Dirty Words

Lotje Deelman was editor-in-chief of ELLE Eten, has been working for Allerhande for almost 15 years and worked behind the scenes on television programs such as MasterChef, de Worsten van Babel On Tour and De Nieuwe Lekkerbek. She ate pig’s trotter with Anthony Bourdain and flirted with Gordon Ramsay in his Aston Martin. Lotje is the (co-)author of more than ten cookbooks and, in her kitchen in the Drenthe countryside, is never too reluctant to set something on fire. On FavorFlav, Lotje shares what occupies her every week. This time: dirty words.

A word can really be very dirty. Daghap, for example—isn’t that a dirty word? Loveless, with a hard, aggressive sound, as if someone is trying to force the food down your throat. It simply can’t be delicious if it’s called daghap, I always think.

Oxygen Tank

Or gastrobar. I just can’t get used to that one either. That made-up word Ron Blauw very cleverly turned into a new concept in the hospitality industry. Gastrobar. It sounds like the annex of a brothel, where you have to be very careful not to get ripped off, or like something that indicates the pressure in an oxygen tank. Or like a remedy for heartburn. Gastrobar. Never like a nice place where you can eat something really delicious.

Vleesflat is another one. A word from my childhood. In my parents’ refrigerator, ham, smoked meat and salami lived together in a vleesflat. A stack of flat, hard plastic containers that fit neatly on top of one another, which you can make as high or low as you like. And that you can simply put on the breakfast table. Vleesflat. No, thank you. No ham for me today. I’ll have Nutella instead. That, at least, is a delicious word.

Dolly Parton

Just like the name of Nutella’s maker, incidentally: Ferrero Rocher. Even as a child, I thought it was one of the most exotic words I knew: Ferrero Rocher. Something that sounds like that simply has to taste good. Lots of other people think so too, by the way; the Ferrero family (Rocher doesn’t even exist) is the richest chocolate family in the world. Later, I fell for Southern Comfort, which sounds and tastes like a Dolly Parton song. Sweet.

Baveux

Sometimes it’s simply a matter of Dutch, of course. Smeuïg just sounds dirty, and it’s an ugly word to look at too. Whereas the French baveux sounds exactly like what it is: sexy, technically perfect, creamy. Baveux is the unique state an omelet is in when it has been made properly and slides from the pan onto your plate. A word I first heard spoken by Joop Braakhekke. He was very good at delicious French words in general. When Mr. Braakhekke said îles flottantes (those ingenious floating islands of egg white poached in milk with vanilla sauce), you could almost taste them.

Meat Lollipop

Which brings me to mouthfeel. That’s a genuine word trauma, acquired at MasterChef. Every time I’ve heard a judge on a cooking show or a television chef say ‘mouthfeel’ since then, a shiver runs down my spine. Mouthfeel. It belongs on the same banned list of dirty words as vleesflat and vleeslolly. And smikkelen and smullen and smeerkaas. And prutje. Yuck.

Mini no-bake rainbow cheesecakes

Fortunately, there are also words that make you happy. Knabbelspek. Brengbrommer. When I had written a cheerful Easter recipe for a cream cheese brand for lice-mother types and cargo-bike kids, which I called ‘mini no-bake rainbow cheesecakes’, I initially had a bit of trouble with it myself. Because of the high millennial/food-blogger quotient of all those words together. But after a few times, I couldn’t stop saying it. Just try it. Mini no-bake rainbow cheesecakes. Nice and quick, one after the other. It rolls off the tongue quite nicely, doesn’t it?