Research Reveals Brits' Foody Faux Pas
Whilst millions of Brits claim to be foodies, in reality many people struggle with the pronunciation of exotic dishes and delicacies.
A poll by GLORIOUS! Foods found many common food faux pas, which include the mispronunciation of the Greek dip 'Tzatziki' and the Italian ham 'prosciutto'.
Likewise, the silent 'G' in the dish 'Gnocchi' can cause some embarrassment, while many struggle to say ‘nicoise’ correctly.
Other regular stumbling blocks can include an inability to get the tongue around words such as quesadillas, ciabatta, dauphinois and the cheese haloumi.
The study revealed one in five people order food in a restaurant they don't particularly want purely because they know how to say it, with more than a quarter of those polled admitted that they refer to the number of a dish on a menu to avoid looking stupid and pronouncing it incorrectly.
Afruj Miah, a spokesman for GLORIOUS! Foods, famed for their soups, dips and sauces using global flavours, said: -
Over the last few decades we have become a lot more experimental with food as a nation and Brits have really embraced dishes from different countries. But by doing so it would appear we struggle with the pronunciation of some well-known dishes. Cuisine from Japan, China and Mexico can be notoriously hard to say, but Brits seem to have trouble with many Italian and French dishes too, such as prosciutto and dauphinois. But it's a shame if people are avoiding ordering their favourite dishes purely because they are not sure of how to say it. Shop assistants and waiters will be used to customers ordering or buying food and not getting the pronunciation exactly correct.
Nearly two thirds of those studied said that they found many foods hard to pronounce and 14 per cent said they have been intimidated by a waiter in a posh restaurant because they were nervous about ordering.
The cuisine we struggle most with is Japanese, followed by French and Chinese, while one in twenty Brits even struggle to say blancmange correctly, not grasping the phonetic sound which is bler-monj.
Of those polled 54 per cent said they would welcome a phonetic pronunciation guide on food packaging and menus.
