The Language of Cookbooks and Recipes

Home , Nigella Lawson, The language

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools

Dominika Klenová

The Language of Cookbooks and Recipes

Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Jana Pelclová, Ph.D

2010

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

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Acknowledgement

I would like to thank both my supervisors, namely Mgr. Robert Hanč and Mgr. Jana Pelclová, Ph.D, for their guidance, help and valuable advice throughout the process of writing this thesis.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction ...... 7 2. Recipe – Definition of the Concept ...... 9 3. The Recipe from the Linguistic Point of View ...... 11 3.1. Recipe as a Written Text ...... 11 3.2. Hypothesis ...... 12 4. Approaches Adopted in the Study of Recipes ...... 14 4.1. Sublanguage ...... 14 4.2. Style ...... 15 4.3. Genre ...... 16 4.5. Register ...... 18 4.6. Register and Genre ...... 19 4.7. Register Analysis and Genre Analysis ...... 20 4.8. Summary ...... 22 5. Description of the Research and Methodology ...... 23 5.1. Methodology ...... 23 5.2. Data Selection ...... 24 5.3. Description of the Linguistic Analysis ...... 25 5.5. Research on Registers ...... 26 6. Situational Characteristics of Recipes ...... 27 6.1. Communicative Characteristics of Participants ...... 28 6.2. Relations between Addressor and Addressee ...... 29 6.3. Setting ...... 30 6.4. Channel ...... 31 6.5. Relation of Participants to the Text ...... 32 6.6. Purposes, Intents, and Goals ...... 34 6.7. Topic / Subject ...... 35 6.9. Summary ...... 36 7. Analysis of the Register of Recipes ...... 37 7. 1. Lexical Level ...... 38 7.1.1. Nouns ...... 38 7.1.2 Proper Nouns ...... 42 7.1.3. Loan Words ...... 44 7.1.4. Kitchen Utensils and Cookery Equipment ...... 46 7.1.5. Partitives ...... 50 7.1.6. Numbers ...... 53 7.1.7. Abbreviations ...... 56 7.1.9. Articles ...... 57 7.1.10. Adjectives ...... 58 7.1.11. Verbs ...... 60 7.1.13. Phrasal Verbs ...... 65 7.1.14. Verb Forms ...... 67 7.1.15. Tense, Aspect, Voice ...... 69 7.1.16. The Lexical Density ...... 72 7.1.17. Collocations and Fixed Expressions ...... 73 7.1.18. Summary ...... 74 7. 2. The Level of Grammar and Syntax ...... 75 7.2.1 The Compound Sentence ...... 76 7.2.2. The Complex Sentence ...... 78 7.2.3. Direct Object Omission ...... 84 7.2.4. Ellipsis ...... 88 7.2.5 Compound Nouns ...... 92 7.2.5. Summary ...... 93 7.3. The Level of Discourse ...... 93 7.3.1. Linguistic Devices of Discourse Organization ...... 94 7.3.1. Non-linguistic Cohesive Devices ...... 99 7.3.2. Summary ...... 106 8. Formality and Informality in Recipes ...... 107 8. 1. Contracted Forms ...... 107 8. 2 Expressive Adjectives ...... 109 8. 3. Verb Phrases with „give‟, „get‟ and „have‟ ...... 110 8. 4. Phrasal Verbs ...... 111 8.5. Non-explicit Expressions ...... 112 8.6. Exclamations ...... 113 8.7. Miscellanea ...... 114 8.8. Proximity of Participants ...... 115 8.8.1. Pronouns „you‟ and „your‟ ...... 115 8.8.2. Personal Pronouns „I‟ ...... 119 8.9. Summary ...... 124 9. Evaluation of the Primary Hypothesis ...... 126 9.1. Evaluation of Five Criteria of Writtenness ...... 126 9.1.1. Absence of Pronouns ...... 126 9.1.2. The Contracted Forms ...... 127 9.1.3. The Abbreviations ...... 127 9.1.4. Rich Structure and Organization of Complex Clauses ...... 127 9.1.5. Passive Voice, Present Tense and Simple Aspect ...... 128 9.2. Evaluation of Five Criteria of Spokenness ...... 128 9.2.1. Ellipsis ...... 128 9.2.2. Vague language ...... 129 9.2.3. Coordination ...... 129 9.2.4. Informal and Expressive Language ...... 129 9.2.5. Incomplete Clauses ...... 130 9.3. Summary ...... 130 10. Differences between Cookbooks ...... 132 10.1 Gordon Ramsay ...... 132 10.2 Jamie Oliver ...... 134 10.3. Nigella Lawson ...... 136 10.4. Language Differences from the Point of View of Sociolinguistic Characteristics of the Writers ...... 139 10.3. Summary ...... 140 11. Evaluation of the Secondary Hypothesis ...... 141 12. Conclusion ...... 142 Bibliography ...... 144 Summary ...... 147 Resumé ...... 148 Appendix - Corpus ...... 149

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Demographic Description of Addressors ...... 29 Table 2: Overview of Situational Characteristics ...... 138

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Occurrences of Nouns ...... 39 Figure 2: Occurrences of Nouns Designating Ingredients ...... 39 Figure 3: Occurrences of Proper Nouns ...... 43 Figure 4: Occurrences of Nouns Designating Cooking Utensils ...... 47 Figure 5: Occurrences of Partitives ...... 50 Figure 6: Occurrences of the most Frequent Partitives ...... 52 Figure 7: Occurrences of Numerical Expressions ...... 54 Figure 8: Occurrences of Abbreviations ...... 56 Figure 9: Occurrences of Articles ...... 58 Figure 10: Occurrences of Adjectives ...... 59 Figure 11: Occurrences of Verbs ...... 61 Figure 12: Occurrences of the most Frequent Verbs ...... 62 Figure 13: Occurrences of Phrasal Verbs ...... 65 Figure 14: Occurrences of Verb Forms ...... 68 Figure 15: Occurrences of Non-present Tenses ...... 69 Figure 16: Occurrences of Aspect ...... 70 Figure 17: Occurrences of Passive ...... 70 Figure 18: Occurrences of Coordinating Conjunctions ...... 76 Figure 19: Occurrences of Participle Constructions and ‘to’ infinitives ...... 79 Figure 20: Occurrences of Time Clauses ...... 80 Figure 21: Occurrences of ‘for’ ...... 81 Figure 22: Occurrences of Conditional Clauses ...... 82 Figure 23: Occurrences of ‘it’ as Direct Object Pronouns ...... 86 Figure 24: Occurrences of Ellipsis in Adverbial Time Clauses ...... 89 Figure 25: Occurrences Ellipsis in Conditional Clauses ...... 90 Figure 26: Occurrences of Ellipsis in Partitives ...... 91 Figure 27: Occurrences of ‘then’ ...... 94 Figure 28: Occurrences of Linking Devices Expressing Simultaneity of Actions ...... 96 Figure 29: Occurrences of ‘first’, ‘finally’ and ‘eventually’ ...... 97 Figure 30: Overview of the Cohesive Devices Used ...... 98 Figure 31: Occurrences of Contracted Forms ...... 108 Figure 32: Occurrences of Personal Pronouns ‘you’ ...... 116 Figure 33: Occurrences of Possessive Pronouns ‘your’ ...... 118 Figure 34: Occurrences of Personal Pronouns ‘I’ ...... 120 Figure 35: Occurrences of Possessive Pronouns ‘my’ ...... 120 Figure 36: Occurrences of Reason Clauses ...... 137 Figure 38: Occurrences of Clauses of Manner ...... 137 Figure 39: Occurrences of Concessive Clauses ...... 137

1. Introduction

Food has always been a topic of fascination for the general public. This may be “evidenced by the huge numbers of published cookbooks as well as the centrality of food in many marvelous works of literature” (Counihan 1997: 2). However, the interest given to food and nearly everything related to it has intensified greatly over recent years. “Indeed, a curious and pervasive interest in everything related to food, food preparation, food representation, recipe books, culinary culture, nourishment etc. has emerged in contemporary life within the last decades” (Ikas n.d.: 411 - 415 ). The attention given to food in various disciplines corresponds to this interest. “Food has become the subject of extensive scholarship in various disciplines” (Ikas n.d.: ibid), these disciplines ranging from social studies, ethnographic studies, dietitian and medical studies, psychological studies, literary and cultural studies, media studies and many more. However, the attention devoted to this topic in the field of linguistics has been incomparably smaller. Though recipes and cookbooks have been a well-established part of literary publishing for several centuries, there has been a large boom in recipe production in the last few decades. This boom has resulted in the fact that recipes are no longer confined exclusively to cookery books, but are now also a common feature of television programmes, the internet, newspapers, magazines, films and novels (Floyd 2003: 1). “Television offers more than 40 hours of food programming a week, and over the last five years the number of magazines about food and cooking doubled, their circulation tripled and readership quadrupled” (Sams 2003: 13). It is therefore not too surprising that “cookbooks top the non-fiction best-seller lists all the year round” (Sams 2003: 14) and that the chefs and writers of these books have become famous, sometimes world famous celebrities with their own cookery programmes. This MA thesis reflects the increased interest in cookbooks and recipes. However, the main concern of the thesis is the recipe examined from a linguistic perspective. In the thesis I venture to take a closer look at this topic from a linguistic point of view, my object of study being the language of recipes and cookery texts as used in three cookbooks by three British chefs and cookbook authors. As far as the organization of the thesis is concerned, the thesis contains both the theoretical treatment of recipes and practical analysis of a sample of recipes. Chapters 2 – 6 provide the theoretical preliminaries of the research. These preliminaries include the identification of the characteristic features of a regular and typical recipe, the definition of

recipe as a piece of written text from a linguistic point of view, approaches adopted in the study of recipes so far, an explanation of methodology and data selection, and the definition of situational characteristics pertaining to the recipes under analysis. Chapter 7 presents the main analysis of the data on three main levels: the lexical level, the level of syntax and the level of discourse. This analysis is followed by an analysis of the sample of recipes from the point of view of formality and informality. The final chapters 9 - 11 attempt to interpret the data and summarize the main findings yielded by the research.

2. Recipe – Definition of the Concept

Probably everyone has an idea of what a recipe is, what it looks like and what parts it consists of. Indeed, “many texts within the same genre follow similar patterns of layout, style and language. Most people within a Westernised culture have a pretty fixed idea of what a recipe genre, for example, involves; we could even say we hold a stereotypical view of a recipe” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 46). In spite of this, for the purposes of delimiting the key concept of the thesis, this chapter intends to identify the characteristic features that represent inalienable parts of every recipe. A recipe in the modern sense of the word is defined as “a set of instructions telling you how to prepare and cook food, including a list of what food is needed for this” (Cambridge Online Dictionary). The Longman English Dictionary of Culture (2003) gives a shorter definition, saying that it is “a set of instructions for cooking a particular type of food” and the Oxford English Dictionary defines the word in a modern way as “a statement of the ingredients and procedure required for making something, (now) esp. a dish in cookery”. All the definitions stated above agree that, in general terms, recipe stands for a set of instructions that describe and show how to prepare or make something; in more specific terms, this something is usually a culinary dish. The definitions provided suggest what the constituent parts of a regular recipe are. The recipe consists of several organizing elements that make it one single whole. Although there are some variations across the genre of recipes, as is the case in most existing genres, there are certain features which characterize the genre and help to make it clearly recognizable and distinguishable from other genres. First, I will discuss the features which are common to the majority of recipes across the genre and which therefore represent core features of a prototypical recipe. Every recipe normally consists of several main components. It begins with the title, which specifies the name of the dish. The title is followed by the list of ingredients (sometimes the ingredients are listed in the order in which they are needed), which are required for the preparation of the dish. Ingredients are more often than not accompanied by their quantities and/or proportions that correspond to the number of servings (if these are specified). Finally, what a vast majority of recipes includes is an ordered list of preparation steps, also called preparation procedures, preparation techniques or method. Apart from the basic above-mentioned parts of a recipe, there are some other

components which may not be common to all recipes, but are nevertheless typical of the genre and very often appear in many instances of modern culinary recipes. Some recipes may give further details and specifications as to the environment and equipment needed to prepare the dish. The recipe may also provide a rough estimation of the number of servings that the dish will provide as well as an estimation of how much time it will take to prepare the dish. Some recipes include information on how long the dish keeps and its suitability for freezing. For many recipes, especially those concerned with healthy lifestyle, keeping fit or with some dietary problems, it is not unusual for nutritional information and information on the amount of energy in the food to be included. The food‟s calorific content is typically measured and usually stated in the form of the approximate number of calories or joules contained per serving. Nutritional information includes the numbers of grams of protein, fat, and carbohydrates per serving along with the vitamin content. All of the above mentioned typical characteristics of a recipe pertain to the actual preparation of the dish. However, modern recipes also very often include some additional facts about a recipe which are not directly related to the preparation of the dish itself. These additional facts mostly serve the purpose of providing some more details about the recipe and the dish in general. They may include the history of the dish or other culturally related information and details. As far as the length of a recipe is concerned, a regular recipe is traditionally and conventionally a rather short piece of writing, taking up approximately one page of written text. However, the idea of a recipe as a short and concise piece of writing may be challenged by some of the modern cookbooks, as will be shown in the practical analysis of the recipes. Interestingly enough, in some cases, the background information mentioned above is sometimes even longer than the recipe itself. As was already mentioned and as will be shown in the next practical part, there is considerable internal variation across the genre. Though it is certainly true that “many texts within the same genre follow similar patterns of layout, style and language” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 46), differences in all these aspects are nevertheless noticeable. This is also very true of the organizing components of recipes. Since the way a recipe is organized may influence the language of a recipe, the actual linguistic analysis will necessarily take account of the differences in organization of recipes studied.

3. The Recipe from the Linguistic Point of View

The present chapter discusses the recipe from a purely linguistic point of view as a recognizable language variety whose syntax and vocabulary have developed certain distinctive features in response to different factors of external conditioning. The discussion of the recipe is based on the assumption that the recipe, as characterized by the setting in which it is typically used, by the communicative functions it has and by the participants it involves, developed over the course of time and through its repeated and regular occurrences in society and throughout history certain identifying markers of its language structure and language use, which are different from language used on other occasions, in different settings, i.e. in different communicative situations (Ferguson 1994: 20 - 21).

