Allusionist 189 Mouthful of Fortune transcript

February 8, 2024 The Allusionist

HZ: What is this principle that is at play here, with foods being lucky because their names sound like other things?

MIRANDA BROWN: The main principle is that there's this very ancient Chinese belief that dates, I think, to the first or second century AD during the Han dynasty, that things that share similar sort of qualities - it could be appearance, it could be sort of textures, and names - share in common some sort of cosmic resonance. So the basic principle is that if you sort of you can activate those resonances by, let's say, you want a lot of money, then you might wear clothes that have gold, or you could eat foods that sound like a lot of money or ‘get rich’, and that would in some ways attract that desired end into your life. And this is especially important during liminal times of the year or when seasons are changing or when you're celebrating a holiday. The future is being decided, or it's somewhat inchoate. So this is your way of making these desired outcomes realized.

HZ: Because I was wondering: if the foods are lucky, then why can't you eat them throughout the year? But is that just gaming the system in a way it should not be gamed?

MIRANDA BROWN: I think there's something special about holidays, which, are transitional periods, that I think make that kind of eating especially effective. And, I also have to remember that during Lunar New Year, it's the beginning of the year. If you're going to set your goals for the year, the beginning is a good time to start.

Allusionist 184 Misophonia transcript

November 6, 2023 The Allusionist

JANE GREGORY: Misophonia is an extreme reaction to certain sounds and not an aversion to all sounds, but an extreme reaction to specific sounds. And the most common sounds are eating and heavy breathing and kind of repetitive sniffing and coughing and things like that. Which are also sounds that most people don't like the sound of, but people with misophonia will get a much more intense reaction, so it might be more like a fight or flight kind of response, a feeling of anger or panic as opposed to feeling annoyed or irritated or disgusted by the sound. And there's a bit more to it in terms of what goes on around the sounds as well. So it might be feeling trapped or helpless when they can't get away from these sounds. It might be listening out for sounds, even when there aren't any, or continuing to listen to see if the sound is still going, even if it's stopped. And doing things to organize your life around sounds or to cope with sounds. when they happen. So most people who don't like a sound will just deal with it. For people with misophonia, they have to do things to not be able to hear it or to be able to cope with their reactions to it.
HZ: Rather than just grimacing.
JANE GREGORY: Exactly. I mean, there's also some grimacing, but probably also some glaring.

Allusionist 141 Food Quiz transcript

September 10, 2021 The Allusionist

HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Did you know that, Samin, that my nickname for Helen is 'Pizza’?
SAMIN NOSRAT: What? Because of all the Z's?
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Because I once told Helen about this atrocious pamphlet that I read at the train station when I was in college. It was for some kind of like - I think it was called student advantage. Do you remember the student advantage card? There was a pamphlet for student advantage card, and they were trying to say like how useful it could be. And they're like, "Everybody knows students need a few extra bucks, whether it's to do laundry, buy some books, or just grab a slice of 'za!" And I had never heard that before, 'za, apostrophe Z A, and I was looking and I was like, "Are they trying to say pizza? They're abbreviating pizza? This is how cool kids say pizza. What is this?" And I felt so offended that they were trying to market, at me, a student, using this kind of language. And I told Helen about this, and then immediately after that she was doing a Reddit AMA and, and I think I went in there and I asked her if she was really hiding the fact that Helen Zaltzman was short for Helen Pizzaltzman.
HZ: Yes, my family shortened it when they moved to an Anglophone country.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Yeah, so now I just call her 'Pizza' for short. Naturally.
HZ: I just think an abbreviation where you understand less what the thing was is not a good one. I suppose you are saving a whole syllable which is half of the effort.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: Plus you sound SO cool and SO with it, calling it just 'za.
HZ: And you must be very busy person not to be able to do the full 'pizza'.
HRISHIKESH HIRWAY: You're a student, you've got skateboarding to do.

Allusionist 108. Enjoy! - transcript

October 30, 2019 The Allusionist

SARA BROOKE CURTIS: An interesting thing with ‘enjoy’ is that it's become so common, because it’s so normal, so many people do it in all the different restaurants, to such an extent that there are restaurants that you could not say 'enjoy'. That was their biggest pet peeve, was saying ‘enjoy’. And it was massive.
HZ: Why?
SARA BROOKE CURTIS: Because they didn't want their servers to act like robots and they thought that if you said 'enjoy' that people would feel like they're anywhere, and that you're not expressing anything; you're just saying this thing that people say all the time.
HZ: Where does it come from? Is there this cabal like the Pantone colour thing where it's like, "This year everyone will be wearing forest green" - is there that for service vocabulary?
SARA BROOKE CURTIS: Yeah, I think there is. I really do think there is.

Allusionist 104. Words Into Food - transcript

August 18, 2019 The Allusionist

KATE YOUNG: I can travel through what these characters are eating and what they're doing, and travel to places, to countries I've never been, but also to fantastical worlds that I've never been to and versions of this world that feel very different to my own or are 200 years older than this or one hundred years in the future or any of those things

Allusionist 103. Food Into Words - transcript

August 6, 2019 The Allusionist

FELICITY CLOAKE: It's very nerveracking because people spend money on ingredients, they may be cooking it for a special occasion, they try to impress a date or whatever - there's a lot that can go wrong with food and it's quite a weighty responsibility to be responsible someone's dinner or their birthday cake or whatever; it is a big deal.

RACHEL GREENHAUS: If it's a cookbook for family use, you're going to write it differently than if it's a cookbook for expert bakers and figuring out how to get the recipe that's right for that.

MIMI AYE: It's very different from cooking in real life, I think. Which is weird because you're trying to tell people how to cook the dish.

RACHEL GREENHAUS: It would be really easy to show you, but it's hard to describe in language.

MIMI AYE: Yeah, it's a complete nightmare.

Allusionist 11: Brunchtime - transcript

May 20, 2015 The Allusionist

Motel. Email. Chocoholic. Labradoodle. Fanzine. Tanzania. Jazzercise. Breathalyzer. Televangelist. Chillax. Smog. Bromance. Velcro. Brangelina. Chrismukkah. Podcast. Jorts.

Modern English is awash with portmanteau terms, words formed from two or more words spliced together. The word ‘Portmanteau’, meaning a piece of luggage, is itself a portmanteau word from the 16th century, uniting the French words ‘porter’, meaning ‘to carry’, and ‘manteau’, meaning cloak. But credit for the Frankenword sense of 'portmanteau' goes to Lewis Carroll, in Alice Through The Looking Glass. Alice asks Humpty Dumpty to help her make sense of the Jabberwocky poem, full of portmanteaus like slithy, mimsy, galumph and chortle. “You see it's like a portmanteau,” says Humpty Dumpty, “there are two meanings packed up into one word.”

Today, I want to unpack one particular portmanteau, and that portmanteau is 'brunch'.