A Generative Grammar of Culinary Traditions

A GENERATIVE GRAMMAR OF CULINARY TRADITIONS

Culinary traditions are like traditional languages, with specific elements that come together in specific ways. Just as a language grammar has rules about how language elements come together, so do culinary traditions have rules about how food elements can come together.

A generative grammar of culinary traditions would, for instance, describe how combinations of vegetables, spices and grains might be arranged differently in, for instance, Indian or Thai or Mexican cooking.

The representational system for this grammar is still under development, but major Food Group classifications include:

V: vegetable
F: fruit
M: meat (including fish, insects and other living proteins)
G: grain
S: spices (including seeds, herbs and salt}
D: dairy

Within any of these larger Food Group classifications, members of the Food Group are represented parenthetically:

V(C): vegetable (corn)
F(A): fruit (apple)
M(B): meat (beef)
G(W): grain (wheat)
S(S): salt
D(B): butter

Variations across Food Group members are also be represented parenthetically, with lower case letters:

V(C,y): vegetable (corn,yellow)
F(A,d): fruit (apple, Delicious)
M(B,g): meat (beef, ground)

Cooking (or “heating,” H) can be represented:

Hb: boil
Hs: steam
Hf: fry

Just as a single word can function as a subject or object, so can individual Food Group members function as principal or subordinate elements, depending upon the syntax of the culinary utterance within the specific culinary tradition. As an example, the All-American corn-on-the-cob I had for breakfast would be represented as:

V(Cy) X Hb + D(B)

The corn is boiled and butter is added.

However, the equally All-American creamed corn I may make later today would be represented as:

[[D(B) X H] + V(Cy)] + D(C) + S(S)] X H

The butter is heated, corn is added, then cream and salt are added and the whole is heated.

At this stage in the grammar’s development, we do not represent such actions as the cutting technique (e.g., how the corn is cut from the cob) nor portions or actual cooking time, and in this regard it’s important to recognize that this generative grammar is NOT a recipe book: it is simply a look into the deep and surface structures of specific culinary statements within a culinary tradition. It’s not a set of rules to be followed but rather a description of established practices of food preparation within a cultural context (or culinary language group).

This grammar would enable a user to determine the grammaticality of individual dishes, which are the surface structure manifestations of universal deep structures. For instance, here is a universal deep structure:

F + G

Fish and grain are eaten in just about every part of the world; this is a deep structure. The following is one of many surface structural manifestation of this deep structure:

M(F,t) + [G(R) + V(H,w)]

This is sushi. Toro is applied to a mixture of rice and wasabi (a variant of horseradish, in the vegetable Food Group). Such an equation, fully acceptable in Japan, would be ungrammatical in, say, the Spanish culinary tradition – however, through a series of systematically applied rewrite rules (under development), this food combination could be rendered grammatically acceptable in the Spanish culinary tradition. These rewrite rules would specify, for instance, the deletion of horseradish (wasabi) and the addition of spice (saffron) and heat. These systematically applied rewrite rules would transform the surface structural manifestation we call “sushi” into the surface structural manifestation we call “paella,” a perfectly grammatical culinary statement in the Spanish culinary language.

Similarly, and through a somewhat more sophisticated sequence of transformations, a deep structure like a cheese sandwich, through the systematic application of sequential rewrite rules (and ham) is transformed into a ham and cheese sandwich; through the application of additional rewrite rules that specify heat, egg and poultry (chicken or turkey), this surface structure is further transformed into a Monte Cristo sandwich; and through a final application of rewrite rules that specify raspberry jelly, the fundamental deep structure of the primal cheese sandwich is transformed into the Monte Cristo as served at Bennigan’s.

This grammar does not currently account for “fusion” preparations, which would be universally ungrammatical though not prohibited. In this sense, “fusion” preparations gain expressive power by violating norms in the same sense that poetry violates standard grammatical principles in the service of aesthetic expression. It is possible, of course, that further investigation will reveal that “fusion” cuisines follow culinary dialect patterns that have not yet been established.

As this grammar develops, it will not only account for most existing preparations within a culinary tradition, but, more interestingly, it will generate new preparations within the same culinary tradition. One might even create a computer program that incorporates deep structural principles and rewrite rules for a specific culinary tradition; a computer of average power could then generate new culinary phrases and sentences (side dishes or entrees) that are entirely consistent and grammatical with a culinary tradition. In this sense, it would be theoretically possible to produce an infinite number of “traditional” French meals that no Frenchman has yet tasted.