3.1. Recipe as a Written Text

Recipes are regarded in this thesis as representatives of written discourse. Admittedly, “we can convey similar messages either in speaking or writing because our purpose may be the same […] but the language will vary between the two” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 89). Therefore, though the message conveyed by the recipe may be transmitted in both oral and spoken mode, the language of the recipe would be different in terms of both grammar and vocabulary used. Therefore, to limit the scope of the thesis, cases when a recipe is provided in spoken form are not considered. Moreover, there are not many cases of recipes produced in spoken mode. While it can be admitted that, in the past, recipes may have been spread through tradition without being written down, nowadays pure cases of recipes produced in spoken form are not very common. Recipes delivered in spoken form may be present especially in cookery TV programmes, where the process of cooking usually takes place in a real time and place. The whole process of cooking is being orally commented upon by the presenter, which gives rise to a recipe being given in the spoken mode. However, at the end of the cookery programme, there is usually a written version of the recipe provided on the screen for the viewers to copy.1 This shows that the preferred way of delivering recipes is, and has usually been in writing. The same is true for real everyday life. If someone asks for recipe, he

1 An account of the differences in language between the recipes delivered in the written form and the spoken commentary on the preparation of the dish is given in the book on the Language of Advertising by Angela Goddard.

typically asks for written version of it, unless it is a very simple recipe that does not require a complex process of preparation. The recipe is an example of a piece of writing where the structure and order of information is very important and since “there is a general expectation that people will not remember detailed facts correctly if they are only exposed to them in the spoken mode, especially if they are required to remember them over an extended period of time” (Brown and Yule 1983: 13 – 14), it is only natural that recipients write down recipes along with other information and details they are told. We usually write down friends‟ addresses, telephone numbers, recipes and knitting patterns (Brown and Yule 1983: 13), which are all based on factual information. In accordance with this observation, Halliday (1989) lists recipes as specimens of writing (Halliday 1989: 42), classifying them functionally as used “primarily for action” (Halliday 1989: 40). The character of the recipe text is inherently connected with its written mode. Therefore, all recipes bear the important functional feature of “quick and easy surveyability” (Vachek 1976: 412), which makes them accessible in a matter of minutes. This is also closely related to the not very extensive length of regular recipe texts, since recipes are traditionally and by definition “polydimensional” (Vachek 1976: 437), extending over “more than one written or printed line” (Vachek 1976: ibid) but usually not exceeding two pages, unlike spoken utterance, which is inherently monodimensional. Like any other written utterances, recipes also bear the “documentary, preservable character of written utterances, so strikingly contrasting with the ephemeral, easy-to-forgotten character of their spoken counterparts” (Vachek 1976: 412). This is related to the permanent character of writing in general. Since writing involves a process of reworking and rewriting, recipes as representatives of written discourse are examples of planned discourse.

3.2. Hypothesis

The main hypothesis which is tested throughout the practical analysis is based on the assumption that the recipe, as a representative of written discourse, is, in turn, expected to manifest features typical of conventional written text. This research question is considered with the full awareness of the fact that “there is no simple binary of speech versus writing” (Goddard 2002: 37), but rather “a continuum of forms where varieties of speech and writing are more or less controlled and consciously pre- planned” (Goddard: 2002: ibid). However, despite the acknowledgement that “speaking and

writing are not absolute opposites of each other” and that they “should not be defined in terms of each other” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 89), there are certain features which tend to be inherently and conventionally associated with one of the varieties of the language, though, naturally, all the features should also be considered in terms of degrees and relativity rather than as absolutes. The description of the language of recipes with respect to the features of writtenness and spokenness they exhibit is therefore based on some of the linguistic features which tend to represent the defining characteristics of the written medium. The selection of these defining characteristics is partially based on Biber‟s study of university language (2006). Biber (2006) provides in his study a list of features typical of academic prose (Biber 2006: 15 – 18). The results for academic prose are considered in this thesis as typical of the written mode in general. A total number of ten features were chosen as criteria for the present research. Five of the features selected represent characteristics related to written discourse. These features are contrasted with the remaining five characteristics, which are considered as representatives of spoken discourse. The characteristics of spoken discourse are based on Cornbleet and Carter (2001: 68). Written features include the absence of pronouns, the low use of contracted forms, the use of abbreviations, the use of complex clauses with rich structuring and organization, and the default modes of passive voice, present tense and simple aspect. The five features selected as representatives of spoken discourse are ellipsis, vague language, coordination, informal and expressive language and incomplete clauses. The information gained from the analysis of the language of recipes with special attention devoted to the lexical level, syntactic level and the level of discourse is compared and contrasted with the results pertinent to the above mentioned characteristics of written and spoken discourse to see if and to what extent the language of recipes shows the characteristics of written text. The secondary hypothesis aims to establish whether the language of recipes represents a unified register with a stable set of structures and expressions forming a core of the register common to all the recipes. The secondary hypothesis is tested through the comparison of the recurring structures and expressions making their appearance in the three cookbooks analyzed.

4. Approaches Adopted in the Study of Recipes

In this chapter more detailed explanation of the terminology used in the thesis is provided. In the introductory part of the thesis, which treated recipes from the point of view of their organization and composition, recipes were referred to as a genre. In the subsequent part of the thesis, the term register mostly prevails. I believe that my reference to the language of recipes as a register and genre requires some further comment and specific explanation. This is of substantial importance especially with regard to the fact that the same terms are many times used to describe different concepts in the works by different authors. Recipes have been treated in the literature under several headings. These include the terms register, genre, sublanguage, and style. The discussion in this chapter therefore revolves around these terms. As Lee says, “there is much confusion surrounding these terms and their usage” (Lee 2007: 37). So far, there has been no general agreement on the clear cut definitions of these notions and their places within sociolinguistic theory. As Biber says, “there is considerable disagreement concerning the definition of register and its relations to the constructs of genre, text type, and style” (Biber 1994: 32). It is not very different when it comes to actual usage of these terms, since “the term register has been used in many different ways, as have the related terms genre, text type, and style” (Biber 1994: 51).

4.1. Sublanguage

The least common concept under which recipes have been treated is probably the one of sublanguage. The concept is defined as “a subsystem of language that … [is] limited in reference to a specific subject domain” and has its own “distinctive grammar” (Kittredge and Lehrberger 1982: ix ). The term sublanguage is very often used by computational linguists working in areas of natural language processing or language engineering, who have “realized the need to target the scope of their projects to very specific areas” (Lee 2007: 38). The areas of sublanguages are therefore highly restricted. The examples of sublanguages include traffic air control talk, journal articles on lipoprotein kinetics, naval telegraphic messages, regional weather forecast reports, stock market reports, and aviation maintenance manuals. Kittredge (1982) included cookbook recipes into the discussion of sublanguages and placed them into the same group as the language of aviation hydraulics, regional weather forecast, and stock market reports. Each of the examples of the sublanguages was identified as showing “unique

features of lexicon, lexical collocations, sentence structures, and intersentential linking devices” (Ferguson 1994: 20).

4.2. Style

Crystal and Davy (1969) employ throughout their pioneering work on the different situational varieties of English the term „style‟. This term is applied to recipes too, although they are not discussed at length as are some other situational varieties, including the language of conversation, language of unscripted commentary, language of religion, language of newspaper reporting and language of legal documents. As Lee says about the usage of the term „style‟ by Crystal and Davy, it “is used in the way most other people use register: to refer to particular ways of using language in particular contexts” (Lee 2007: 41). The definition of register which, Crystal gives in his Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (Crystal 1985: 295) as “a variety of language defined according to its use in social situations, e.g. register of scientific, religious, formal English” seems to be very well applicable to the varieties of language Crystal and Davy discuss. Crystal and Davy justify their terminological choice by saying that the term register “has been applied to varieties of language in an almost indiscriminate manner, as if it could be usefully applied to situationally distinctive pieces of language of any kind” (Crystal and Davy 1969: 61). They believe that it is inconsistent, unrealistic, and confusing to group different varieties of language together under the same heading, since the varieties differ in the nature of the situational variables involved in the use of the language (Crystal and Davy 1969: ibid). Many authors do not approve of this reasoning. As Lee says, “using style in the same loose fashion [as the term register was used], however, hardly solves anything, and […] goes against the usage of style by most people in relation to individual texts or individual authors / speakers” (Lee 2007: 41). The term style is used in the thesis to refer to an individual‟s use of language in accordance with the suggestion of Lee to “use the term style to characterize the internal properties of individual texts or the language use by individual authors, with „formality‟ being perhaps the most important and fundamental one” (Lee 2007: 45). The term style is therefore treated as “as a characteristic way of using language” (Biber 1994: 53), especially to refer to the typical characteristics of the authorial way of writing. The assumption is that “every individual has his or her own idiolect – an individual way of using a language, favourite

words and expressions” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 64). This assumption is applied in the thesis to the authors of recipes too, though the extent to which the idiolect of the recipe writers manifests itself in the recipes may be more limited, when compared with other texts.

4.3. Genre

Recipes have been very often discussed under the heading of genre. Traditionally, genres used to be studied in the domain of literature. As Bhatia points out, “the concept of genre, which had been so prevalent in literature, sociology and rhetoric for a long time, has started assuming importance in linguistics only recently” (Bhatia 1993: 11). However, nowadays, genre formation is considered to be “rooted in everyday language” as well (Fergusson 1994: 21). Therefore, the study of genres is not restricted to the domain of literature exclusively. The discussion of genre in the thesis is narrowed down to the purely linguistic perspective of a genre. The concept of genre has been elaborated in the domain of linguistics by Swales (1990) who defines genre as “a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs. Most often it is highly structured and conventionalized with constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value. These constraints, however, are often exploited by the expert members of the discourse community to achieve private intentions within the framework of socially recognized purpose(s)” (as cited in Bhatia 1993: 13) In the part that follows, the long definition of genre by Swales is divided into several smaller parts in order to see if the definition of genre as proposed by Swales could be used to label the language of recipes. Splitting the definition into the minor tenets is done on the grounds of facilitating the discussion of the topic. The first part of the definition says that genre is “a recognizable communicative event characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs” (Bhatia 1993: 13). Recipes are undeniably a recognizable communicative event which can be easily distinguished from other communicative events. It has a clear communicative purpose, that of giving instructions on the preparation of a dish. It is also perfectly valid that “any major change in the communicative purpose(s) is likely to give us a different genre” (Bhatia: ibid),

since the communicative purpose of recipes are distinctive enough to serve as a distinguishing marker making it possible to differentiate between individual genres. The main communicative purpose of a recipe is easily identified and understood by all members of the professional community in which it regularly occurs. In this very sense, professional community stands for the cooks and chefs who use recipes in their professional capacity. Moreover, they are easily understood by all other non-professional members of the community of „common users‟ of cookbooks and recipes. What cannot be very well applied to recipes is that part of Swale‟s definition which mentions the fact that communicative purposes of the genre are identified and mutually understood by members of the professional or academic community, since recipes rarely occur in academic settings. The second part of the definition describing genre says that “it most often is a highly structured and conventionalized communicative event” (Bhatia 1993: 14). Also this part of the definition seems to hold true for recipes, which obviously have a conventionalized internal structure that was shaped throughout the process of historical development of the recipe as a special case of a piece of writing. The third part of the definition stated that various genres display “constraints on allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value” (Bhatia 1993: ibid). Bhatia explains the meaning of this part of Swale‟s definition by saying “that although the writer has a lot of freedom to use linguistic resources in any way s/he likes, s/he must conform to certain standard practices within the boundaries of a particular genre. It is possible for a specialist to exploit the rules and conventions of a genre in order to achieve special effects or private intentions, as it were, but s/he cannot break away from such constraints completely without being noticeably odd” (Bhatia 1993: ibid. This also seems to apply to recipes, though only to certain extent. Though the writers of recipe texts have some freedom to choose the linguistic resources they want to use, their freedom of choice is certainly smaller than in the case of, say, the writers of a novel who have at their disposal a much wider range of linguistic resources. Therefore, though they all need to conform to the standard practices and conventions concerning the given genre, recipe writers have substantially smaller potential for some bigger aberrations. The definition on genre given by Swales is finished by the words that “these constraints are often exploited by the expert members of the discourse community to achieve private intentions within the framework of socially recognized purpose(s)” (Bhatia 1993: 15). As was already said in the comment on the previous part of the definition, this applies to recipes only partially, since recipes do not provide the “expert members of the discourse

community”, that is, applied to recipes, the cooks, chefs and recipe writers in general, with the chance to achieve some private intentions. The shortened definition of genre given by Bhatia, who says that “each genre is an instance of a successful achievement of a specific communicative purpose using conventionalized knowledge of linguistic and discoursal resources” (Bhatia 1993: 16) seems to be equally valid for recipes because recipes and their internal structure are shaped by the communicative purpose that the genre is intended to fulfill. Having thus commented on the individual parts of the definition of genre provided by Swales, it is possible to draw a conclusion that the term genre could be applied to recipes. Recipes have indeed been treated by many authors as examples of genres. Martin (as cited in Biber 1994: 51) sees recipes as an example of a genre along with poems, narratives, expositions, lectures, manuals, appointment making, service encounters and news broadcasts. All these examples correspond to his definition of genre, since he is of the opinion that “genres are how things get done” (as cited in Biber 1994: 51). Brown and Yule (1983: 174 – 176) in their book on discourse analysis with the same title also discuss recipes under the designation of genre.

4.5. Register

The term register has already been touched upon in this chapter in connection with the discussion of the term „style‟, where one definition of register was given, as proposed by Crystal. However, the concept of register has been traditionally associated with M.A.K- Halliday (1976). Halliday regards register as “the linguistic features which are typically associated with a configuration of situational features – with particular values of the field, mode and tenor” (Halliday 1976: 22). Field is defined as the “total event, in which the text is functioning, together with the purposive activity of the speaker or writer; it thus includes the subject- matter as one element of it” (Halliday 1976: ibid). Mode is “the function of the text in the event, including therefore both the channel taken by the language – spoken or written, extempore or prepared – and its genre, or rhetorical mode, as narrative, didactic, persuasive, „phatic communication‟ and so on” (Halliday 1976: ibid). Finally, tenor refers to “the type of role interaction, the set of relevant social relations, permanent and temporary, among the participants involved” (Halliday 1976: ibid).

In this view, the language of recipes is seen as “a language variety functionally associated with particular contextual or situational parameters of variation and defined by its linguistic characteristics” (Lee 2007: 41). As such, it is defined by its field, mode and tenor, i.e. by the situation in which it occurs, by the function it aims to perform and by the channel through which it communicates, and by the interaction and social relations holding between the participants. The concept of register has been adopted by some researchers approaching the analysis of recipes. Among these are Zwicky and Zwicky (as cited in Biber 1994: 51) who have recognized recipes as a clear case of register along with, for example, newspaper headlines.

4.6. Register and Genre

While some authors have considered recipes either as a register or a genre, there are authors who have not made this distinction and have treated recipes under both the headings: registers and genres. Ferguson (1994) in his discussion of the terms dialect, register and genre in his chapter dealing with Working Assumptions about Conventionalization mentions the cookbook recipe register (Ferguson 1994: 20) as well as the recipe as an example of genre (Ferguson 1994: 21). He sees register as “a communication situation that recurs regularly in a society (in terms of participants, setting, communicative functions, and so forth)” (Ferguson 1994: 20), while genre is, in his view, “a message type that recurs regularly in a community (in terms of semantic content, participants, occasions of use, and so on)” (Ferguson 1994: 21). Despite the fact that both the rather vague definitions of register and genre seem to be well applicable to recipes, Ferguson does not justify his choice of including recipes under both the headings. Since both the terms genre and register are used throughout the thesis, a more detailed comment on situations when they are used is included. For the purposes of the clarification of the use of both the terms genre and register in reference to recipes, the position of Lee is used. Lee sees both the concepts as “two different points of view covering the same ground” (Lee 2007: 46). He expands on his conception by saying that “register and genre are in essence two different ways of looking at the same object. Register is used when we view a text as a language: as the instantiation of a conventionalized, functional configuration of language tied to certain broad societal situations, that is, variety according to use” (Lee 2007: ibid). The

assumption is that “different situations „require‟ different configurations of language, each being „appropriate‟ to its task, being maximally „functionally adapted‟ to the immediate situational parameters of contextual use” (Lee 2007: ibid). On the other hand, “genre is used when we view the text as a member of category: a culturally recognized artifact, a grouping of texts according to some conventionally recognized criteria, a grouping according to purposive goals, culturally defined” (Lee 2007: ibid). In addition to this, “genres are categories established by consensus within a culture and hence subject to change as generic conventions are contested / challenged and revised, perceptibly or imperceptibly, over time” (Lee 2007: 46). Therefore, “genres can come and go, or change, being cultural constructs which vary with the times, with fashion, and with ideological movements within society” (Lee 2007: 47). It is in this sense that the language of cookery texts has been named both as a register and a genre, looking upon the recipes from two different perspectives. The term genre is used in the first part of the thesis, where recipes are looked at as „text varieties‟ or as groupings of texts (Lee 2007: 46). This is in accordance with the principle that the term genre is used “when we are talking about membership of culturally – recognisable categories” (Lee 2007: 46). In the practical part of the thesis, the term register is given preference, since recipes are regarded in the practical part as “situationally defined varieties” (Biber 1994: 51) and the main focus is placed on the lexico-grammatical and discoursal–semantic patterns associated with situations (i.e. linguistic patterns)” (Lee 2007: 46). The terminology of the thesis therefore follows the practice of Biber and Finegan, who use throughout their book Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register (1994) the term register to refer to any language variety “associated with different situations and purposes” (Biber1994: 32) and with particular situational or use characteristics.

