The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu

The Language of Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu by Dan Jurafsky , 272 pages 

My friends were probably happy when I finished reading this book, to be honest. That's because I could not stop talking about it! Every time we talked, I had some new tidbit to share. Like, did you know that ketchup and fish n chips originate from the same Chinese dish? Macaroni and macaroons originate from an almond paste from Persia - who knew!

I found it very readable. It reminded me of a show on NPR. It has certainly changed the way I understand food and world history in general. People tend to put history into categories - Asian history, European history, Middle Eastern, etc. but it's all inter-connected. This book does a wonderful job of examining those connections.

The audiobook is read by the author, which is especially helpful in this case because he is able to pronounce the foreign words correctly.