Dear Noam Hammond,



Just a note, however, regarding your hypothesis on fusional cuisine. Perhaps our top chefs have adopted Chomsky's latest framework, The Minimalist Program, which -- besides being maximally minimal -- renounces the earlier reliance on deep structure. No deep structure? Well, of course you get foams and lollipops and edible pictures. It all falls out from general principles....

Amata

David Hammond wrote:As this grammar develops, it will not only account for most existing preparations within a culinary tradition, but, more interestingly, it will generate new preparations within the same culinary tradition. One might even create a computer program that incorporates deep structural principles and rewrite rules for a specific culinary tradition; a computer of average power could then generate new culinary phrases and sentences (side dishes or entrees) that are entirely consistent and grammatical with a culinary tradition. In this sense, it would be theoretically possible to produce an infinite number of “traditional” French meals that no Frenchman has yet tasted.

You have presented an interesting way to analyze and compare different food cultures, but your last paragraph puzzles me. What would be the benefit to anyone of using this model to create new dishes? Culinary traditions have everything to do with historic availablility of ingredients, technologies, and economic resources. Many of the "traditional" French dishes are based on conditions that no longer exist. Whether or not we feel the need to adhere to traditions, the human mind has enough capacity without the use of such systems to take advantage of available resources to create new ways of enjoying our fuel.

Bill/SFNM

Dear LTH,

I have often written of the joys of H(C)+M2 here. But last night, at Les Snippy, I had one of the finest D(7PM)s I have ever had.

Chef Snippy started us off with an A of CX-J over 7 in a (-W). The CX were P, almost N, with a kind of J3/S R-ness that was almost over-G3ing.

Our main courses included PQ(R)+G502n, with a side of V(B), and an outstanding rGB-7x4 which had been neatly T(E)3d to form the outline of PK-T+D. A really clever touch!

For dessert, we had 3.14159. Mine was G5, my wife's was 7520.

OU812?

David Hammond wrote:A GENERATIVE GRAMMAR OF CULINARY TRADITIONS

Hammond,

As I still haven't finished my 1993 Easy Rider crossword puzzle I'm relatively certain I don't quite get the full scope of your post. I, however, did notice your Generative Grammar seems, on the surface, to reflect Ferran Adria's Table of Associations aka The Map.

Is this by design, through consultation with Adria at his Laboratory in Barcelona, or simply a case of great culinary minds thinking along the same lines?

Wonderfully interesting post, much food for thought.

Yours in awe,
Gary

Amata wrote:Just a note, however, regarding your hypothesis on fusional cuisine. Perhaps our top chefs have adopted Chomsky's latest framework, The Minimalist Program, which -- besides being maximally minimal -- renounces the earlier reliance on deep structure.

Noam and I don't talk much anymore. Renouncing deep structure? Unbelievable. Next thing you know, he'll be renouncing anarcho-syndicalism.

Hammond

David, your "Traditions" programme is, well, completely synchronic, no? Oughtn't you to extend your analytic apparatus to include the effects of politics, war, technology, and culture on food, thereby making it diachronic? But, I could be wrong, I'm just not Saussure (cough, cough).

No, no, no. The problem with Hammond's programme is not its blatant and unapologetic synchronicity - already a cliche, with little intellectual Sting some 20 years ago - but its jaw-dropping priviledging of a false objectivity,the system for which is clearly a stalking horse for the deeply hegemonic objectives of its few but vocal champions.

Regressive where it should be transgressive, syncretic where it should, as you wisely and wittily point out, be diachronic, it is a transparent bit of culinary colonialism in empirical sheep's clothing, and should be seen and derided (or Derrida'd) as such.

While I doubt the many serious practitioners in the discipline will be taken in by such a pose, it nonetheless poses a threat by its mere expression and dissemination in such a forum. Should it go unanswered, there will indeed be little (3) happiness in our futures.

Hammond is correct in saying that deep structure has indeed long been renounced (in favor of deep frying) [see Wiviot, Oil, Smoke, and the Unbearable Lightness of Lard (Chicago: Hecky, Honeywon & Mortons, 1993], but does not redeem utterly reactionary neo-Hegelian foundation of his thinking.

I trust I have made my point.[/i]