4.7. Register Analysis and Genre Analysis

There is one more reason for the preference given to the term register over genre in the practical part of the thesis. While it may be equally true to refer to recipes as both genres and registers, there is a substantially greater difference in the choice between genre analysis and register analysis as a designation for the analysis of the data which follows. “Register analysis focuses mainly on the identification of statistically significant lexico-grammatical features of linguistic variety” (Bhatia 1993: 5), where the cases of “above- average incidence or even a lack of certain linguistic features, be they lexical, grammatical or

even discoursal / rhetorical, in the text under study” (Bhatia 1993: 17) are of special importance to register analysts. Bhatia presents some merits and limitations of the register analysis. While admitting that:

…studies on the frequency of syntactic properties of different varieties of English are interesting and useful in the sense that they provide necessary empirical evidence to confirm or disprove some of the intuitive and impressionistic statements we all tend to make about the high or low incidence of certain syntactic features of various varieties of language […] such studies tell us very little about […] to what purpose such features are markedly present or absent in a particular variety. The findings remain severely constrained by their emphasis on surface features and do not provide adequate insights about the way information is structured in particular variety. However perceptive these observations may be, they fall some way short of offering an explanation of why a particular variety takes the form that it does… (Bhatia 1993: 6)

In addition to these reservations, the register analysis focused on surface-level description fails to yield appropriate “insights into the rationale underlying selection and distribution of surface linguistic features” (Bhatia 1993: 6). To mention some points of contact between the two kinds of analysis, it is necessary to stress that genre analysis has in common with register analysis one important characteristic - that it aims to “characterize typical or conventional textual features of any genre-specific text” (Bhatia 1993: 16). On the other hand, it differs from the register analysis in another important respect, in that it aims to “identify […] form –function correlations” and to “explain such a characterization in the context of the socio-cultural as well as the cognitive constraints operating in the relevant area of specialization, whether professional or academic” (Bhatia 1993: 16). In other words, it attempts to go beyond “a surface level description to a more functional and grounded description of language use” (Bhatia 1993: 5), taking into consideration “not only socio-cultural but psycholinguistic factors too” (Bhatia 1993: 39). This kind of genre analysis based on thick description helps to clarify “the communicative goals of the discourse community in question, but also the individual strategies employed by the members to achieve these goals” (Bhatia 1993: 39 - 40). From the above mentioned facts it is obvious that there is a substantial difference between register analysis and genre analysis, since analyzing genres involves not only

analysis of lexico-grammatical features, as in the case of register analysis, but also analysis of text-patterning or textualization and structural interpretation of the text – genre . On the basis of the above provided differentiation between register analysis and genre analysis it becomes possible to justify the use of the term register analysis for the analysis undertaken in the thesis. The analysis focuses on the identification of typical lexico-semantic features appearing in a variety of recipes. Although some attempt may be made to provide explanation of why the variety of recipes takes the form it does, it is not my intention to go beyond the lexico-syntactic level towards more “functional and grounded description of language use” (Bhatia 1993: 5). Moreover, socio-cultural factors along with psycholinguistic factors, which play some part in genre analysis, are also completely disregarded in the analysis of the sample.

4.8. Summary

This chapter has provided an overview of the main concepts which have been used in the linguistic analysis of recipes undertaken by different scholars so far. On the basis of the overview it may be summed up that recipes have been discussed predominantly under the designation of genre and register, more rarely then under the designation of sublanguage and style. In the background of this discussion, clarification of the use of the terms appearing throughout this thesis has been provided. The key term register is employed for the purpose of the analysis of the language variety.

5. Description of the Research and Methodology

For the purpose of a comprehensive description of the focus of my research, I have used the series of analytical distinctions presented by Biber and Atkinson (1994: 352), since these analytical distinctions can be used to categorize register studies. According to the analytical distinctions, my study is a single–register study, as only one register, the register of recipes, is subjected to analysis. The language studied is English. The recipes examined are modern culinary recipes coming from contemporary cookbooks. Since no samples of recipes coming from the past are included in the data subjected to examination, the language of recipes is analyzed from a purely synchronic perspective. This kind of analysis, i.e. synchronic and single register “is probably the approach most frequently adopted by register researchers and the one most often identified as prototypical register research” (Biber and Atkinson 1994: 352 - 353). Furthermore, “the majority of studies in this area (and certainly of those written in English) focus on English-language registers” (Biber and Atkinson 1994: ibid), which is also true for my analysis.

5.1. Methodology

The analysis is based on the combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis methodology. Quantitative methods of analysis deal with the differing relative distributions of some linguistic features across the recipes and with the frequency of some recurring words. Grammatical features are quantified with respect to the occurrences of some typical grammatical structures that recur throughout recipes. Discourse level features are quantified with the main focus on cohesion and coherence markers and the means used for organization of the message conveyed in the recipe texts. The quantitative analysis has been chosen and included in the methodology of the analysis on the grounds that “register distinctions are based on differences in the relative distribution of linguistic features” (Biber 1994: 35). As Biber (1994) points out, in linguistic analysis “two major types of linguistic characterization should be distinguished: First, these are register markers, which are distinctive linguistic features found only in particular registers” (Biber 1994: 34). These linguistic features also “function through frequency of occurrence or conventionalized association with specific contexts, as high-profile signals of particular registers” (Biber and Atkinson 1994: 369). The second linguistic characterization that should be, according to

Biber, distinguished in the linguistic analysis relates to the fact that “registers are distinguished by differing exploitations of core linguistic features (e.g., nouns, pronouns, subordinate clauses)” (Biber 1994: 34). Additionally, Biber (1994: 35) emphasizes that core lexical and grammatical features are among the most pervasive indicators of register differences. Both the two linguistic characterizations mentioned above, i.e. the register markers and the range of core linguistic features which recur in the language of recipes, are discussed and accounted for in the analysis.

5.2. Data Selection

The linguistic analysis is undertaken on a sample of 45 recipes. These recipes come from three different cookbooks written by three different authors. The cookery books used for the analysis are all contemporary cookbooks; they were published recently and therefore represent modern standards of cookery books. The three cookbooks are Feast (2004) by Nigella Lawson, Fast Food (2008) by Gordon Ramsay and Ministry of Food (2009) by Jamie Oliver. All these authors are widely known chefs, TV presenters and cookbook writers working in England and all around the world. All the cookbook authors are British. Authors from the same country were chosen to ensure that one variety of the same language, in this case British English, was used throughout the cookbooks. Moreover, the cookbooks were selected because they presented original recipes; no recipes that were translated were considered to make sure that the language of the recipes was genuinely English. The choice of cookbooks that were used for data selection was dictated primarily by availability. No regard was given to the specific topic of recipes included in the cookbook. The individual recipes were chosen according to a pre-specified criterion. For every cookbook a different key of selection was specified, depending on the number of pages or chapters contained in the cookbook so that the recipes were proportionally distributed. A total of 15 recipes were chosen from each cookbook. The number fifteen was chosen randomly. In each recipe, only the directions proper and, for some linguistic phenomena, also the list of ingredients were used as data. Subheadings, commentary and notes were not included in the data, as they were not subjected to further analysis. The textual database of 45 recipes amounts to 11 500 words. This size of textual database is generally regarded as sufficient, since relatively small corpora can be used for the

study of overall frequencies of word classes and regular grammatical features of language (Biber 2006: 251). Moreover, it has been shown that counts are relatively stable across 1 000- word samples from a text (Biber 1998: 249). This requirement is met even when the samples of individual cookbooks are considered.

5.3. Description of the Linguistic Analysis

The linguistic analysis was done on several levels: on the lexical level, on the syntactic level and on the level of discourse. The analysis of every level of language of recipes was intended to reveal the characteristic features of the language that make the register distinctive. On the lexical level, attention was given to the high frequency vocabulary which was exploited throughout the recipes across the main parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, verbs) as well as to the vocabulary clusters and collocations which make their appearance in the sample of recipes studied. On the syntactic level the main focus of interest was placed on the complexity of the structures used in the language of recipes. On the level of discourse, the aim was to investigate the patterns of cohesion and coherence and the markers of informational organization and prominence. The analysis of the language of recipes follows the guidelines given by Biber (1994) on the general characteristics of register analyses. Biber (1994) says that “typical register studies have three components: description of the situational characteristics of a register, description of the linguistic characteristics, and analysis of the functional or conventional associations between the situational and linguistics features” (Biber 1994: 33). In accordance with this, the analysis is introduced by a description of the situational characteristics of the register of recipes. The account of situational characteristics is followed by a description of the linguistic, syntactic and discourse characteristics of the language of recipes as manifesting themselves on the three individual levels mentioned above. Finally, a description of the functional or conventional associations between the situational and linguistic features is attempted towards the end of the analysis. The register study of the language of recipes follows the example of the work of Crystal and Davy (1969) who laid the foundations for this kind of research with their Investigating English Styles. Their analyses include the differences between the texts in terms of their situational setting, and analysis of their linguistic characteristics at the levels of phonology / orthography, lexicon, syntax, and, to a lesser extent, discourse. They also propose

functional motivations for some of the features they discussed.

5.5. Research on Registers

Biber and Atkinson (1994) devote one chapter of their book Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register to a review of empirical research related to register studies. On the basis of the review it can be concluded that in comparison with other kinds of research done on registers, by far the greatest amount of research has been done in the area of professional registers. In this field, “legal language – both spoken and written – has received substantial attention from register analysts” (Biber and Atkinson 1994: 353). The same applies to spoken and written medical communication (Biber and Atkinson 1994: 354) and the language of the media (Biber and Atkinson 1994: 355). The language of business, bureaucratic language and language in an academic setting have also been very well analyzed. Substantial attention has also been given to language use in schools (Biber Atkinson 1994: 356), scientific discourse, the language of religion (Biber and Atkinson 1994: 357) and to simplified registers including baby talk or talk with foreigners. However, despite the extensive length of the chapter on empirical research related to register studies, there is not a single mention of research which has been undertaken on the language of recipes. To my knowledge, there has been relatively little attention devoted to the study of recipes and their specific language. The studies that I know of are not of very recent date; they all come mostly from the eighties. Examples of these studies include Haegeman (1987), Kittredge and Lehrberger (1982), Massam (1987, 1992) and Culy (1996). The study by Culy represents a register study of recipes from both the synchronic and diachronic point of view. This study is mentioned later in the thesis in connection with the phenomenon of zero anaphors discussed in the analysis of syntax of recipes.

6. Situational Characteristics of Recipes

The framework designed by Biber (1994) is used in order to pinpoint and specify the situational characteristics of the register of recipes as closely as possible. This framework makes it possible to take into consideration a wide range of situational characteristics and therefore helps to give an accurate and precise description of the context in which the register is used. Biber (1994) has designed the framework in a way that it complies with the basic requirements of a comprehensive analytical framework for register analysis. Such a framework should provide tools for “analysis of the linguistic characteristics of registers, analysis of the situational characteristics of registers, and analysis of the functional and conventional associations between linguistic and situational characteristics” (Biber 1994: 33) with special regard given to the most salient features. Using the framework for the purpose of a situational description of the register of recipes is aimed at showing the typical features of the register that make it distinctive in comparison with other registers, as far as the situational context is concerned. As Biber (1994) says “the primary goal of the framework is to specify the situational characteristics of registers in such a way that the similarities and differences between any pair of registers will be explicit” (Biber 1994: 41). The following subchapters provide comments on the seven points of Biber‟s framework as applied to the register of recipes. The issue of variability in connection with recipes has already been mentioned. This variability does not concern merely the form of the recipes and their organization but also their situational context. Recipes, which are part of cookery programmes on TV, which appear in the newspapers or on the internet, may vary greatly with respect to their situational characteristics. Therefore, the account of the situational context given below is restricted in its applicability to the recipes under analysis in the practical part of the thesis. Every subchapter is introduced by a table, which comes from the scheme as designed by Biber (1994: 40 - 41). The words in bold show the characteristics which pertain to the recipes subjected to examination.

6.1. Communicative Characteristics of Participants

As far as the communicative characteristics of participants are concerned, Biber (1994: 40) distinguishes set of features pertaining to addressors, addressees and audience. Addressors are understood as speakers or writers, addressees as listeners or readers, and audience as participants who hear but are not the intended addressees.

I. Communicative Characteristics of Participants A. Addressor(s): Single/plural/institutional B. Addressee(s): 1. Self / other2 2. Single / plural / unenumerated3 C. Audience: yes / no

All the three cookbooks under analysis have a single addressor, this addressor being an individual. The addressors are Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. Biber (1994) recognizes that the parameter of addressors might “be extended to include demographic characteristics of individual participants” (Biber 1994: 42). Therefore, the figure showing some more demographic details of the individual addressors is included in this subchapter for a more thorough description. As far as the audience is concerned, according to Biber‟s (1994) definition of audience as “participants who hear but are not intended addressees” (Biber 1994: 42), there is no audience for the recipe texts in question. The recipes are targeted at plural addressees. The addressees for whom the recipes are intended are unenumerated. The addressees are not narrowly specified. The recipes can be targeted at people of all ages, professions and backgrounds, though cookbooks have been traditionally associated with females.

2 Applies only to the situation when there is a single addressee 3 As in newspaper or novel.

Table 1: Demographic Description of Addressors

Demographic Nigella Jamie Gordon characteristics Lawson Oliver Ramsay

gender female male male age 50 35 44 region London, England Essex, England Johnstone, Scotland ethnicity white white white education MA degree, Catering College Technical College University

6.2. Relations between Addressor and Addressee

The characteristics pertaining to relations between addressor and addressee are divided into four main groups. These four groups of characteristics are aimed at specifying the social role relations, extent of shared knowledge, level of interactiveness and personal relationship.

II. Relations Between Addressor and Addressee A. Social role relations – relative status and power of addressor and addressee: Addressor has more power / equal status / addressee has more power B. Extent of shared knowledge 1. Specialist knowledge of topic: high / low 2. Specific personal knowledge : high / low C. Interactiveness: extensive / slight / none D. Personal relationship: like, respect, fear: kin, friends, enemies, colleagues, etc.

There is no obvious imbalance in the relative status and power relations between addressor and addressee. They both are of more or less equal status. The addressor could be said to possess more power over the addressee in the sense that he / she adopts the role of an expert who instructs the addressees in cooking techniques. This gives him a higher status over the addressee in terms of his knowledge and experience about the subject under discussion.

