Food Language: Literally Local??

I am making my way through the New York Times Magazine Food Issue from last week and was particularly entertained by William Safire’s piece on the vocabulary of food trends. You may know that “locavor” was the Oxford American Dictionary’s word of the year. Mr. Safire explains how the term was born, and tells of the offshoots now being used. However, what I find particularly interesting about his piece is the opening vignette he tells of his quest to find out if his store bought orange juice really was “home squeezed” as it said on the box. He called the company and asked the product manager, “In whose ‘home’ had my orange juice been squeezed?” to which the rep answered, “When you squeeze oranges at home, you get more pulp. We use ‘home squeezed’ to differentiate between our pulpy product and our nonpulp juice.” Thus, “home squeezed,” to the Florida Orange Juice company actually means, “tastes as if it was squeezed at home,” but they fail to explain THAT anywhere on the box. So basically, using the term “home squeezed” is a marketing ploy to touch one’s sentiment and one’s desire to eat food close to home.

Ha! I thought this was really funny. The “locavore” trend is everywhere, even in big industry now. The other day I walked into the Treasure Island grocery store in Hyde Park where they were selling, “Local Green Bell Peppers”. There was no mention as to where these “local” bell peppers came from, nor was there anywhere in the store that explained the store’s definition of “local”. All that I can think is that the managers at Treasure Island define “local” as “on planet Earth” because each pepper had a little sticker on it that read, “M&R Company U.S.A.” Something tells me that the little farm in Indiana does not put plastic stickers on their peppers, and they are not called “M&R Company”.

Anyway, Safire’s point is that there is such a bizarre and extensive lexicography around food trends. It’s a great piece to boot; I recommend you read it. Anyway, more on the NYT Food Issue later. My response to Michael Pollan’s article will be up in coming days. For now, check out this brilliant cartoon by Bruce Eric Kaplan; the same one Safire references in his article.



"Local" grapefruits growing in my parents backyard. Key ingredient to the infamous, KLB "Local" Grapefruit Margarita.