Kitchen Clichés

You think sports reporting is replete with clichés? You should try watching cooking shows.

We all know that flavor doesn’t weigh even a fraction of an ounce. It’s a sense, like sight or hearing or touch or smell. Is it possible to quantify how much any of those measure (except metaphorically)?

So why do TV cooking show hosts always talk about an ingredient or dish having “a ton of flavor”? Hell, if something that tastes good weighs that much, you wouldn’t even be able to lift it past your lips.

There’s a lot of talk about “popping” something into the oven. You can’t pop something into the oven, or the refrigerator, or the microwave. Have you ever heard a pop when you put something in something else? I betcha not.

Y’know, maybe cooks are running out of words to use. Maybe cooking show producers want to ignore common English phrases and mix their metaphors, thinking the monologue will sound more interesting. Not! It just makes cooking hosts sound stupid.

And how come they still use outdated and archaic words and descriptions? There’s no such thing as “tin foil” anymore. It’s “aluminum foil.”

And what about "iceboxes"? We haven’t had iceboxes in our kitchens since they stopped delivering ice in huge blocks from the backs of horse-drawn carts using ice tongs.

And that big appliance you use to cook … it’s not a stove. Stoves burn wood. It’s a range with an oven.

No wonder our country can’t convert to metric. We’re just plain stuck in our past.