It is a basic assumption that both addressor and addressee have a substantial amount of shared knowledge about the discussed topic. The addressor presupposes some at least basic knowledge about the subject on the part of the addressee and this presupposition on the part of the addressor is then in turn reflected in the language that he uses. Specialist knowledge of the topic could be described as high. However, specific personal knowledge is, on the other hand, rather low. As is shown in more detail in the practical part of the thesis, the interactiveness between addressor and addressee varies across the three cookbooks. A recipe is by definition expected to show very low levels of interactiveness. However, this traditional assumption about recipe texts is partially challenged in the practical analysis. As far as the personal relationship between addressor and addressee is concerned, it may be established that in the vast majority of cases, the addressor and the addressee do not know each other personally. Consequently, it could be said that there is a neutral personal relationship between the participants. The fact that the addressor is not familiar with his or her addressees leads to social distance, which divides them. However, the practical analysis again reveals that this social distance between the participants is not always reflected in the language of recipes, where the addressor seems to make attempts to reduce the social distance by the choice of language he or she uses.

6.3. Setting

The characteristics relating to setting cover four main groups of features. The four groups include the characteristics of the place of communication, the extent to which the place is shared by participants, the extent to which time is shared by participants, and the specific place and time of communication. The first group of characteristics of the place of communication is further subdivided into three subgroups.

II. Setting A. Characteristics of the place of communication 1. Private / public 2. Domain: Business and workplace Education and academic Government and legal

Religious Art and entertainment Domestic and personal Other: food and cooking 3. Audio / visual/ mass media (television, radio, cinema) B. Extent to which place is shared by participants: immediate / familiar / removed C. Extent to which time is shared by participants: immediate / familiar / removed D. Specific place and time of communication

Considering the cookery books which were analyzed, the communication between addressor and addressee, i.e. the reading of the recipes and cooking according to them, takes place typically in private. The main topic which is discussed belongs to the domain of food and cooking. The communication between addressor and addressee takes place in different places, i.e. the place where the addressor writes recipes and the place where the addressee reads recipes differ. The time when the recipe was written by the addressor is different from the time when the recipe was read by the addressee. This is true for the written, printed and published recipes, which are contained in all the three cookbooks in question. As was already mentioned, since recipes are directly connected with cooking and with the preparation of food, it is a generally assumed that the place of communication is the kitchen. When we disregard the kitchen as a place to which recipes are related, there is no specific place and time of communication.

6.4. Channel

The characteristics concerning channel are discussed in terms of mode, permanence, medium of transmission and embeddedness in a larger text from a different register. Medium of transmission is further elaborated through subclassification considering the recorded or transient nature of the register.

IV. Channel A. Mode (primary channel): written / spoken / signed / mixed / other B. Permanence: recorded / transient C. Medium of transmission

If recorded: 1. Taped / transcribed / typed/ printed / handwritten / e-mail/ other 2. Published / unpublished If transient: 3. Face-to face / telephone / radio / TV / other D. Embedded in a larger text from a different register: Yes / No

The recipes under analysis are all in the written mode. The written mode of the recipes is directly related to the fact that all the recipes are recorded and therefore permanent in their nature. The recipes in question are transmitted in typed, printed and published form as a part of a cookery book containing a number of recipes. The individual recipes are therefore embedded in a larger text. However, this larger text, i.e. a cookery book, does not represent a text which is a different register; it is rather a set or collection of individual recipes, i.e. a collection of the-same-register texts.

6.5. Relation of Participants to the Text

The characteristics with respect to the participants of the text aim to specify the addressor‟s the production circumstances, addressee‟s comprehension circumstances, the addressor‟s and addressee‟s personal evaluation of text, the addressor‟s attitudinal stance toward the text and the addressor‟s epistemological stance toward the text.

V. Relation of Participants to the Text A. Addressor – production circumstances: revised or edited / scripted / planned / on-line B. Addressee – comprehension circumstances: on-line/ self-imposed time constraints C. Addressor’s and addressee’s personal evaluation of text: important, valuable, required, beautiful, popular, etc. D. Addressor’s attitudinal stance toward the text 1. Emotionally involved / removed 2. Reverence / everyday 3. Excitement Etc. E. Addressor’s epistemological stance toward the text: belief, conviction, doubt,

etc.

The addressor adopts, in the case of recipes, the role of a writer. Therefore, the recipes represent a written piece of text which needs to go through several stages of writing, like any piece of written literary work, i.e. through the stages of drafting, proofreading, revising and editing. The recipes in question may therefore be considered to be revised, edited and planned texts. When we disregard some specific circumstances of time pressure when the addressor needs to finish his writing soon due to some publishing deadlines, there is no time constraint imposed upon the writer, unless he himself imposes some constraints on himself. Likewise, in normal circumstances, there are no time constraints on the part of the reader with regard to reading or finishing reading the recipes, unless, again, the addressee himself imposes some time limits on himself. The evaluation of the text differs from addressor to addressor and from addressee to addressee. A recipe in general is regarded as a practical and useful manual for cooking as an everyday and routine activity. However, cooking is viewed by some individuals as a menial job, by others as a piece of art. These connotations related to cooking, whether negative or positive, may sometimes be transferred to the evaluation of cookbooks and recipe writing in general. However, the assumption is that the target readers purchase the cookbooks for two main reasons, either out of some interest or just for practical reasons. It is generally the case that the addressor as a creator of the text reflects into the text his values, assumptions and beliefs. However, in the case of recipes, such values and beliefs might be hard to perceive, since recipes do not typically provide their authors with much space for personal expression. However, this assumption is, to a certain extent, challenged and questioned in the practical analysis. All the authors of the cookery texts under investigation are professional cooks who make their daily living by cooking and/or cookbook writing. Therefore, writing recipes is for them a pure breadwinning activity providing them with necessary income. This pragmatic motivation may be further compounded with the special interest which the addressor has in cooking. Recipes seem to vary according to the extent to which they show some signs of personal involvement on the part of the addressor. Some recipes seem to be emotion and excitement–free pieces of texts, as manuals indeed tend to be. Other recipes seem to show more traces of emotional involvement, though enjoyment or excitement seem to be, unlike other written pieces of writing, virtually absent. It has been already suggested that the recipe, as an example of a rather short factual and expository piece of writing, does not offer much scope for the expression of the

addressor‟s feelings, convictions or beliefs. However, a recipe may be, to certain extent, regarded as a piece of advertising. Angela Goddard (2002) in her book on the language of advertising with the same title makes mention of cookbooks too. She includes cookbooks in her book concerned primarily with advertising since, as she says, “cookery books, although basically informative, are adverts in a way: they are selling us the idea of cooking dishes they feature, and in so doing, the books are selling themselves as necessary tools, as instruction manuals, as „how - to‟ texts” (Goddard 2002: 40). As such, cookery books and the recipes they contain are also expected to reflect addressors‟ beliefs and convictions that the recipes „advertised‟ and provided in the cookbooks are worth the effort of trying out.

6.6. Purposes, Intents, and Goals

The characteristics specifying purposes, intents and goals pertain to two main areas: factuality and purposes. The purposes considered cover the instances of persuasion or selling, the transfer of information, entertaining or edifying and revealing oneself.

VI. Purposes, Intents, and Goals A. Factuality: (Purported to be) based on fact / speculative / imaginative / mixed B. Purposes: 1. Persuade or sell: high / medium / low 2. Transfer information: high / medium / low 3. Entertain / edify: high / medium / low 4. Reveal self (including expression of personal feelings, attitudes, or efforts at enhancing interpersonal relations): high / medium / low

The recipe represents a factual and expository piece of writing. Therefore, all the parts of the recipes are based on facts. The ingredients and measurements, as well as the instructions, number of servings and energetic values are supposed to correspond to reality. The only part that could show some sign of imagination may be the title, which in some cases does not give a very clear idea of what could be expected as the outcome of the dish. However, a rule followed by many professional cooks and recipe writers says that recipes should not be named in too abstract a way. Preferably, the title should reflect the true nature of the dish.

Purpose is a central concept of a wide variety of communication events. “All communication is purpose driven. We have a purpose in mind for communicating in the medium and style we choose. That purpose may or may not be achieved, or received, as we expected, but it still underlies the message.” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 14). The quotation of Goddard cited above claims that recipes are advertisements in the way that they sell the idea of cooking the dishes they feature. Though I do not intend to oppose the view of recipes as advertisements, the purpose of persuading or selling is, when compared with other texts aimed at persuading and selling, not very clearly noticeable throughout the recipes studied. Rather, the addressees are encouraged to try the recipes out for themselves and see if they work for them. Therefore, the purpose of persuading or selling might be described as rather low. The purpose of transferring information is, on the other hand, rather high, which is related to the transactional nature of recipes. Recipes aim to inform and transmit culinary expertise by means of giving instructions on how to make a variety of dishes to a wider circle of people and addressees. The purpose of entertaining is low, as well as the purpose of edifying, though, by extension, recipes could be taken as a means of how to edify someone in cooking or how to improve his or her cooking skills. The purpose of revealing oneself in recipes is low; in the vast majority of recipe texts traces of the addressor‟s self-revelation are virtually nonexistent. The role of the addressor as an individual and author of the text is, in the case of most of the recipes, hardly perceptible.

6.7. Topic / Subject

The last set of characteristics is concerned with the specification of the topic or subject of discussion, where the level of discussion and the specific subject are differentiated.

VII. Topic / Subject A. Level of discussion: specialized / general / popular B. Specific subject: finance, science, religion, politics, sports, law, people, daily activities, etc., cooking

All the recipes share a specific subject which is in the centre of attention of every cookery text, i.e. food and cooking. This main topic of recipes is discussed on a rather specialized level. This specialization of the discussion is more closely described in the

practical analysis of the sample of recipes. At this point it may suffice to note that the specialized level of discussion is reflected in several areas of the language as used in recipes - in the special vocabulary and terminology used to name the ingredients, cooking utensils and the different cooking techniques and procedures.

6.9. Summary

The present chapter has considered the situational characteristics pertaining to the recipes which are analyzed in the subsequent chapters. The description of the situational context in which the register of recipes is set follows Biber‟s (1994) framework, which is used in order to characterize the context of recipes in as comprehensive and systematic a way as possible. Despite the fact that the framework is not finished yet and that there are still some categories which need to be developed in greater detail, it “is useful for isolating the important situational characteristics of a register […] and for analyzing the functional associations between linguistics and situational parameters” (Biber 1994: 50). The chapter shows that though the recipes in question are relatively short and not very complicated pieces of texts, they are defined by a complex set of situational characteristics. The issue of situational characteristics applying to recipes is discussed further in connection with the functional relations and correlations between the language and context of the recipes.

7. Analysis of the Register of Recipes

This chapter presents the results and findings of the linguistic analysis which aims to determine the distinctive features of the register of recipes as manifested by the sample of forty five recipes compiled in the corpus. The chapter provides a description of the typical features of the language of recipes as a whole, disregarding the individual differences among individual recipes. As far as the organization is concerned, the chapter is divided into three main parts that discuss the typical features of recipes on three individual levels: on the level of lexis, on the level of syntax and on the level of discourse. However, since all the levels are interconnected and cannot be treated in complete isolation, the findings presented in the individual subchapters may sometimes overlap or may be discussed in greater detail under the heading of the level where they do not properly belong. The findings yielded by the analysis are then used for the discussion of the language of recipes in terms of formality and informality. The chapter on formality and informality relates the findings of the analysis to the main hypothesis testing the presence or absence of selected features of spoken and written language in recipes. The analysis of the register of recipes also serves as a point of departure for the internal and comparative analysis of the register of recipes, which is done in the subsequent chapter and which provides comparison of the three cookbooks analyzed and the language differences among them to test the secondary hypothesis, i.e. whether there is an internal variation of the register or not. The examples provided in these chapters come from the corpus appended. For easier orientation in the corpus and for the sake of facilitation when looking up the recipes in the corpus, the source and order of recipes are indicated by means of the initials of the author and number of the recipe. The initials NL stand for the cookbook by Nigella Lawson. GR stands for the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay and JO stands for the cookbook by Jamie Oliver. The number provided next to the initials refer to the number of the recipe as ordered in the corpus appended. The quantifications are based only on the directions proper. The other constitutive parts of the recipe, as detailed in the introductory chapter, more specifically the name of the recipe, the number of servings, the time of preparation, the list of ingredients and the subheadings in the main body of the recipe are not included in the data used for the quantitative analysis, unless stated otherwise. I decided to omit these parts of the recipe for

two main reasons. First, since the recipes for the corpus were chosen on the basis of random selection, the method of which has been described in greater detail earlier in the thesis, the recipes analyzed are not identical in terms of their organization. This means that some include the list of the ingredients section, while others do not. This fact makes the recipes not very easily comparable in terms of the numbers of nouns or verbs, since the list of ingredients features primarily the nouns designating the ingredients, while some other parts of text, for example verbs, do not feature in this section at all. However, there are some cases when other parts of the recipe, especially the list of ingredients, play an important role in the discussion of the language of recipes. Therefore, in the pertinent cases, data from other parts of recipes, mainly from the list of ingredients, are considered.

7. 1. Lexical Level

The lexis of recipes is one of the most salient features of the register of recipes. There is a high occurrence of certain linguistic expressions that are highly specific to the register. Other linguistic expressions seem not to be so confined to the register of recipes, but nevertheless seem to demonstrate higher rates of occurrence throughout recipes when compared with other registers. The high level of specificity of the vocabulary is manifested across nearly all word classes. The analysis of the lexis of recipes discusses three content word classes, more specifically nouns, verbs and adjectives. The main focus is placed on nouns and verbs as the two word classes which tend to be represented in the register in the greatest measure.

7.1.1. Nouns

One of the most important categories of words that are present in the recipes are nouns. The figure below provides the numbers of nouns that appear in the sample of recipes analyzed in each cookbook. These numbers are further contrasted with the numbers of other important word categories of the register of recipes.

Figure 1: Occurrences of Nouns

NL JO GR Nouns 765 754 418

Having said that nouns are one of the most important word categories of recipes does not make the register very different from other registers of English and, indeed, from many registers in general, since nouns, as is known, are one of the most frequent word classes. Biber‟s (1999) Grammar of Spoken and Written English says that “nouns are by far the most frequent lexical word class; on average every fourth word is a noun” (Biber 1999: 65). The numbers of nouns naturally vary across the registers. “Nouns are the most common in news (and to a lesser extent in academic prose); they are by far least common in conversation” (Biber 1999: ibid). What makes the register of recipes different from other registers is the character of nouns used and the recurrent combinations which the constituent words form. The types of nouns that recur throughout the sample of recipes are, not surprisingly, related to the main topic of recipes, which is food and cooking. The topic naturally affects and determines the choice of the nouns as well as their relationships to other words used in recipes. The vast majority of the nouns used in the sample of recipes represent the names of ingredients which are required for the preparation of the dish. The figure below shows the numbers of nouns which name ingredients. However, the numbers provided do not include only the names of the ingredients proper which are introduced in the list of ingredients, but also other nouns which name other entities required for the whole cooking process (e.g. water) as well the names of the products which are formed while cooking (e.g. sauce, soup) and parts of the wholes (e.g. breast, crumbs).

Figure 2: Occurrences of Nouns Designating Ingredients

NL JO GR Ingredients 361 365 233

The example below shows nouns standing for ingredients in relation to nouns of other categories. The words highlighted in blue stand for the nouns naming ingredients, the words highlighted in green stand for nouns of other categories.

