Top Food Words and Thin Chocolate Slices

This week in Food News!

Many Americans think one of the best innovations in the dairy case was individually wrapped cheese slices, although some might argue the impact on the environment isn’t worth the convenience. Japan has outdone themselves with the introduction of 2mm thin individually wrapped slices of chocolate, that appear on their website to be about the same size as the cheese slices. While I don’t expect people to slather on some whipped cream and make a sandwich, they do so some inventive uses like using a cookie cutter to make different decorator shapes. The chocolate itself has an alcohol content of 1.3%. The cost? 3,240 yen for 12 bags. Thats about $26 US

The NY Times has issued their list of the top “food words” in 2015: Here are some of our favorites from their list:

CAT CAFE (n.) A concept imported from Asia (where many new residential buildings do not allow pets). This is a high-end coffee bar where patrons can also enjoy the attention of free-roaming cats. The first cat cafe in the United States, Meow Parlour, opened in Manhattan in December 2014.  

CLIMATARIAN (n.) A diet whose primary goal is to reverse climate change. This includes eating locally produced food (to reduce energy spent in transportation), choosing pork and poultry instead of beef and lamb (to limit gas emissions), and using every part of ingredients (apple cores, cheese rinds, etc.) to limit food waste.

CUISINOMANE (n.) The new official Canadian French word for “foodie,” as determined by the Office québécois de la langue française. This agency is tasked with maintaining French as a living language in Quebec, and is particularly reluctant to adopt words from English. “Cuisinomane” follows the same form as “balletomane” and “bibliomane,” meaning a person who is an obsessive fan of a certain art form.

FOODSPO (n.) Formerly known as food porn, foodspo is used mostly on Instagram to tag a particularly beautiful or inspirational picture of food (a homemade pie or cake, very often). Foodspo was back-formed from “inspo,” Internet shorthand for “inspiration.”

and my favorite:

HANGRY (adj.) The state of being so hungry that you become angry or irritable which was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2015. I thought that used to just be called, hungry?