Culinary Pretentions

Once upon a time, food was simple. It was either sweet or savoury. A pork pie was savoury. A trifle was sweet. And that was enough. Nobody needed a glossary of imported words to describe a ham sandwich. Then umami gate-crashed the party.

Umami – which sounds like a baby asking for their mother while sitting on a plug – is now the darling of the middle-class palate. We’re told it’s the fifth taste, as if we’ve just unlocked a bonus level in a video game. “Ooh, this stew has real umami,” trills someone who owns more than one pepper grinder. No, Karen. It has Bovril in it.

This is what happens when plain English isn’t posh enough. We used to say “tasty”. Now it’s “umami-rich” or “fermented with deep, savoury notes.” Even Marmite has had a rebrand. It’s not “salty brown gloop” anymore – it’s a “yeast-forward spread with complex umami characteristics.” Right. And Pot Noodle is ramen now, is it?

It doesn’t stop there. We’ve become obsessed with naming everything in its original language, even when we don’t speak it. Avocados are now aguacate. Chorizo must be pronounced with a throaty Spanish lisp, or people look at you like you’ve insulted their sourdough starter. And let’s not forget terroir – French for “we threw it in the dirt and now it tastes expensive.”

Then there’s the rare breed vegetable brigade. A normal carrot? Don’t be absurd. It must be a heritage Chantenay, grown by a barefoot man named Rufus who once read The Guardian cover to cover without blinking. You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted a mooli radish, apparently – though to most of us, it just tastes like spicy disappointment.

Food snobbery used to mean knowing which fork to use. Now it means recognising a cucamelon and not laughing. It’s not lunch anymore – it’s a TED Talk on soil acidity and ancient grains.

And God help you if you use iceberg lettuce. That’s basically culinary ASBO material now. You need foraged microgreens – hand-clipped by a retired ballet dancer on a foggy morning in Norfolk – or it doesn’t count. You’re not feeding people anymore – you’re curating an edible still life.

We do all this to hide our deep, trembling fear of seeming ordinary. Because saying “this is tasty” sounds childish, while “this has a deeply complex umami profile with heirloom legume notes” makes us sound like we’ve just come back from a silent retreat in Umbria.

So let’s call time on this gastro-pretentiousness. Crisps are not “umami bombs.” They’re crisps. That smoky tang? It’s barbecue flavouring, not “charred capsicum overtones.” And that purple carrot? It’s still a carrot, just colder and more disappointed in you.

Let savoury be savoury again. Let food be food. And if your next meal starts talking in foreign tongues, do the decent thing – and tell it to get off its high horse and back in the pantry.