Example 1 (JO 11)

Crunchy garlic chicken

1 clove of garlic 2 heaped tablespoons plain flour 1 lemon 1 large egg, preferably free – range or organic 6 Jacob’s cream crackers 2 skinless chicken breasts, preferably 25g butter free – range or organic 4 sprigs of fresh flat – leaf parsley olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To prepare your chicken Peel the garlic and zest the lemon * Put your crackers into a food processor with the butter, garlic, parsley sprigs, lemon zest and a pinch of salt and pepper * Whiz until the mixture is very fine, then pour these crumbs on to a plate * Sprinkle the flour on to a second plate * Crack the egg into a small bowl and beat with a fork * Lightly score the underside of the chicken breasts * Put a square of clingfilm over each one and bash a few times with the bottom of a pan until the breast flatten out a bit* Dip the chicken into the flour until both sides are completely coated, then dip into the egg and finally into the flavoured crumbs * Push the crumbs on to the chicken breast so they stick – you want the meat to be totally coated

To cook your chicken You can either bake or fry the chicken * If baking, preheat your oven to its highest temperature, place your chicken on a baking tray and cook for 15 minutes * If frying, put a frying pan on medium heat, add a few good lugs of olive oil and cook the chicken breasts for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until cooked through, golden and crisp

To serve your chicken Either serve the chicken breasts whole, or cut them into strips and pile them on a plate * Beautiful and simple served with a lemon wedge for squeezing over, and a tiny sprinkling of salt * Great with a lovely fresh salad or simply dressed veggies

The example recipe shows that the nouns standing for different ingredients tend to be strung together when a number of ingredients are to be used and processed at the same time. The nouns placed one after the other may amount to six nouns used in a group, as is exemplified by the very beginning of the above provided recipe. The tendency to string the ingredients together is noticeable across the sample of the recipes in general. The following recipe extract comes from the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay.

Example 2 (GR 2)

Drop the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water for a minute, refresh under cold water and peel. Halve, deseed and cut into chunks. Add to the pan with the garlic, sugar, vinegar, olives and capers.

As is obvious from the above provided example and from other recipes analyzed, the nouns standing for ingredients name different kinds of food, ranging from varieties of vegetable and fruit, to meat, fish, spices, herbs and condiments. Most of these nouns are introduced into the discourse of recipe by means of the list of ingredients. The relation of the list of ingredients to some of the language features of recipes is discussed in more detail further on. At this point the discussion is limited to nouns. What is of some interest in this connection is that the names given to the same ingredient very often differ depending on whether they are used in the list of ingredients or in the main body of the recipe. Since the list of ingredients, from the linguistic point of view, serves the purpose of introducing all the ingredients into the discourse of the recipe, the section of ingredients mentions the names of the ingredients for the very first time. On their first appearance, they are specified in great detail by means of their full name, quantifications, and measurements, and by the description of the way they should be processed before they enter the cooking process for which they are meant. While in the list of ingredients the nouns standing for ingredients are specified and detailed by the above mentioned devices, the main part of the instructions very often features the superordinates of the nouns from the list of ingredients. As an example of this, when more general and superordinate nouns are used for their previously mentioned counterparts, one of the recipes from the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay is used. The example shows how the ingredients are detailed and described in the list of ingredients and how they are referred to later on in the main body of the recipe.

Example 3 (GR 1)

Leek, potato & smoked haddock soup

3tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle 2 large leeks, trimmed and thinly sliced 500g Charlotte potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes 1 tsp curry powder sea salt and black pepper

400ml milk (whole or semi-skimmed) 300ml fish or vegetable stock 1 bay leaf 250g smoked haddock fillets knob of butter small bunch of chives, finely chopped

Heat the olive oil in a large pan and sauté the leeks, potatoes, curry powder and seasoning over medium heat for 5 minutes or until the leeks have softened. Add the milk, stock and bay leaf, bring to the boil, then simmer for 5 minutes until the potatoes are tender.

Add the fish and poach for 2-3 minutes until flaky. Lift out with a slotted spoon and break into large flakes, removing the skin. Transfer a quarter of the leeks and potatoes to a bowl, add the butter and crush lightly with a fork. Stir through the haddock and chives.

Discard the bay leaf and whiz the soup with a blender until smooth and creamy. Check the seasoning and reheat, adding a little extra hot stock or water to thin if needed. Pile the crushed potato and haddock mixture in the centre of warm bowls and pour the soup around. Drizzle with a little olive oil and serve.

The example recipe also shows that the list of ingredients includes one proper noun. Proper nouns very often feature in the list of ingredients with their names given in full, and then later on, in the main body of the recipe, the proper name is either reiterated or, at this point, its common counterpart noun supersedes it, as was the case with the above provided recipe.

7.1.2 Proper Nouns

As the previous example already suggested, recipes feature nouns which belong to the category of so called proper nouns. There is indeed a significant proportion of nouns which name the ingredients of foreign provenance and origin. These proper nouns have been appropriated into English in not only their original spellings but also with their original pronunciations. The figure below gives the numbers of proper nouns which stand for some ingredients used in the recipes (though it is not only ingredients which may be proper nouns in recipes, e.g. Tupperware). The numbers include only the nouns spelled with a capital initial letter. Nouns of foreign origin are treated in a separate chapter.

Figure 3: Occurrences of Proper Nouns

NL JO GR Proper nouns 12 6 7

The recipe below shows some examples of the proper nouns used in recipes. The recipe below features two proper nouns, which are Maldon salt and Parmesan. There are another two nouns highlighted: crème fraîche and pecorino cheese. These nouns, though being of foreign provenance, have apparently already lost their foreign character and are not capitalized anymore, being treated as other common nouns.

Example 4 (NL 11)

TEMPURA-FRIED COD WITH AVOCADO AND ROCKET AND A PEA PURÉE

1 clove garlic 175 – 225g skinless cod fillets Maldon salt 2 handfuls rocket (or watercress) 300g frozen peas 1 small ripe avocado 2 – 3 tablespoons crème fraîche good-quality white wine vinegar or 2 – 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan lemon juice or pecorino cheese dribble olive oil vegetable oil for frying Maldon salt 1 egg white 2 fat sweet-and-sour gherkins to 75g rice flour serve

Fill a pan with cold water and throw in the peeled clove of garlic. Bring to the boil and then add some salt and the peas. Cook until tender, drain and put into a food processor, or blender, and add the crème fraîche and cheese. Purée the peas until knobbly and check the seasoning, adding salt if you need to. Tip the puréed peas into a bowl (or back in the pan is probably a better idea) and cover to keep them warm. Heat 5mm oil in a frying pan. Whisk the egg white in a bowl until frothy, but no more, and put the rice flour into a shallow bowl or large plate. Dip the cod fillets first in the foamy egg white and then into the rice flour, patting them to get a good coating. Cook in the hot oil for about 3 – 5 minutes a side (depending on thickness) until golden in colour. Remove to two double sheets of kitchen towel, and cover with another, single, layer. Get out two plates, put a handful of rocket on each plate, and halve then slice the avocado over each pile of rocket, pour over a few drops of really good-quality white wine vinegar or, in the absence of that, lemon juice and a little oil. Sprinkle a small amount of Maldon salt on top. Take the fish out of its kitchen paper swaddling and put on the plates and now spoon on the pea purée, add a gherkin and you’re ready to go.

7.1.3. Loan Words

The proper nouns touched upon above are part of a bigger discussion of the vocabulary of foreign origin that features in the language of recipes to a considerable extent. The register of recipes, as some of the examples provided have already shown, seems to be particularly rich in words coming from foreign languages. These languages constitute a wide range, although a significant amount of vocabulary comes from the languages which exercised some influence on English throughout its historical development. There is also a significant proportion of words which have been appropriated into English with their original names. Some of these words are already fully incorporated into the English language, so fully that they have already lost their „flavour‟ of foreignness. Other words have been incorporated at a much later date and therefore have still retained their foreign character. The example below illustrates how varied the vocabulary of some recipes is. The loan words appropriated from foreign languages are differentiated by means of colors. Words from Italian are highlighted in yellow, words from French are highlighted in blue and words from Spanish are highlighted in pink. The categorization of loan words into the groups of source languages has been done on the basis of the Oxford English dictionary.

Example 5 (NL 13)

BIG PASTA WITH MUSHROOM, PARSLEY, GARLIC AND THYME

3 x 500g packets rigatoni or other big pasta of choice

FOR THE BÉCHAMEL 175g butter 2 litres milk 140g plain flour freshly grated nutmeg

FOR THE MUSHROOM MIXTURE 75g dried porcini mushrooms, 1 teaspoon dried thyme soaked in 500ml boiling water 3 fat cloves garlic, minced 75g butter 750g mixed mushrooms, chopped 1 tablespoon vegetable oil 125 ml Amontillado sherry 50g parsley, chopped, plus more 100g Parmesan, freshly grated for decoration fresh thyme for decoration

come to the boil. Let it bubble for about 5 minutes to get rid of the floury taste. Take off the heat and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/220°C. Heat a third of the butter and all of the oil for the mushrooms in a large wide pan. Drain the porcini, reserving the liquid, and chop before adding to the pan with half of the chopped parsley, the dried thyme and minced garlic. Stir for a couple of minutes then melt the remaining butter in the same pan and add the chopped mushrooms, stirring for about 5 minutes. The mushrooms will appear dry at first but will eventually start to give off some liquid. Add the porcini soaking liquid, which the mushrooms will largely absorb, but keep stirring while adding the sherry and let it bubble away. Turn off the heat when you have a bronzed, syrupy stew. Stir the mushroom mixture into the béchamel and add half the Parmesan and the remaining half of the chopped parsley. Put a big pan of water on for the pasta, and when it boils, salt it well. Cook the pasta until al dente, then drain and add to the mushroomy white sauce, stirring as best you can to get the pasta covered. Turn into a large roasting pan, of approx. 32 x 42cm. Sprinkle over the remaining Parmesan and bake for 30 minutes or until the top begins to turn golden in places. When the tin comes out of the oven, sprinkle with some more chopped parsley and some sprigs of fresh thyme.

The highlighted words of foreign origin exemplify the distinction between recently appropriated loan words and loan words which are already a stable part of English vocabulary. However, the high proportion of loan words is not limited to the word class of nouns exclusively. It covers other word classes too; the category of verbs includes equally significant proportions of verbs which seem to be transfers from foreign languages. The following example recipe shows the verbs which are of foreign origin. All the highlighted words in the recipe seem to be of French origin, though the history and background of some of the words are still obscure. The analysis has been done again on the basis of the Oxford English Dictionary. The words highlighted in green are of non-French origin.

Example 6 (GR 1)

Leek, potato & smoked haddock soup

300ml fish or vegetable stock 1 bay leaf 250g smoked haddock fillets knob of butter small bunch of chives, finely chopped

The comparisons of numbers of highlighted words suggest that the verbs of foreign origin represent a significant category of verbs. For both nouns and verbs, I do not provide numbers and quantifications here encompassing the entire sample of recipes under investigation, since it is not always easy to pinpoint the etymology of all the words. Moreover, the origins of some of the words remain obscure, which makes the task of quantification difficult to accomplish. The example recipes provided above should serve as an illustration of a phenomenon which is highly representative of the majority of recipes analyzed.

7.1.4. Kitchen Utensils and Cookery Equipment

The other significant category of nouns used in the language of recipes is the group of nouns naming different cooking implements and utensils used during the preparation of the dish and processing of the ingredients. The figure below shows the number of nouns which stand for the names of kitchen utensils and implements.

Figure 4: Occurrences of Nouns Designating Cooking Utensils

NL JO GR Cooking utensils 151 132 68

Since cooking is nowadays a highly specialized enterprise involving a variety of different techniques and procedures, the complexity of the cooking process should naturally be reflected in the equipment which is required for the given technique. The following example shows the variety and types of kitchen utensils which are required for the preparation of a not very complicated dish.

Example 7 (JO 3)

Super-quick salmon stir-fry sea salt and freshly ground black pepper a bunch of fresh coriander 200g basmati or wild rice groundnut oil 350g salmon fillet, skin off and bones removed 1 heaped tablespoon Patak’s tandoori curry paste a handful of shelled peanuts a handful of mangetouts 1 clove of garlic a 400ml tin of coconut milk a thumb – sized piece of fresh root ginger a handful of beansprouts 1 fresh red chilli 1 lime

To prepare your stir–fry Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the rice and cook according to the packet instructions * While that’s cooking away chop the salmon into even – sized 2.5cm chunks * Crush the peanuts up in a pestle and mortar, or else put them into a tea towel or plastic sandwich bag and use a rolling pin to bash them up * Peel and finely chop your garlic and ginger * Halve, deseed and finely slice your chilli * Pick the coriander leaves from the stalks, finely chop the stalks and put the leaves to one side

To cook your stir – fry Pu a wok on a high heat and add 2 lugs of groundnut oil * Add the garlic, ginger, most of the chopped chilli and the coriander stalks * Stir for 30 seconds, then add the curry paste and stir for another 30 seconds * Add the salmon, cook for a minute or so, then add the mangetouts and coconut milk * Let everything cook for another minute * Taste and season with a little salt and pepper if you think it needs it

To serve your stir-fry Drain your cooked rice and divide it between your serving bowls * Spoon over the salmon and sprinkle over the beansprouts and crushed peanuts * Halve your lime and squeeze over the juice * Sprinkle with the remaining chilli and the coriander leaves

The highlighted words in the recipe show the kitchen utensils used for the basic cooking. The recipe above and especially the cooking utensils used may be contrasted with the following recipe, which, unlike the previous one, is for baking.

Example 8 (NL 3)

TIME – HONOURED CHRISTMAS CAKE

sultanas 350g 700g 1kg raisins 110g 225g 350g currants 50g 110g 175g glacé cherries 50g 110g 175g mixed peel 50g 110g 175g brandy or sherry 60ml 120ml 180ml butter 110g 225g 350g brown sugar 90g 195g 300g orange zest, grated 1/3 teaspoon 1 teaspoon 1 ½ teaspoon lemon zest, grated ½ teaspoon 1 teaspoon 1 ½ teaspoon large eggs 2 4 6 marmalade 1 tablespoon 2 tablespoons 3tablespoons almond essence ½ teaspoon 1 teaspoon 1 teaspoon plain flour 250g 350g 525g mixed spice ½ teaspoon 1 teaspoon 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon pinch ¼ teaspoon ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg pinch ¼ teaspoon ¼ teaspoon salt pinch pinch ¼ teaspoon tin: round or square 18cm 23cm 25.5cm 15cm 20cm 23cm temperature gas mark 2 / 150°C gas mark 2/150°C gas mark 2 / 150°C, reduce to gas mark 1 / 140°C after 1 hour cooking time 2 – 2 ½ hours 3 – 3 ½ hours 4 – 4 ½ hours

Place all of the fruit in a large bowl, and add the brandy or sherry. Cover and let the fruit soak overnight. Preheat your oven to gas mark 2/150°C. Wrap the outside of your tin with a double thickness of brown paper, tying it with string, and line inside with baking parchment, both to come up a good 10cm above the rim of the tin. Cream the butter and sugar, then beat in the orange and lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, and then the marmalade and almond essence. Sift the dry ingredients together, then mix the fruit alternately with the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture, combining thoroughly. Put the cake mix carefully into the prepared tin and bake following the table above, or until a cake-tester comes out clean. When the cake is cooked, brush with a couple of tablespoons of liqueur. Wrap immediately, still in its tin – using a double thickness of tin foil – as this will trap the heat and form steam, which in turn will keep the cake soft on top. When it’s completely cold,

remove the cake from the tin and re-wrap in foil, storing preferably in an airtight tin or Tupperware, for at least three weeks. It’s difficult to give a precise ingredient list, at least in terms of quantities, for the icing, because I don’t know which sized cake you are making. The quantities below are for a 23cm diameter cake

FOR THE ICING 200g marmalade 1 kg ready-to-roll icing Icing sugar for sprinkling 500g marzipan

Heat the marmalade in a saucepan and when hot and runny strain into a bowl to remove the rind. Or start off with a rindless one, of course. With a pastry brush, paint all over the cake to make a tacky surface. Dust a work surface with icing sugar, roll out the marzipan and drape over the cake. Then press against the cake and cut off the excess with a sharp knife. If you need to do this twice (with two lots of 250g marzipan), that’s fine, but make sure to smooth over any joins, so that the icing on top lies smoothly. Dust the work surface again with icing sugar and plonk down your block of icing. Beat it a few times with the rolling pin, then dust the top with icing sugar and roll out. Cover the cake with it, again cutting off the excess and sticking bits together to patch up as you need, sprinkling with cold water first. Transfer the cake to a cake stand or board. As for decorating, it is entirely up to you of course, but see my suggestions on page 98, overleaf, and, indeed, the photograph above right.

