There is an abundance of inspiration on how to eat well from the big world. Every culture does it just a bit differently – from favoring an emphatic slurp over a bowl of noodles in Japan to the taboo in Italy against mixing seafoods like calamari with cheese.
But the world’s cuisines are not experienced just through the ingredients and spices that make up a recipe – traditions rest in the act of food preparation, the presentation, the setting for a meal and the relationships with the people who share your table. All give perspective into how cultures approach the way they eat. And so, delightfully, does the way that a food experience is memorialized in language.
American traditions include a melting pot from our not-so-distant transplanted roots. But there are still words found outside American English that capture a food experience so precisely, so subtly, in such a nuanced way, that there just isn’t a good English equivalent.
The word Shemomedjamo, for instance, is a Georgian word. This is the country Georgia, squeezed between Russia and Turkey … not the Georgia of Jimmy Carter. The word is for when you’re really full, but the food is so delicious that you can’t stop eating. It literally means, “I accidentally ate the whole thing." As in, Shemomedjamo, I consumed the whole plate of teriyaki flank steak because my tongue just couldn’t quite figure out that flavor,” or “I accidentally finished off the pan of plum tart because that combination of fruit-sour and spicy cinnamon was bewitching,”… not that I’ve had any experience with this personally, you know, … it’s just nice to know there’s a word for it.
Another excellent word that everyone should learn is from Buli, a language spoken in Ghana. The word is Pelinti. You’d use it when you bite into a piping hot piece of food … let’s say fried chicken, and realize that it’s too piping hot. So you open your mouth wide and tilt your head from side to side, trying to keep the offending morsel from scorching your tongue – all the while exhaling awkwardly to cool it off. Ghanaians call this activity Pelinti … and it means specifically “to move hot food around in your mouth.” How handy is that?
Sobremesa is a Spanish word that means to linger at the dinner table to continue your conversation long after the meal has finished. The literal translation is “over the table,” a lovely word to add to your vocabulary.
Abbiocco is one of those untranslatable Italian words that describes the specific drowsiness that takes hold of a person after a big pasta-centered lunch. The word denotes the attitude of a hen hatching eggs – sitting comfortable and warm, eyes slowly closing, head bobbing. It could be translated as “food-coma” or “drowsiness” but those words aren’t as picturesque after a substantial plate of farfalle or orecchiette smothered in garlic, butter and parmigiano.
Related to abbiocco, is the habit of taking a short nap after lunch, a pisolino, which is a Mediterranean tradition, especially common during the summer months.
Another colorful Italian saying is Cavoli Riscaldati. This phrase describes the unfortunate and ugly result of an attempt to revive an unworkable relationship. It’s not a term about food, per se, but it translates literally to "reheated cabbage." And how great is that? Well, not great.
And finally, my favorite food phrase … Kummerspeck … is a word from German describing excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally … grief bacon.
These phrases are delightful because they are so relatable. The experience of food can bring us together, in more ways than swapping recipes. So the next time you experience Shemomedjamo or Kummerspeck, you might feel that although the world is big, there is a lot of crossover in the way we process experiences … and the way we feel about bacon.
