That narrow valley between hills

Gorge.

Yes, that’s what a narrow valley between hills is and it generally has a stream running through it. I’m sure the naughty mind will agree that this does evoke an image of a naked woman drooling. And yet, read what foodies of today write and they don’t seem to pause but gorge on and on. Well, eating greedily or filling oneself with food is one of the meanings of the word but it is over-used. Repeated even when one has had just enough.

Will anyone please inform those who write about food that you don’t necessarily have to gorge every time. You may over indulge if the chef has worked really hard… or those times when the mind refuses to say no and keeps murmuring ‘gimme more – gimme more’, you simply go ahead and stuff yourself until you can stuff no more. But please do not gorge every time. By the way, has anyone ever informed these clichéd writers of food that a rear entrance to a fortification is also a gorge. That’s what readers will look for if you keep gorging every time you go to a restaurant or an eatery and write to promote it.

Bunny Suraiya wrote in her Facebook update that if she ‘were a newspaper editor the 2 words (to be banned) are ‘gorge’ and ‘guzzle’. It seems no one in India eats and drinks anymore. They only gorge and guzzle. Damn irritating.’ And so I went on to spend some time reading what words our own food bloggers are fond of… and yes, to guzzle and to gorge is commonplace, so are expressions like ‘finger-licking’, ‘Mmmm’, ‘Yum-yum’, ‘delicious’, ‘sinful’, ‘orgasmic’, ‘lip-smacking’, and ‘food porn’. Not just in posts but also on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. It appears that the social media is deliberately turning the world of words into a handbook of words and we sit back and smile every time we gorge and guzzle!

I must add here that every dish ever tasted by one of these dolts called food bloggers on the net is invariably the ‘best ever’ and ‘cooked to perfection’. As if anything less than perfect has never slid down their gorging gullet!

So come on, dear food bloggers, lead a normal life and just eat or enjoy eating. Use simpler and not-so-snooty words like pleasure because most of the hoi polloi who may want to go to that restaurant to have fun tasting food that the wives do not generally prepare at home. But this does not mean that the food at home isn’t ‘heavenly’ or that they never lick their fingers post-dinner. They do all this but they don’t run out shouting ‘the bhindi today was finger-licking delicious and the moong-ki-dal was sinfully orgasmic!’ But they do enjoy their meals at home.

Why must blog posts make a reader feel inadequate? They mean to actually increase his or her appetite to experiment and to go out and keep the economy going upwards. But what snooty posts do is put fear into the hearts of ordinary folk and I have seen a lot of us (yes, us) enter restaurants feeling conscious and a bit lost. The menus in these places do nothing to ease them as they use a nomenclature that means less and meanders more. They adopt words and phrases from other languages and, in the name of creative naming, use them with no care for the sort of education we Indians have had. The diner is conquered if he lifts a shy eye and calls the waiter or the maî·tre d’hô·tel and asks for a translation! The staff smiles and thinks, ‘Aha! Another one tonight to feed everything normal but dressed in a fancy garb.’ The other alternative is to point at whatever seems comprehensible and mutter, ‘Get me this one, the one with gobhi there in the middle of all this French and Latin.’ Why must bloggers be like them, is what I ask.

But then I didn’t start out crusading for simplicity in expression… all I wanted to do was to tell you that we sometimes use ridiculous words and that it is time to let them go on a vacation. Stop gorging and guzzling… and doing a lot of other things that we are all fed-up of. Good writing is like that narrow valley between hills that titillates because it gives out a different call every time you swerve your attention there.

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Bunny Suraiya on Facebook_03 Dec 2015

Yes, why do our food bloggers always ‘gorge’ and guzzle’?

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Arvind Passey
04 December 2015