Caterpillar Cowboy

disoriented:

Ezra Klein:

He goes on to quote a report that says the guests “ate a dinner of roasted tenderloin, grilled organic chicken and sun choke rosemary mashed potatoes.” That, he says, is “why I’m not a Democrat.”

You see this sort of thing all the time. But it’s misguided. Another way of writing that sentence is that they had a dinner of pork, chicken, and tuber. One of the tricks of food writing is that a single modifier makes something sound fancier. If I say I had onions with my meal last night, you don’t assume they were uncooked. But add “caramelized” and suddenly you’re thinking of considerably fancier food.

Similarly, there’s a difference between saying I had pork, I had roasted pork, and I had roasted pork tenderloin. Each addition makes the dish — cooked pig part — sound more impressive. Similarly, “sun choke rosemary mashed potatoes” sounds like something you’d eat at Chez Panisse. And maybe it is. But it basically denotes two types of tuber mixed with leaves from an extremely common herb. The rosemary added exactly zero dollars onto the cost of that dish.

I disagree. The point of adjectives - in any writing - is to enhance the reader’s experience. Caramelized onions are different than fried onions or sauteed onions - it connotes a flavor and texture and color. Same with describing pork as pork tenderloin - the tenderloin has a texture and mouthfeel different from, say, pork ribs.