ONOMATOPOEIA
A
guide to gourmet-lingualism in Japanese
Japanese cuisine and onomatopoeia
Do you enjoy watching ‘Iron Chef?’
Have you ever wondered what the judges are saying
in describing the beautiful dishes produced by the
chefs?
The Japanese language has a great variety of words
describing not just the taste, but also the texture
of food. Among them are the words categorised as ‘onomatopoeia’,
which mimic or describe sounds, physical states or
psychological states associated with objects or actions.
Often, such words used to describe the texture of
food are in the form of ‘doublets’ (repeated
words).
To give you a few examples, the crunchy texture of
the batter of freshly-cooked tempura would be ‘saku-saku’
(light-crunchy) or ‘kari-kari’
(crisp-crunchy); the perfectly cooked, ‘meaty’
texture of a prawn inside the batter would be ‘puri-puri’;
and the special firm-crunchy texture of abalone is
‘kori-kori’, and so on
and so forth.
On the other hand, the smooth and shiny texture of
udon noodles with which we ‘slurp’ is
‘tsuru-tsuru’, while
it is also supposed to be important that udon noodles
have ‘shiko-shiko’ (describing
the ‘elastic’ firmness). And of course,
we shouldn’t forget the slimy and sticky texture
of natto (fermented beans) – ‘neba-neba’!
So, on top of your classic exclamation ‘Oishii!’
(good), you can now add a bit of sophistication by
saying ‘Oishii! Puri-puri shiteru!’ (Good!
It has a meaty texture!)
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