If you’ve been longing to immerse yourself in the world of food beyond cooking, consider the following ways to experience food without actually eating anything.
Wear your food: Fashions from the food world used to be something to avoid. Who wants to be seen in a toque (one of those white hats that resembles either a big mailing tube or a floppy popover)? Now, the toque is sliding aside to make room for bandanas and skullcaps. If you want to adopt this look for yourself, check out a clothing catalog for chefs. At Chefwear you’ll still find seven styles of toques, but there are 24 skullcap styles, and 11 chef wraps (or bandanas), along with baseball caps and berets. Also, check out the cool wearable gear made of fabrics printed with chili peppers, mushrooms and more, at Culinary Classics.
Pronounce your food: Today’s foreign language requirement for students ought to focus on global menu language. How many of us have ordered a glass of Chardonnay rather than Gewurztraminer simply because we weren’t sure how to pronounce the latter? Help is available, though. If you want to order at an ethnic restaurant without being misunderstood, and settle arguments among friends about whether the preferred pronunciation of the French word for goat cheese is "SHEHV-ruh" or "SHEHV," buy yourself copies of The New Food Lover’s Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst. Or, simply check out the online food dictionary at Epicurious.
Commune with other food lovers: No matter what your area of culinary interest, chances are you can find an online forum to communicate with like-minded chowhounds. At the site for the iconic KitchenAid mixer, for instance, owners of stand mixers talk about how they’ve tricked out their mixers, given them names like Rhoda and Dr. Spice Funkenstein, and ordered them in colors like Cobalt Blue and Tangerine. For those who are sleuth-minded, check out Uncle Phaedrus: Consulting Detective and Finder of Lost Recipes. This is the online community where you can find favorite flavors from your past.
Celebrate your food: Silly you, if you think food is just something to be eaten or discussed! Rather, it’s something that can be celebrated and studied, too. You’ve missed 2009 National Eat What You Want Day (it was May 11) but November is Peanut Butter Lover’s Month. (For a list of American food holidays listed by month, go here and click on food/agriculture.) If you’re more the experiential type, you might want to visit a food museum. Some are as far-flung as the devoted-to-the-drink Cachaca Museum in Maranguape Brazil, but a little closer to home you can soak up the atmosphere at Wyandot Popcorn Museum in Marion, Ohio, or Butch’s Cola Museum in Marietta (Harmar Village), Ohio.
Listen to your favorite food: No, we’re not talking about the musical fruit. But there is a website of songs devoted to food, and here, you’ll find a listing of 525 songs about food, including Cab Calloway’s “A Chicken Ain’t Nothing’ But a Bird” and Christine Lavin’s “Cold Pizza for Breakfast.”
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