As I understand it, there are areas of Italy where it's pronounced "Broo-shetta" and areas where it's pronounced "Broo-SKET-ta". I've even heard "Broo-Chet'ah" on occasion. I don't think this is terribly far-fetched... there are lots of words in English that are pronounced differently based on where you're hailing from. Schedule, aunt, milk, orange, etc...

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personally, i have a bigger food word rant, and it's something that probably 90% of the people who talk about food get wrong: the pronunciation of the word "culinary". it's "kyoo-linary", not "cull-linary". i don't understand why people don't know that. i remember learning that word (and it's pronunciation) in 3rd or 4th grade.

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tomato, potato...
it's all the same...
how the finished result comes out, now that's something to rant about. brushetta @ jack in the box? who does their market research anyway?

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Food Lover's Companion lists both pronunciations. Almonds also have an alternate pronuncition of ay-munds. It is time for you to find something else to "piss you off" By the way, my food pet peeve is when people use their perceived level of food knowledge to boost their self worth. It is just food. The important part is the eating of it. After all, if I am in America isn't it really toast with tomatoes?

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Language is ultimately not a force you can control, and there is no 'wrong'. It evolves and mutates. Deep seated anger at the way people speak and write is politically based. Language is power. Losing the language to another cultural or political group is a scary thing. It's a normal, primal emotion; but be careful, down that road lies racism.

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Webster's accepts both kyoolinary and cullinary, tr. BTW, you should have used "its pronunciation", not the contraction for "it is pronunciation".

My pet peeve is people who order an "expresso" after dinner.

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There was a great opening to a Mario Eats Italy where Mario and Rooney are sitting in an outdoor cafe and Rooney complains that they haven't brought any olive oil for him to dip his brush-etta in. Mario does the whole OO and pronunciation explanation, then Rooney taunts him by singing brush-etta over and over again until the head in to make the real thing.

How about the fact that bruscare simply means "to roast over coals" yet JitB clearly thinks it means using Ciabatta bread, provolone, and diced tomatoes? At least they got the traditional bread correct (and they say it's "lightly toasted"). It's all in the popular perception of what the word means. If they called it bruschetta and that only meant they toasted it over coals, people would be confused and disappointed that it didn't have some kind of italian-style spread on it.

BTW, according to my dictionary, both pronunciations are correct for culinary.

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While we are at it...with 17 years cooking in restaurants as a basis, I have never met anyone who did not bristle at the term culinarian. If someone believes that term best describes them I would hope that I do not have to sit next to you at dinner. The ACF has a certification for Culinarian, but the ACF is worthy of it's own thread so we won't get into that right now.

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To quote Vincent Antonelli:

"You tryin' to say capisce? Well, don't do it, because it hurts my ears when you do it."

When it comes to improper pronounciation of ethnic foods, there's some unadressed context that I think heightens the irritation. In my experience, a carelessness or lack of knowledge in the pronounciation of an ethnic food has a tendency to walk hand in hand with a carelessness or lack of knowledge in the preparation of said ethnic food. And for somebody who cares deeply about food as a cultural and artistic medium, there's nothing more frustrating than somebody who pops a can of Spaghetti-o's and calls it fantastic pasta (I am, for the record, a junk food defender, Spaghetti-o's included, but to draw any connection between Spaghetti-o's and Italian pasta is simply absurd). So before this rambles too far off-topic, I suspect that irritation at mispronounciation of Italian foods, while it has a little to do with pure language issues, is mostly borne of frustration about dumbed-down Americanized cuisine.

And David Blaine, I agree that there's a line to be crossed after which people are bleating knowledge to heighten self-worth, but if food is art and culture, then how can you not expect people to get passionate about it? And while I suspect that you're just trying to make a point when you insist that "it's just food", the fact that you're reading and commenting on a dedicated food blog suggests that you believe otherwise.

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Dmnkly has me pegged: What I find infinitely more frustrating than mere mispronounciation is indeed the dumbing-down of "real" food to the fast food level. What began as a sublime combination of "toast with tomatoes" is now a Jack-in-the-Box burger; Wendy's, I believe, offers a "Greek" salad. Junk food?? I can totally get down with it, particularly when under the influence of the hormone imperative. But please, don't tell me Olive Garden is Italian.

Huffy

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The fact that Jack and the Box chooses to use terms like Bruschetta proves that we are too easily influenced by the language of food. Anyone who has spent time writing menus knows that the use of buzzwords has profound effect on the public perception of food quality. As far as dumbing down the lingua culinaria goes, there have been thousands of obscure ethnic terms that have been brought into the global vernacular and thus stolen from our cache of cool terms. Don't get me wrong by thinking I am a stick in the mud here, I believe in pet peeves and the importance of opinion. I belive that the use of esoteric, ambigious terms like "lemon escence" in the food world is a grave mortal sin punished with a life sentance of Thai Chicken Caesar Wraps.

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Oooh can I add my prounounciation peeve? SAKI! for Sak-eh when pronouncing the japanese beverage Sake.

Yeah yeah it's in a dicitionary somewhere that american's pronounced it SAKI, but that doesn't mean squat to me.

Ok I'm done :)

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"5. Webster's accepts both kyoolinary and cullinary, tr. BTW, you should have used "its pronunciation", not the contraction for "it is pronunciation""

forget about pronunciation, someone needs to learn HOW TO READ. i said:

"2. personally, i have a bigger food word rant, and it's something that probably 90% of the people who talk about food get wrong: the pronunciation of the word "culinary". it's "kyoo-linary", not "cull-linary"."

let's see, where's the part where i said "it is pronunciation"? oh, yes, that's right, i didn't. i said "IT IS "kyoo-linary", referring to the pronunciation of the word.

good job in wrongly pointing out people's incorrect grammar, Rob.

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I see a commenter beat me to the sake "sa-ki vs. sa-kay" example, but here`s my twist: when I`m in Japan, I order "sa-kay," and when I`m in an American Japanese restaurant with fellow Americans, I order "sa-ki." I really don`t care what anyone calls it, as long as it`s not One Cup Ozeki from a vending machine. If I ever get to Italy, I will order "broo-SKET-ta," but if I`m ever at Jack-in-the-Box, I will order "broo-shetta."

I think it is far more important to communicate effectively in a given situation rather than insist on being by-the-book correct all the time, and this is especially true with something as primal as FOOD. Language is a living, changing thing -- get used to it.

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P.S. -- Sher-bert or sor-bay? It depends on whether you`re at a good French restaurant, or a Howard Johnson`s.

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That's funny, Justin H., because I've heard Mario say "expresso" instead of "espresso" many a time.

Hmm.

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