Comparison of the two recipes, solely with respect to the nouns designating kitchen utensils and equipment, shows that the technique itself very much influences the choice of cooking utensil. Furthermore, the examples reveal that the category of kitchen utensil, which may seem to be at first sight rather simple and unified, in reality represents a highly specialized and varied group of nouns. The specialization of the equipment is not only rendered by means of different labels and specific names, but also by complex premodification, which reinforces the specialized functions of the cooking utensils concerned.

Example 9 (GR 6)

Preheat the grill to its highest setting. Melt the butter in a large non - stick frying pan and fry the bacon until golden brown and crisp…

Example 10 (GR 9)

Heat a large heavy – based saucepan with a tight – fitting lid until it is very hot, then add the olive oil…

Example 11 (GR 10)

Arrange a layer of peppers in four small individual gratin dishes…

As the examples show, the premodification of the nouns standing for cooking utensils is accomplished by several means, mainly by means of adjectives and participles.

7.1.5. Partitives

The other category which, apart from nouns, stands for ingredients and cooking utensils largely used in the language of recipes is partitives, i.e. different nouns which, as the term itself implies, refer to “a part of a whole”, “to a single item” or to “a collection of items” (Alexander 1988: 42). The figure below shows the numbers of partitives which made their appearance in the recipes analyzed.

Figure 5: Occurrences of Partitives

NL JO GR Partitives 164 120 93

The numbers provided under the general heading of partitives include both collective nouns (e.g. a bunch of) and unit nouns (e.g. a bit). As Biber‟s Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999) says “unit nouns are in a way the opposite of collective nouns: rather than providing a collective reference for separate entities, they make it possible to split up an undifferentiated mass and refer to separate instances of a phenomenon. Both types of noun provide alternative ways of viewing and referring, collective nouns with respect to countables and unit nouns with respect to uncountables” (Biber 1999: 251). The other difference is that “unit nouns are characteristically general in meaning (bit, piece, slice etc.), and they are followed by an of-phrase specifying the type of matter or phenomenon referred to. Grammatically, they behave like ordinary countable nouns” (Biber 1999: 251). Comparison of the numbers of occurrences of partitives with occurrences of nouns referring to kitchen utensils shows that, in two of the cookbooks analyzed, the partitives even prevail over the nouns standing for kitchen utensils. This may be caused by the fact that the quantification of partitives has been done on the basis of data both from the list of ingredients and from the method section, since partitives abound especially in the list of ingredients where nouns are specified by means of quantities. However, there is usually no section presenting the utensils which should be used (at least not in the recipes studied) and therefore

the nouns designating kitchen utensils may be slightly disadvantaged in the comparative counts. The example below shows how partitives are used in the main body of a recipe.

Example 12 (JO 10)

Broccoli with Asian dressing

Get yourself around 600g of broccoli or purple sprouting broccoli * Heat your steamer pan or put a large pan of water on to boil * Break the broccoli up into little pieces and slice up the stalks * Place the broccoli in your steamer or in a colander placed over the pan of boiling water and cover with a tight – fitting lid or some foil * Steam for around 6 minutes, until the stalks are tender * Meanwhile, make your dressing * Peel a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger and a clove of garlic and grate into a bowl * Halve, deseed and finely chop a fresh red chilli and add to the bowl * Stir in 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and the juice from 1 lime * Drizzle in a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar * Whisk the dressing together and have a taste * What you’re looking for is a flavour balance between saltiness from the soy sauce, sweetness from the balsamic vinegar, acid from the lime and heat from the chilli * When the broccoli is cooked, place it on a big serving platter * Mix up the dressing one last time before pouring it over * Absolute heaven!

The example recipe features a measure partitive („g of broccoli‟), a container partitive („pan of‟), a general partitive („a piece of‟) and a number of quantity partitives („teaspoon of‟, „tablespoon of‟ and „a clove of‟). Despite the fact that the example recipe shows a variety of partitives, it is necessary to point out that the partitives making their appearance in the example represent just a small sample of the vast range of partitives which are exhibited in the recipes analyzed. The following figures and graphs that accompany them expand on the examples provided in the recipe above and give some more information on the types of specific partitives most often used in the recipe texts under investigation. The first graph shows findings for the cookbook by Nigella Lawson, second graph shows results for the cookbook by Jamie Oliver and the very last graph provides results for the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay.

Figure 6: Occurrences of the most Frequent Partitives

NL JO GR grams 48 grams 14 grams 29 tablespoon 27 tablespoon 13 tablespoons 22 teaspoon 22 bunch 8 handful 8 ml 10 handful 7 ml 6 clove 9 clove 6 squeeze 5 sprig, slice 5 lug, sprig 5

The figures and graphs show that the recipes analyzed are particularly rich in the occurrence of partitives standing for measures, the partitive „gram‟ being the most frequent partitive in all the recipes analyzed. The other partitives showing the highest numbers of occurrence are partitives standing for rather small quantities like „ml‟, „squeeze‟, „handful‟, „bunch‟ and „lug‟. The types of the most frequent partitives further suggest that more general partitives with expressions such as „a piece of‟ or „a bit of‟ do not feature in the recipes under analysis very often and that the preference is given to the specific partitives which obviously prevail. This predominance of specific partitives seems to be fully in accordance with the fact that a recipe should provide its readers with the expressions of measures and quantities which should be as accurate as possible. The high occurrence of a wide range of partitives is a reflection of this necessity related to the inherent characteristics of recipes.

The specific partitives are good examples to illustrate the high level of specialization of the language of recipes. In order to pinpoint as closely as possible the desired and intended measures and quantities, the language of recipes had to develop a wide range of devices – partitives, which help it to accomplish its goal. The choice and use of partitives is influenced by several aspects. One of these, probably the most general one, is, naturally, the quantity itself. For big quantities, partitives like „pot‟, „kg‟ or „l‟ are used. For small quantities „drizzle‟, „sprinkling‟, „drop‟, „pinch‟, „squeeze‟, „bunch‟, „handful‟ and „teaspoon‟ or „tablespoon‟ may be used. However, the quantity or the size is not the only criterion which affects the use of individual partitives. The consistency and the character of the ingredient govern the use of the choice of partitive in the same way. For solid quantities „knob‟, „bunch‟ or „handful‟ are used. For loose ingredients, „sprinkling‟, „pinch‟ or „teaspoon‟ and „tablespoon‟ are used. Container partitives like „pot‟, „can‟, „glass‟ or „teaspoon‟ and „tablespoon‟ require nouns which name an ingredient of liquid character. The same is true for measure partitives like „l‟ and „ml‟ and for other partitives suggesting small quantities like „drop‟, „drizzle‟ or „lug‟. The use of some small group of partitives is affected by the type of the ingredient itself. „Rasher‟ tends to be used exclusively in connection with bacon, which is, by definition, usually thin and flat. „Sprigs‟, „stalks‟ and „bunch‟ tend to be used with herbs and vegetables, „cloves‟ with garlic, „head‟ and „florets‟ with cauliflower and „loaf‟ with bread. This small selection of examples is based solely on the partitives used in the sample of recipes. Naturally, there are numerous different combinations of partitives, but they are not considered here, since it is not the aim to present a detailed catalogue of all occurrences of the partitives and their contexts of use; the aim is rather to show the high level of specialization of the language of recipes, which is very well exemplified in the use and occurrences of partitives.

7.1.6. Numbers

While partitives, as has been already mentioned, serve the purpose of specifying the quantities and measurements of ingredients required for the preparation of the dish as precisely as possible, there are also some other means that are exploited for the expression of quantities. Apart from partitives, there are numbers, which aim to pinpoint the quantities and measurements of any amount or size.

The figure below shows how many occurrences of different kinds of numerical expressions the recipes under analysis display.

Figure 7: Occurrences of Numerical Expressions

NL JO GR numbers in total 226 212 141 cardinal numbers 214 204 138 decimal numbers 0 4 0 fractions 12 4 3

The figures in the table show that numbers are an important part of every recipe. There are three most common types of numbers. These are cardinal numbers used as quantifiers, decimal numbers, fractions or combinations of fractions and cardinal numbers. All these numbers represent means by which exact indications of the necessary quantities or proportions of ingredients necessary for the successful preparation of the dish can be conveyed. These exact quantities are, in the case of numbers, unlike partitives, rendered by non-linguistic means. All the types of numerical expressions are especially common in the list of ingredients. Therefore, the counts provided in the figure include both the numbers occurring in the list of ingredients as well as the numbers used in the main body of the recipe. The following example illustrates how numbers are used in recipes.

Example 13 (JO 12)

Salmon en croûte serves 4 – 6 plain flour, for dusting 4 tablespoons black olive tapenade paste 1 x 500g pack of all–butter puff pastry a small bunch of fresh basil 1 x 800g salmon fillet, bones removed 2 ripe tomatoes olive oil 1 x 150g ball of mozzarella cheese sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 large egg, preferably free – range or organic

Place the pastry on your floured tray * Drizzle the salmon fillet with olive oil and season with a pinch of salt and pepper * Transfer to the pastry, skin–side down, then spoon the black olive paste over the top, spreading it out into a thin layer * Pick the basil leaves and place them over the fish * Slice the tomatoes and place them over the basil * Tear the mozzarella into pieces and scatter these on top * Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil * Gather up the sides of the pastry and pinch and push them together * Crack the egg into a cup and beat it with a fork, then use a pastry brush to paint this egg wash all around the pastry edges

To cook and serve your salmon en croûte Place the baking tray at the very bottom of the preheated oven, with an empty baking tray on the shelf above to protect the top of it from getting too much heat * Cook for 35 minutes, then remove from the oven and serve in the middle of the table so that everyone can cut themselves a slice * Great served with any steamed vegetable or a lovely green salad (the usual story!)

The example clearly shows that most of the numbers defining the quantities or proportions of ingredients feature in the list of ingredients, where the quantities are usually established in detail. However, numbers also feature in the section dealing with preparation steps. Nevertheless, here they do not function so often as modifiers of the nouns standing for ingredients, but rather as means for describing durations, cooking and baking temperatures and parameters and proportions of kitchen implements. The next example shows how numbers are used in recipes when the list of ingredients is not included as a separate part of the recipe.

Example 14 (GR 13)

Couscous, broad beans, peas & pancetta

Fry 250g chopped pancetta in a little olive oil until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain; save the oil in the pan.

Tip 250g couscous into a bowl and pour on 400ml hot chicken or vegetable stock. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and the reserved oil. Give the mixture a stir and cover the bowl tightly with cling film. Leave the couscous to absorb the liquid for 5 – 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, blanch 150g broad beans and 150g peas in boiling water for 2 minutes. Refresh under cold water and drain well.

Fluff up the couscous with a fork. Add the pancetta, beans, peas and a handful of chopped mint and flat leaf parsley. Season and drizzle generously with olive oil. Fork through and serve.

The example shows that, in the case of recipes with a missing list of ingredients, the main part contains more numbers, which obviously take over the function of quantifiers, as

numbers are normally used.

7.1.7. Abbreviations

In connection with partitives, another phenomenon widely exhibited in the language of recipes, i.e. the phenomenon of abbreviations, should be mentioned. In the language of recipes, there seems to be a tendency to use abbreviations as preferred shortcuts to the full versions of some words. The abbreviations are used especially in connection with quantities and partitives. The figure below gives a list of the abbreviations which make their appearance throughout the recipes. As the numbers show, the most commonly used abbreviation is the one standing for „gram‟. The recipes by Gordon Ramsay are different from the other two cookbooks in that they use the abbreviations „tbsp‟ and „tsp‟ standing for „tablespoon‟ and „teaspoon‟ respectively. All the abbreviations used throughout the recipes are standard abbreviations. They are always easily recognizable and consistent throughout each cookbook.

Figure 8: Occurrences of Abbreviations

Abbreviations NL JO GR kg 1 0 1 g 54 21 35

°C 8 4 3

°F 0 4 0 cm 5 6 3 mm 2 0 0 ml 7 3 6 cl 1 0 0 tbsp 0 0 20 tsp 0 0 3

The following example recipe shows how the abbreviations are used in the main body of a recipe. The example recipe below contains three abbreviations, all of which stand for quantities, or partitives, „gram‟ „tablespoon‟ and „teaspoon‟.

Example 15 (GR 5)

Crayfish, avocado & mayo toasties

Toss 400g cooked crayfish tails with 4 - 5 tbsp mayonnaise and ½ tsp white truffle–infused olive oil. Stir through 1 chopped avocado and season with sea salt and black pepper to taste.

Lightly toast 4 thick slices of rustic white bread. Sandwich the crayfish filling between the toast slices and serve.

In connection with abbreviations, it should be mentioned that quantities and partitives are not the only categories which are presented in recipes in shortened ways. The shortening applies in recipes to some other words too, which are for the reason of their extensive length superseded by their shortened counterparts. The example below presents recipe extract exemplifying this phenomenon.

Example 16 (JO 7)

Add the veg to the pan and stir every 30 seconds for around 7 minutes or until softened and lightly coloured *

7.1.9. Articles

The category of nouns is inherently related to the category of articles. Therefore, the discussion of nouns in the register of recipes deserves some mention of articles too. It has already been commented that from the linguistic point of view the list of ingredients serves the purpose of introducing the new entities into the discourse of the recipe. A short look at the list of ingredients reveals that there are hardly any articles, no matter whether definite or indefinite, used in the list of ingredients. The new entities in the list of ingredients are specified by means of quantity characterizations or adjectives, many of which are in the form of past participles. However, once the new entities have been introduced and specified in the list of ingredients, they are referred to by means of definite lexical expressions when mentioned in the main body of the recipe, since the definite article “specifies that the referent is assumed to be known to the speaker and addressee” (Biber 1999: 69) unlike its indefinite counterpart “which narrows down the reference to a single member of a class” (Biber 1999: 70). A significant feature of the register of recipes which is noticeable at first sight is the extensive use of definite articles. Definite articles by and large predominate over indefinite

articles. This is true for all the three cookbooks analyzed.

