What Does "Savory" Mean?

In English, we often divide foods into two general categories:

• Sweet foods
• Savory foods

Most English learners understand sweet, but savory can be confusing.

Savory describes foods that have a rich, flavorful taste that is not sweet. Savory foods may be salty, spicy, herby, smoky, buttery, cheesy, or meaty. Most foods we eat for breakfast, lunch, or dinner are savory.

Examples of savory foods include pizza, pasta, chicken, steak, sandwiches, salad, soup, eggs, and cheese.

Many English learners say, "I like salty food." Sometimes this is correct, but often the better word is savory.

Salty is one type of savory food.  For example: pretzels, French fries, bacon, salted popcorn, salted nuts, and potato chips have a strong taste of salt, so they are salty. However, foods like pasta, chicken, rice, vegetables, and pizza are usually described as savory, not salty.

Remember

• Sweet = sugary foods
• Savory = flavorful, but not sweet
• Salty = savory foods with a strong salt taste

So when someone asks, "Do you prefer sweet or savory foods?" they are asking whether you prefer desserts and sugary foods or regular meals and non-sweet foods.

Trending Now: Smash Burgers

 

Let’s explore one of the latest food trends everyone is talking about: smash burgers. These burgers are thin, crispy, and super tasty. 

What Are Smash Burgers?

Smash burgers are like regular burgers, but thinner and crispier. Instead of thick patties, they're made by pressing ground beef flat on a hot grill. This makes them crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside.

Why Are They Popular?

Delicious Taste: Smash burgers have a rich, savory flavor because they're cooked fast on high heat. This locks in the taste and gives them a yummy crust.

Quick Cooking: They cook in just a few minutes, perfect for when you're hungry and don't want to wait long.

Lots of Options: You can customize smash burgers with different toppings and sauces to make them your own.

Social Media Buzz: People love sharing pictures and reviews of smash burgers online, making them popular on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Nostalgia: Despite their contemporary popularity, smash burgers evoke a sense of nostalgia for simpler times. With their humble origins rooted in roadside diners and mom-and-pop burger joints, they offer a comforting taste of Americana that connects with people of all ages.

Final Thoughts

Smash burgers are a tasty and trendy option if you’re looking for a quick, flavorful meal. Whether you’re a foodie or just hungry, give them a try—they might just become your new favorite!

American culture: chef Leah Chase

Food brings people together. We mark occasions like birthdays and holidays with special dishes and meals meant to be shared. Food can unify people in other ways too. A remarkable example of that is in the life of Leah Chase, the legendary queen of Creole cuisine. 

Leah Chase, who passed away on June 2, 2019 at age 96, was a Creole chef and promoter of civil rights. She used her Creole restaurant, Dookie Chase, and her cooking talents to create the first fine dining restaurant for black customers in New Orleans. She broke segregation laws by seating blacks and whites in the same dining room and she fed the main players in the civil rights movement as well as tourists, musicians, athletes, and presidents.  

Creole (the food) is a blend of the various cultures of Louisiana (primarily the city of New Orleans), which includes French, Italian, Spanish, African, German, Caribbean, Native American, and Portuguese. Creole dishes have names that are hard to forget (gumbo, jambalaya, dirty rice, for example) and I’m happy to give them all a try. 

Leah Chase believed in the power of food to change a day, a city, and make people feel good. 

Bacon mania

People are attentive to their diets more than ever these days, trying to eat in healthier or more thoughtful ways and making food choices that reflect nutritious, personal, or religious beliefs. Here in the USA there is one puzzling exception that has a strong presence in the American food scene and it’s called bacon mania.

Mania means to have an excessive enthusiasm or desire for something, and the use of this tasty pork product in an increasing variety of recipess correlates with its growing demand. The more creative you can be with bacon, the more people like it, and food producers have become quite imaginative! There’s bacon gum, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, bacon chocolate bars, bacon cupcakes, and bacon ice cream.

If you’d rather look at bacon instead of eating it, consider a bacon watch for yourself,
bacon air freshener, a bacon wallet , or clean your teeth with some bacon toothpaste.

I personally haven’t fallen for (I’m not captivated by) the current bacon mania trend but I think I’d like to try bacon ice cream.

American kitsch: drive-in restaurants

There is a drive-in restaurant near my home called The Kiltie. It operates only during the summer season and is a rare type of restaurant in the USA, mainly because it’s nostalgic, perhaps even a dinosaur (something that is outdated or has become obsolete because of failure to adapt to changing circumstances).

At a drive-in restaurant, customers park their vehicles and are served by carhops (waitresses or waiters) who walk out to the cars to take food orders (some carhops do this on roller skates). The food is brought out on aluminum trays and clipped onto car windows. Drive-in menus normally consist of burgers, fries, sodas, and ice cream, and diners remain parked while they eat.

Don’t be mistaken to think that a drive-in restaurant is a drive-through restaurant. A drive-through restaurant doesn’t encourage diners to linger in their cars to eat and they aren’t old or nostalgic in any way. They operate to keep cars moving from the ordering window to the pay and pick-up window, where customers drive away and take their food with them.

