meat-labeling issues: The Cook’s Thesaurus.  Google took me to a page within this site that provided a reasonable explanation to this (and other) food jargon issue.  Here’s what it had to say about my roast:

The chuck section comes from the shoulder and neck of the beef, and it yields some of the most flavorful and economical cuts of meat.  The downside is that these cuts tend to be tough and fatty, and they have more than their fair share of bone and gristle.  It’s usually best to cook them slowly in a liquid.

shoulder roast = shoulder pot roast = English roast   Notes: This boneless cut is located right behind the arm roast on the carcass.  It’s rather tough, so it’s usually cooked in a liquid.   Substitutes: arm roast OR bottom round OR cross rib roast

Isn’t that lovely?!  Now I know how to cook it and what other names could be used for it.  And if I ever want to cook it again and can’t find a store that sells it under the “English Roast” name, I’ll be able to ask a butcher for the equivalent or a substitute in an educated way.

Speaking of butchers, there’s nothing worse than talking to a butcher you don’t know about something neither of you may know anything about.  I admit, I don’t know my meat-mongers at all. But I always wonder as I pass the meat counter whether they really know anything about meat (or cooking meat) beyond how to cut it.   They seem to always be hiding out, nearly out of sight, behind the counter just hoping that no one will bug them.  They also seem to usually be really short, skinny people who may or may not speak English.  Probably my love for Fiddler on the Roof has tainted my ideal of “the great butcher” by making me think that a butcher has to be a big, muscular, dominant man with an impressive personal presence exuding expertise in the field of all things meaty.  Why can’t I have a Lazar Wolf butcher? If you’ve never seen the movie, you can see Lazar Wolf at work about 2 minutes into this video:

Silly side note: Isn’t “thesaurus” a funny word?  It’s like the name of a dinosaur.  Or THE dinosaur.  Hmmmm…