Figure 9: Occurrences of Articles

NL JO GR definite article ‘the’ 347 305 168 indefinite article ‘a’ 131 181 70 indefinite article ‘an’ 8 3 3 total number of articles 486 489 241

My findings with respect to occurrence of definite articles seem to contradict the findings of Kittredge and Lehrberger (1982), who note the omission of definite articles in recipe language (Kittredge and Lehrberger 1982: 114 – 115), a feature that characterizes many so-called simplified registers of English (Ferguson 1994: 21). Though the findings of my analysis may suggest that the language of recipes shows, to some extent, signs of simplification, as is discussed later in the thesis, the data yielded by my analysis fail to show a clear underuse of definite articles.

7.1.10. Adjectives

Nouns are closely related to, and sometimes even dependent on adjectives, i.e. on the words which modify and further specify their meaning. This is also true for the language of recipes. Adjectives fulfill an important role in recipes in providing the description relating to the ingredients and cooking implements which are physically present in the cooking situation but which are hidden and unknown to readers. Therefore, to compensate for this deficiency, adjectives function as devices which take account of both mundane and special characteristics pertaining to ingredients or cooking utensils taking part in the cooking process. The descriptions which are provided by means of adjectives considerably add to the factuality of recipes. Adjectives are used in recipes in several ways. They specify in greater detail the character of the ingredients which should be used („ripe banana‟, „large eggs‟) and also the way they should be processed („dried spaghetti‟, „marinated anchovies‟). Apart from defining the ingredients, they might be used for the purposes of specifying the character and

consistency of the cooking substances or mixtures („soft‟, „tender‟, „stiff‟, „smooth‟, „thick and creamy‟, „golden brown‟) and characteristics and parameters of the cooking utensils („non-stick frying pan‟, „large roasting tray‟, „tight-fitting lid‟). The figure below gives the numbers of different kinds of adjective which appear in the recipes studied. The numbers distinguish between „regular‟ adjectives and adjectives in the form of present and past participles, since especially the latter type of adjective seems to be used in the language of recipes in greater measure.

Figure 10: Occurrences of Adjectives

Adjectives NL JO GR total number 293 316 212 present participles 16 16 6 past participles 79 76 93 other 198 224 113

The following recipe exemplifies the use of adjectives in a recipe. Different types of adjective are differentiated by means of colours. The adjectives highlighted in green are adjectives in the past participle, the adjective in yellow is the adjective in the present participle, and the adjectives in blue are the regular adjectives.

Example 17 (GR 8)

Spaghetti with anchovy, garlic & parsley

300g dried spaghetti sea salt and black pepper 3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle 2 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced 200g pack freshly marinated anchovies, roughly chopped bunch of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped freshly grated Parmesan, to serve

Cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water for 8 – 10 minutes or until al dente.

Heat the olive oil in a large pan, in the meantime. Add the garlic and fry over a medium heat until golden brown at the edges. Stir in the chopped anchovies.

Drain the spaghetti and tip into the pan with the garlic and anchovies. Add the chopped parsley and season to taste with salt and pepper. Toss well.

Divide among warm bowls and serve with grated Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.

The example recipe shows that the adjectives in the form of past participles represent a large proportion of the total number of adjectives used. Most of the adjectives in the form of past participles refer to the manner of processing and preparation of the given ingredients. The example recipe above comes from the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay and the numbers show that the recipes from this cookbook contain indeed the highest proportion of past participle adjectives in relation to the total number of adjectives. Another aspect of the use of adjectives which seems to be characteristic of the language of recipes is the number of adjectives placed one after the other. The adjectives in recipes tend to be strung together, numbering up to four adjectives placed in a raw.

Example 18 (GR 15)

Whiz until smooth, thick and creamy.

Example 19 (GR 6)

Melt the butter in a large non - stick frying pan and fry the bacon until golden brown and crisp.

Example 20 (GR 2)

Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy - based pan and sauté the aubergine, onion, celery and red pepper with some seasoning over a high heat for about 5 minutes.

Example 21 (GR 10)

Arrange a layer of peppers in four small individual gratin dishes.

7.1.11. Verbs

Having discussed the properties of nouns and adjectives that appear in the language of recipes, there still remains to be discussed another important word category - the category of verbs. The category of verbs ranks among the most important categories of words in the language of recipes, which perhaps is again not very different from other registers. Biber‟s Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999) says that, in comparison with nouns, “verbs are less frequent (on average every tenth word is a verb), followed by adjectives

and adverbs” (Biber 1999: 65). What is again more distinctive of the language of recipes, as is the case with nouns and adjectives, is the range of verbs used in recipes as well as the way they are used. The figure below shows the numbers of verbs which make their appearance in the recipes under analysis. Only full lexical verbs have been included in the quantifications. The primary verbs „have‟, „be‟ and „do‟ which behave like full lexical verbs have been considered in the quantitative analysis too. However, verbs which behave like auxiliary verbs have not been included in the analysis.

Figure 11: Occurrences of Verbs

NL JO GR Verbs 595 586 271

Verbs are an indispensable and essential component of every recipe since they describe and give some further directions on what should be done next and how the ingredients should be processed. On the basis of the analysis of verbs used in the sample of recipes under investigation, it may be concluded that the verbs used in the language of recipes vary from highly specific verbs, which are more typically restricted to the register of recipes and which are of a highly technical character, to more general verbs, which are not necessarily limited to recipes only but tend to be used in other registers too. However, though the verbs which I refer to as more general are not exclusively constrained to the language of recipes, they tend to demonstrate higher rates of occurrence in a small volume of text. The above mentioned conclusion is illustrated by the figures and graphs below. They show the most frequently used verbs and the numbers of their occurrences throughout the recipes in all the three cookbooks separately. The figures include the ten most frequent verbs in the first two mentioned cookbooks by Nigella Lawson and Jamie Oliver. For the last cookbook, only the verbs which show more than five occurrences have been included in the figure and graph.

Figure 12: Occurrences of the most Frequent Verbs

NL JO GR

be 37 add 46 add 18 add 31 put 27 serve 14 heat 23 cook 25 heat 9 put 17 be 18 season 8 cook, drizzle, be, cook, make 16 chop serve 16 toss 6 cover 13 stir place 15 place, cut, drain 5 leave 12 slice peel 14 stir, preheat 8 season, use 11 chop 7 bring to the boil, let 10 halve 8

The figures and graphs show that the most frequent verbs are more or less common to all three cookbooks. This may be of some interest, given the fact that all three cookbooks contain different recipes and specialize in different topics. The most common verbs in the recipes seem to be the verbs „add‟, „cook‟, „heat‟ and not surprisingly „be‟. The cookbook by Jamie Oliver does not show any results for the verb „heat‟, because his recipes included the expression with „put‟, as in „put on the heat‟ instead. The list of the most frequent words shows that they are all instructional verbs. As the graphs reveal, most of the verbs are action verbs. This corresponds with the fact that the verbs instruct the readers to do something and further specify how to do it.

The figures and graphs do not show the occurrences of less frequent verbs, which, however, are more specialized and more narrowly limited to the language of recipes. The specialization of these verbs is related to their strong connotations with the domain of cooking and with narrow and restricted areas of their use. The following example is intended to show some of the low frequency words which appear in the language of recipes and which seem to show a higher level of register specificity. The highlighted words include both verbs and nouns, since the phenomenon which is discussed here (the specificity and generality of vocabulary) under the heading of verbs pertains in the same measure to nouns too.

Example 22 (NL 6)

CHEESECAKELETS

3 eggs 50g plain sugar 2 tablespoons caster sugar 1 teaspoon best quality vanilla 225g cottage cheese extract

TO EAT WITH approx. 250g strawberries ½ - 1 teaspoon caster sugar ½ teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Start with the fruit, just so that it can macerate while you make the pancakes. Depending on their size, chop the strawberries into quarters or eighths, sprinkle over the balsamic vinegar and sugar (you’ll need more or less depending on how sweet and ripe the berries you have are) and swirl the bowl about a bit so the strawberries are coated before covering with clingfilm and leaving to steep while you set about making your cheesecakelets. Separate the eggs. Mix the yolks with the sugar, beating well. Add the cottage cheese, flour and vanilla. Then, in another bowl, whisk the whites till frothy (with a hand whisk only: you’re not even approaching making meringue or anything) and fold the white spume into the cottage-cheese mixture. Heat a smooth griddle or non-stick frying pan and dollop tablespoons of the curd-thick batter on to it to make cakelets of about 8cm in diameter. Each cheesecakelet will take a minute or so to firm up underneath, when you should flip it and cook the other side. Remove to a warmed plate as and when ready. Turn the strawberries in the ruby syrup they’ve made and squish some pieces with a fork at the same time. Decant them into a bowl, with a spoon for serving, and bring your cheesecakelets to the table at the same time.

The complexity and specialization of the verbs which are used in recipes is further reinforced by the existence of a wide range of verbs standing for the same activity with minor nuances and subtle differences.

There is a general and subtlety-lacking verb „cook‟, which covers and subsumes a number of different cooking techniques. The choice of the more explicit expression depends on the technique of cooking and food preparation. Therefore, „bake‟ is used for making bread and cakes in the oven, „roast‟ is used for meat or vegetables cooked in the oven or over a fire, „steam‟ is used for cooking using steam, „poach‟ is used for cooking in very hot water or another very hot liquid such as a milk, „simmer‟ is used for cooking something in liquid at a temperature slightly below boiling, „boil‟ is used when the food is cooked in boiling water, „blanch‟ is used when food, usually vegetables, is put into boiling water for a very short time, and, finally, „fry‟ is used for cooking food in hot oil. The list of verbs provided here, which is far from exhaustive, aims to show the variety of specialized verbs which designate the different cooking techniques subsumed under the single general expression „cook‟. Included in the enumeration of cooking techniques is the verb „fry‟ – a specialized expression used for cooking in hot oil. However, even this verb may further subsume other subtechniques. In the sample of recipes analyzed, there are three more expressions for frying, namely „sauté‟, „sear‟ and „stir-fry‟, all of which are again used for specific situations requiring the use of a specialized cooking technique. To add another illustration of the high lexical specialization of the language of recipes, the variety of verbs for cutting can be mentioned. Depending on the shape and size of the cut pieces, the specialized verbs „slice‟, „chop‟ and „mince‟ very often feature in the sample. In the same way, there are also different verbs for serving something, depending on the consistency of the served food, the manner in which it should be served, as well as the cooking utensil being used for the serving. Apart from the general word „serve‟, which seems to take no account of the mentioned peculiarities, there are verbs like „ladle‟, „spoon‟ and „scoop out‟, which are more specialized with respect to contexts when they may be used. The situation is similar with a number of other verbs. The general verb „pour‟ used for moving liquids from one container to another may further subsume verbs like „decant‟, „tip‟, „drizzle‟ or „dribble‟. The general verb „mix‟ may further subsume more specialized verbs like „toss‟, „stir‟ and „blend‟. The list could continue with a large number of similar examples. However, it is not the purpose, to catalogue all the verbs used in the sample of recipes analyzed and discuss them with respect to the generality or specificity of their use. The aim is rather to show how highly specialized the vocabulary of verbs is. The choice of the verbs, along with their use, seems to be part of the distinctiveness of the register of recipes. The latter is discussed in the next chapter dealing with the syntactic

level of the register of recipes.

7.1.13. Phrasal Verbs

The language of recipes seems to be rich in a “special group of verbs which consist of two or three words” (Sinclair 1990: 162), i.e. in phrasal verbs. The analysis of the verbs suggests that phrasal verbs represent a substantial and significant part of the vocabulary of verbs, especially when the proportion of phrasal verbs in relation to the total number of verbs used is considered. The following figure shows the numbers of non-phrasal verbs and phrasal verbs used in the recipes studied.

Figure 13: Occurrences of Phrasal Verbs

NL JO GR Non-phrasal verbs 167 123 106 Phrasal verbs 67 51 22 Verbs 234 174 128

The numbers and their comparisons are commented on in greater detail in the next chapter dealing with the language of recipe in terms of formality and informality. At this point it may suffice to show that phrasal verbs indeed represent a large proportion of the total number of verbs. The findings expressed in numbers are further illustrated by the following two example recipes which show how the phrasal verbs are used in the actual recipes. The first recipe is an extract, the second is provided in full version.

Example 23 (NL 3)

TIME – HONOURED CHRISTMAS CAKE

need to do this twice (with two lots of 250g marzipan), that’s fine, but make sure to smooth over any joins, so that the icing on top lies smoothly. Dust the work surface again with icing sugar and plonk down your block of icing. Beat it a few times with the rolling pin, then dust the top with icing sugar and roll out. Cover the cake with it, again cutting off the excess and sticking bits together to patch up as you need, sprinkling with cold water first. Transfer the cake to a cake stand or board. As for decorating, it is entirely up to you of course, but see my suggestions on page 98, overleaf, and, indeed, the photograph above right.

Example 24 (JO 14)

Banana tarte tatin

60g unsalted butter plain flour, for dusting 150g caster sugar 250g puff pastry 4 large bananas optional: crème fraîche ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon optional: vanilla ice cream and a few 1 orange tablespoons of desiccated coconut

To make your caramel bananas Preheat your oven to 180°C / 350°F / gas 4 * Cut your butter into cubes and put into a deep – sided baking tray approximately 19 x 30cm * Place the tray on a low heat, let the butter melt, then add the sugar and continue to cook for a couple of minutes, stirring occasionally, until golden and caramelized * Meanwhile, peel the bananas, slice them lengthways, and lay them on top of the golden caramel * Remove from the heat, then sprinkle over the cinnamon and finely grate over the zest of half your orange

To make your pastry topping Dust a clean work surface and rolling pin with flour * Rather than putting your pastry down flat and rolling it out, place it on its side (see the picture opposite) and roll it from there, as this will give you a lighter, crisper texture * Roll it out until you have a rectangle shape about the same size as your tray and about 0.5 thick * Drape your pastry over your rolling pin and carefully lay it on the baking tray, gently tucking it around the bananas to make sure they’re well covered, with no gaps * Using a knife or fork, prick the pastry a few times * Place the tray at the top of the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden

To serve your tarte tatin When your tarte tatin is ready you must turn it out at once or it will end up sticking to the baking tray * To do this, cover your hand with a tea towel, carefully hold the tray with a serving plate or board on top and gently turn it over * Using the tip of a knife, pull a corner of the pastry up to check if it’s all cooked underneath (if not, pop it back into oven for another couple of minutes), then ease the whole thing out of the tray * If using crème fraîche, put it into a bowl, grate over the rest of your orange zest and stir well * If using vanilla ice cream, sprinkle a few tablespoons of desiccated coconut on a plate and quickly roll a scoop of ice cream in it until coated * Serve your tarte tatin with a dollop of crème fraîche or coated ice cream and eat immediately!

Both the examples show a variety of phrasal verbs which appear in the recipes. Phrasal verbs have been traditionally more associated with the informal and spoken style of speech that with its written counterpart. This is in correspondence with Biber‟s (1999) corpus findings which prove that “phrasal verbs are used most commonly in fiction and conversation” (Biber 1999: 408). The relation between phrasal verbs and spokenness is elaborated later in the thesis in the chapter on formality and informality.

7.1.14. Verb Forms

As far as the forms of the verbs used in the recipe texts are concerned, by far the greatest proportion of verbs is in the form of the bare infinitive. What seems to be typical of the language of recipes is that the predominant proportion of the bare infinitives that occur in the recipes are imperatives. The following recipe shows the use of imperatives in a typical recipe text. All the verbs highlighted are verbs in the bare infinitive. Verbs highlighted in blue are imperatives.