Drive-ins are much more fun. The Kiltie, for example, was built by a Scottish businessman in the late 1940s and it hasn’t changed very much over the years. The carhops still wear plaid skirts (a kilt is a Scottish skirt), the menu is the same, and the ambience takes you back to the 1950s and 60s when drive-ins were at their height of popularity. That was a time when more people owned cars and gasoline prices were low so people were encouraged to drive and enjoy the roads.

If you visit the USA, I encourage you to find a drive-in restaurant to truly enjoy a nostalgic American experience.

American kitsch: marshmallows

All of our snow this winter reminds me of the popular Christmas song, “Marshmallow World”, that delights in snow and wintertime. Marshmallows, a sugary, spongy confection, are a kitchy food and pure fun. Kitsch is defined as art, objects, or design considered to be in bad taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but sometimes appreciated in an ironic way.

Marshmallows alone have a pleasing consistency and are fantastic if you have a sweet tooth. They're great plain from the bag, dropped in hot chocolate, covered with chocolate, or roasted on a stick. When marshmallows are an ingredient in a recipe, desserts acquire a kitschy (and amazing) quality. Think s’mores, Rice Crispies Treats, and Peeps.

Food artisans are looking at the marshmallow in a different way, trying to give it a little class. They’ve taken the soft, fuffy, gooey, irresistable treat and created flavors like cinnamon, espresso, chocolate-rosemary, mango, and other dizzying combinations. New businesses dedicated to the marshmallow have also sprung up lately; Mia Mallows and Plush Puffs are some clever, cute examples.

I prefer the clear plastic bag of plain marshmallows for .99 cents sold at my grocery store. I know it’s not very elegent, but neither is anything kitsch.

Bread and Butter

Expressions connected to food can create the perfect way to convey your meaning which is why idioms are so fun to use. In addition to cake and pie, there is bread and butter.

Bread and butter is your main source of income, a job or activity that provides you with the money you need to live.
Example: In the USA, waiters receive a small hourly wage so tips are their bread and butter.

To know which side one's bread is buttered is to know what is good or advantageous for you, to be loyal to the person or thing that will benefit you the most. This expression alludes to the more favorable, or buttered, side of bread.

Example: Melany will often work late to help her boss because she knows which side her bread is buttered.

I like bread and butter idioms. I also like eating bread and butter ;)

Tasty Snow

We had our first big snowfall one week ago so winter is officially here in Wisconsin. Children like to catch snowflakes on their tongues as it falls from the sky but I recently read that you should never eat snow. Why? Snowflakes form on small pieces of dust. When they fall from the clouds they pick up pollution in the air, so if you eat the snow you might also be eating pollution and dirt.

The emperor of Rome (Nero) had a good idea in 37 A.D. when he had his servants get snow down from the tops of mountains and mix it with honey or fruit juices for him to eat. Maybe the snow was cleaner back then without pollution to worry about. Nowadays we eat a similar treat, called snow cones.

A snow cone (also called sno-cone) isn't made with real snow, just shaved ice that looks like snow, which is put in a paper cup, then topped with a fruit-flavored syrup.
This North American favorite originated in the 1850's due to the presence of ice houses, necessary for commercial refrigeration back then. The shavings and small pieces from the ice blocks were given to children, with their mothers creating the fruity syrup for a tasty treat.

So while I don't encourage eating snow, I highly recommend snow cones, an icy treat that has endured for over 160 years, or even longer if you want to praise Nero for the creation.

Big American Breakfasts

It is often assumed by non-Americans that we here in the USA eat large, bountiful breakfasts before we begin our day: eggs, bacon, sausages, pancakes, waffles, hash brown potatoes, juice, coffee, tea, toast, muffins, croissant, fruit, oatmeal, quiche, cinnamon rolls. Not true.

Although large morning meals are recommended to start the day in a good way, it's almost impossible to sit down and eat leisurely when you're in a hurry to get out of the house to be at work or school on time. I've tried and all I usually manage to eat is a bowl of cereal because it's fast and easy.

So don't believe it if you hear that Americans eat large breakfasts. It's great if you have a breakfast meeting with a client or are on holiday but the norm is usually one of the following: a piece of toast, a cup of coffee, a bowl of cereal, a glass of juice, some yogurt. If you're lucky, you might have time to sit down while you eat.

S’mores

August 10 is National S’mores Day! What is a s’more, you ask? Well, have you ever eaten something so delicious that you craved some more? Of course! A s’more is a summer campfire dessert that is almost a requirement at any barbecue or outdoor cookout in the USA.

S’mores, a contraction of the phrase some more, are a popular, sweet campfire treat made of roasted marshmallows and a layer of chocolate, sandwiched between two graham crackers. And they are so tasty that normally people want a second serving, or some more (s’more). S'mores are popular because the simple ingredients make a perfect balance of flavors: the marshmallow is gooey and sweet, the chocolate is smooth, and the graham cracker is crispy and crunchy.

The treat was originated by campers in the early part of the 20th century, using a rather new mass-produced product, marshmallows. Marshmallows were easy to transport, as were candy bars and graham crackers, and they could be toasted without difficulty on a stick over a fire to make a delicious treat in a situation where other types of sweets would have been difficult to prepare.

So mark August 10 on your calendar for S’mores Day and make sure you plan your barbecue with the essential ingredients on hand for this super sweet summer treat.