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I learned a new word today


Alex

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...thanks to A.Word.A.Day

 

Aristology

 

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Aristology is the art or science of cooking and dining. It encompasses the preparation, combination, and presentation of dishes and the manner in which these dishes are integrated into a meal.

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An Aristologist is someone who studies or takes part in the art or science of cooking and eating (dining) with particular interests and skills in the preparation, combination and presentation of food dishes, wines, spirits, flavours and tastes - coupled with tasteful and correct presentation of all the courses and components of a meal.

 

The term has been largely superseded by "gourmet", which is also the older word, borrowed into English in 1820.

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"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

A king can stand people's fighting, but he can't last long if people start thinking. -Will Rogers, humorist

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Nero Wolfe was invited to a Ten for Aristology dinner some years ago. Naturally someone died and Archie Goodwin had to help Mr. Wolfe solve the murder.

 

Edited to add: Poison à la Carte is a mystery novella first published 1960 from Wikipedia

 

 

Edited by TdeV (log)
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12 minutes ago, TdeV said:

Nero Wolfe was invited to a Ten for Aristology dinner

Love Nero Wolf. Started reading his books when I was about 10 and I can read them over and over.

Aristology is an interesting concept. I can understand the science of cooking and food preparation but I always considered presentation more of an art.

And at what point can one be considered an aristologist? Is it a learned science or can anyone become one?

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Aristology is a highly obscure word, seldom used. Derived from the Greek ἄριστο-ν breakfast, luncheon + -λογία discourse and meaning "the art or ‘science’ of dining". It enjoyed a brief, somewhat pretentious vogue in the 19th centurry, then all but disappeared.

 

Gourmet is the older word in terms of first recorded written usage, but only by 15 years, a negligible time in word dating. There is no way of knowing which was in spoken use first. They would be considered contemporaneous by etymologosts.


Also 'gourmet' referred to a person and not a science or art, so not synonymous. The more related term would be aristologist. The quasi-adjectival usage of gourmet didn't appear until the early 1900s, some 65 years after aristologist.

 

 

 

 

Edited by liuzhou (log)
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...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

"No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot"
Mark Twain
 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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