by Liz Walter
Once notorious for our diet of meat and two soggy veg, we in the UK are now happily tucking into sushi, dim sum, tacos and fajitas, chorizo, bruschetta, tagines, baklava, guacamole, felafels and houmous (over 30 million pots a year from one supermarket chain alone!).
All of this gives the lexicographer a bit of a headache. When do these foods become established enough to merit a place in the dictionary? After all, pretzels, ketchup and lasagne were considered ‘foreign’ once, but are now firmly part of the English language.
As part of our work, my colleague Kate Woodford and I collect new words as they come into English (many of which you can find on this website). We don’t try to predict whether or not they will catch on, but just record them for future research. So I decided to look back at food words we captured between 2005 and 2010 to see which of them have made it into general use. Continue reading “Hirata buns or kimchi, anyone? New words connected with food.”