Example 25 (JO 5)

Evolution cucumber salad

1) Peel 2 cucumbers, using a speed peeler, chop off the ends, and halve them lengthways * Use a teaspoon to gently scoop the seeds out, and discard them * Chop the cucumber into irregular bite-size chunks and place in a bowl * Season with a good pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper * Add 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and mix well * Pick some leaves off a few sprigs of fresh mint and roughly chop them * Add them to the salad and toss together * Serve the salad simply as it is, or let it evolve…

2) Add a large tablespoon of natural yoghurt to the cucumber salad * Toss until well coated and serve drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil

3) Put a large handful of black olives on a clean surface and press down on them with the palm of your hand to remove the stones * Discard the stones and add the olives to the salad * Toss together well

4) Halve 1 fresh red chilli lengthways, deseed and finely chop * Scatter over your cucumber salad and serve drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil

The example recipe above contains only one bare infinitive which is not used as an imperative. Other verb forms feature in the language of recipes too, but they are far less

frequent. The next most frequent verb forms after the imperative are the „-ing form‟ and infinitives with „to‟. These findings are illustrated by the below provided graphs and charts. The first graph presents the findings for the cookbook by Nigella Lawson. The second graph shows findings for the Cookbook by Jamie Oliver and the last graph shows results for the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay. The small shaded parts at the top of three columns represent the occurrences of bare infinitives for non-imperative uses.

Figure 14: Occurrences of Verb Forms

The counts provided in the graphs and figures are based only on the occurrence of full lexical verbs, excluding auxiliary verbs. The figures and graphs provided show that the verb form of the bare infinitive and its imperative use represent a striking majority of all the occurrences of verbs in the recipes under analysis.

NL JO

gerund 69 0 gerund 48 0 to infinitive 50 0 to infinitive 26 0 bare infinitive 308 85 bare infinitive 414 52 past participle 28 0 past participle 28 0 third person third person singular 45 0 singular 14 0

gerund 15 0 to infinitive 23 0 bare infinitive 212 6 past participle 6 0 third person singular 6 0

7.1.15. Tense, Aspect, Voice

In the preceding part it was stated that the bare infinitive used as an imperative is the most frequent verb form of the recipes. This subchapter comments on the occurrences of tense, aspect and voice and the standard ways of use these linguistic phenomena exhibit in the recipes analyzed. As far as tense is concerned, present tense may be regarded as the unmarked form of recipe texts, as it represents a large majority of all the occurrences of verbs marked for tense. The following figure presents the numbers which show the occurrences of other „non- present‟ tenses.

Figure 15: Occurrences of Non-present Tenses

NL JO GR Present perfect 5 2 1 Future simple 10 8 0 Past simple 7 0 0

There are some marked differences between the numbers across the cookbooks. These differences are accounted for later in the thesis. At this point, the figure serves as an illustration of the different tenses used in the recipe texts studied.

Considering the aspects of the verbs used, the non-progressive aspect seems to be the one used as standard. The following figure shows the numbers of occurrences with progressive aspect. The majority of the progressive forms used are again in the present tense, which is in accordance with the finding presented above, i.e. that the present tense is the default form of the majority of recipe texts.

Figure 16: Occurrences of Aspect

NL JO GR Present continuous 8 9 1 Past continuous 1 0 0

As far as voice is concerned, the prevalent form of the verbs is in the active voice. This is not very surprising given the fact that all the recipe texts have an implied agent who is responsible for performing all the actions, which are to be undertaken throughout the preparation of the dish. However, some occurrences of passives still make their appearance in the recipes investigated, as the following figure shows.

Figure 17: Occurrences of Passive

NL JO GR Passive 11 11 5

Though the numbers standing for the occurrences of passives are not extremely large, they are not insignificant. The passive tends to be generally considered indicative of formal, written and impersonal style, where direct reference to agents and participants involved is avoided. Therefore, the language of recipes would be expected to contain some occurrences of passives, which it indeed does contain, though not in large quantities. The following two examples illustrate some of the occurrences of the phenomena which have been touched upon above. The first example shows the use of present perfect, present progressive and passive.

Example 26 (JO 6)

Tomato soup

2 carrots / 2 sticks of celery / 2 medium onions / 2 cloves of garlic / olive oil / 2 chicken or vegetable stock cubes, preferably organic / 2 x 400g tins of plum tomatoes / 6 large ripe tomatoes / a small bunch of fresh basil / sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make your soup Peel and roughly slice the carrots * Slice the celery * Peel and roughly chop the onions * Peel and slice the garlic * Put a large pan on a medium heat and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil * Add all your chopped and sliced ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon * Cook for around 10 minutes with the lid askew, until the carrots have softened but are still holding their shape, and the onion is lightly golden * Put the stock cubes into a jug or pan and pour in 1.8 litres of boiling water from the kettle * Stir until the stock cubes are dissolved, then add to the pan with your tinned and fresh whole tomatoes, including the green stalks that may still be attached to some of them (these give an amazing flavour – trust me!) * Give it a good stir and bring to the boil * Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on * Meanwhile, pick your basil leaves

To serve your soup Remove the pan from the heat * Season with the salt and pepper and add the basil leaves * Using a hand blender or liquidizer, pulse the soup until smooth * Season again before dividing between your serving bowls * See page 141 for some great soup topping ideas

The second example presents occurrences of present progressive, future simple and passive.

Example 27 (NL 12)

BELLINI

1 x 75cl bottle of Prosecco icing sugar, optional 250ml white peach purée/pulp or 3 – 4 white peaches

Let’s optimistically presume you’re doing this, first off, with actual fruit. So, cut the peaches into quarters, and taking each quarter, in turn, hold over the mouth of the blender and peel off the skin (this is because you’ll lose juice as you do it). Drop the skinned fruit into the blender goblet and purée. If the purée is too tart, add icing sugar to taste and purée again. (One of the virtues of the bought pulp, is that it isn’t made with underripe fruit.) Leave this hamster-coloured pulp in the fridge to chill. Your only remaining job is to pour the bottle of also chilled Prosecco into a large jug or pitcher, then pour in the white peach purée and stir together.

The last example seems to be interesting not only in terms of the use of present

progressive, future simple and passive, but also in terms of the use of contracted forms. This issue is given separate treatment later on in the thesis.

7.1.16. The Lexical Density

The lexical density of a text is, by definition, “the proportion of the text made up of lexical word tokens” (Biber 1999: 62). The lexical word tokens include nouns, adjectives, lexical verbs, and adverbs. All these lexical words function as the main carriers of meaning. The chapter on the lexical distinctiveness of the register of recipes contains a discussion of all the speech categories mentioned, except for adverbs. The lexical density of a text is significantly influenced by the mode of the text, i.e. by the written or spoken character of the message and by the size of the information load of the text. In general, “spoken English has a lower lexical density than written English” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 63). This is exemplified by the corpus findings provided in Biber‟s Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999), where it says that “conversation has by far the lowest lexical density” (Biber 1999: 62), whereas “news has the highest lexical density” (Biber 1999: ibid). These findings are correlated with the character of the informative load in both the texts. “The informative aspect is less pronounced in conversation than in the news text. The fact that information is less tightly packed simplifies the tasks of both the speaker and listener in online processing. Since a written text is planned and offers the possibility of re-reading, it can tolerate a much higher information load than conversation” (Biber 1999: 62). News reportage thus stands at one end of the continuum of lexical density. At the other end is, among the written registers, fiction (Biber 1999: 62). The position of recipes seems to be somewhere very close to news reporting, since the lexical density of the recipe texts seems to be rather high. The following recipe shows the proportion of lexical verbs to other non-lexical tokens.

Example 28 (GR 15)

Banana mousse with butterscotch ripple

100g light brown sugar 40g unsalted butter 550ml double cream, chilled

4 large ripe bananas, ideally chilled in the freezer for 1 – 2 hours squeeze of lemon juice dark chocolate, for grating

Put the sugar, butter and 150ml of the cream in a pan over a medium heat and stir continuously until the sugar is dissolved and the butter melted. Let bubble for a minute or two, stirring frequently, then remove from the heat and leave the sauce to cool completely.

Pour the remaining cream into a blender. Peel and chop the bananas and add to the blender along with a squeeze of lemon juice. Whiz until smooth, thick and creamy.

Spoon a little sauce around the sides of four glasses, smudging some of it for an attractive effect. Divide the banana mousse among the glasses and top with more butterscotch. Use a small teaspoon to ripple the butterscotch through the mousse. Grate over a little dark chocolate and chill until ready to serve.

7.1.17. Collocations and Fixed Expressions

Having discussed the distinctive properties and peculiarities of nouns, adjectives and verbs, as exhibited in the language of recipes, it is still necessary to summarize the findings from the areas of separate word classes in the area of collocations and fixed expressions, where all the word classes meet. Considering the language of recipes from a broad perspective, disregarding the boundaries of individual words, it is possible to notice a number of fixed expressions which the language of recipes displays. Some of these fixed expressions may be connected purely and exclusively with the language of cooking and the language of recipes. These fixed expressions include „season to taste‟, „bring to the boil‟ (and its variations like „bring to a simmer‟), „give sth (a mixture) a stir‟ and others. This selection of expressions is based only on the analysis of the sample of recipes under investigation. As has already been suggested in the section dealing with the specialization of verbs, there are some verbs which are used conventionally and exclusively with some objects. Therefore, for example, the noun eggs as an object may go with the verbs „crack‟ „beat or „whisk‟. The same is true for adjectives which may collocate only with a limited variety of nouns. The following recipe extract shows three adjectives which readily collocate with the noun „eggs‟ in the context of a cooking situation.

Example 29 (JO 13)

Cook for the following times, depending on how you like your eggs:  5 minutes for runny  7 minutes for semi – firm  10 minutes for hard – boiled

As was already commented on in the section dealing with partitives, partitives tend to exhibit marked collocational patterns. This is equally true for both collective nouns and unit nouns (Biber 1999: 250). The sample of recipes analyzed contains both rare instances of partitives that collocate with a restricted variety of nouns (e.g. rasher of bacon) as well as partitives which readily combine with a number of collocates (e.g. a bit). However, it has been concluded that the language of recipes is not very favourably inclined towards the use of partitives with general meaning, since the precise expression of quantities and amounts is crucial for the successful accomplishment of the main function of the recipe text. The findings of the analysis are in accordance with the findings provided in Biber‟s Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999), where it says that “some unit nouns have a precise meaning and a very narrow field of use (e.g. loaf, rasher, sliver, whit), while other unit nouns are more general in meaning and combine with a wide variety of nouns (notably „bit‟ and „piece‟)” (Biber 1999: 251). Collective nouns, some of which also feature in the recipes analyzed (e.g. „bunch of‟, „group of‟, and „set of‟) “are by far the most productive, each combining with over 100 different collocates” (Biber 1999: 250). Some of the collocations and fixed expressions are even formed from words of foreign origin. Probably the most salient example of a cooking collocation of this type is „cook until al dente‟ which contains the adjective of Italian origin „al dente‟. This adjective “describes a cooked vegetable or pasta that is still firm when bitten” (Oxford English Dictionary) and has been appropriated into English in its original word form and spelling.

7.1.18. Summary

This chapter has discussed some linguistic features of the register of recipes, concentrating on the investigation of the lexical peculiarities pertaining to the most frequent word categories i.e. nouns, adjectives and verbs. The findings indicate that the language of recipes shows a high level of lexical

diversity. This diversity manifests itself especially in the linguistic range of nouns and verbs. Moreover, the diversity seems to be a reflection of one of the prime requirements of the language of recipes to achieve high semantic precision, which helps to differentiate among a great variety of techniques, implements and ingredients. As a result of this need, the language of recipes has over time developed and now manifests a range of lexical expressions which have the capacity of expressing minor nuances in meanings between individual words. This capacity has been illustrated by the example of partitives and specialized verbs designating cooking techniques Apart from showing indications of lexical diversity, the language of recipes also displays a large proportion of expressions which may be regarded as register specific, being restricted in their use to the domain of cooking solely. It may therefore be maintained that a significant number of lexical expressions occurring in recipes show indications of a high level of specialization. The language of recipes thus seems to be a register with its own highly specialized terminology. When considering the lexis of recipes in terms of its relation to the phenomenon of writtenness, the high level of specialization of the vocabulary seems to be in accordance with the norms of writing. In speaking, “we tend to use simple words based on Anglo-Saxon origins rather than complex vocabulary of French and Latin origin” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 62). However, as has been shown throughout the chapter, the complex vocabulary of foreign origin represents a significant proportion of the vocabulary used in the language of recipes. The heavy pre-modification of noun phrases mentioned in the discussion of adjectives is another example of a written norm where heavily pre-modified noun phrases are commonly used (Brown and Yule 1983: 16 – 17). However, probably the most significant indicator of the written character of the language is its high level of lexical density.

7. 2. The Level of Grammar and Syntax

This chapter deals with the distinctiveness of the register of recipes in terms of some specific syntactic features which make their appearance in different areas of grammar. Since the level of syntax cannot function without the lexical level upon which it is based, the chapter draws to some extent on the information mentioned in the previous chapter discussing the lexical peculiarities of the language of recipes. It is generally true that written text, as opposed to spoken discourse, displays more

complex patterns of organization and structure. As a result, written texts commonly feature high occurrences of complex clauses exploiting different ways of joining the sentences. One of the aims of this chapter is therefore to investigate whether, and to what extent, the register of recipes manifests the complexity of structures typical of written texts. The main attention in the first part of the chapter is devoted to the means of linking the individual clauses together. This discussion should help to establish the level of syntactic complexity in the language of recipes. The next part of the chapter discusses other syntactic peculiarities of the language of recipes.

7.2.1 The Compound Sentence

Recipe texts analyzed display several ways of joining individual simple sentences together. Compound sentences seem to be one of the most frequent occurrences, displaying a large number of coordinate conjunctions. The easiest way of linking individual clauses in recipes is by placing individual sentences one after the other and connecting them by commas. Apart from this, recipe texts make extensive use of several coordinating conjunctions; these include „and‟, „but‟, „then‟ and „or‟. The figure below shows numbers of occurrences of different types of coordinating conjunctions as employed for the purposes of linking the sentences.

Figure 18: Occurrences of Coordinating Conjunctions

NL JO GR And 132 130 65 But 13 3 0 Then 28 20 10 Or 16 13 4

The numbers show that „and‟ is by far the most often used coordinating conjunction, followed by „then‟ and „or‟. „But‟ seems to be the least common coordinating conjunction from the group of four conjunctions presented. What seems to be of some interest is the range of coordinating devices used. They all are highly typical of speech, where fragmented, broken

and incomplete segments are used. “If we do link these segments together, we tend to keep to simple linking device, usually of coordination „and‟, „but‟, „or‟” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 61). The recipe below shows how the sentences are linked in a typical recipe text. The highlighted words in blue include the coordinating conjunctions mentioned above.

Example 30 (GR 2)

Sicilian caponata

5tbsp olive oil 1 aubergine, trimmed and cut into chunks 1 onion, peeled and chopped 2 celery stalks, trimmed and chopped 1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped sea salt and black pepper 5 large tomatoes 2 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped 2 tbsp caster sugar 1 -1 ½ tbsp red wine or balsamic vinegar 100g green olives, pitted and sliced 50g capers, rinsed and drained handful of basil leaves, torn 50g toasted pine nuts

Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy - based pan and sauté the aubergine, onion, celery and red pepper with some seasoning over a high heat for about 5 minutes.

Drop the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water for a minute, refresh under cold water and peel. Halve, deseed and cut into chunks. Add to the pan with the garlic, sugar, vinegar, olives and capers.

Cook over a high heat for 5 - 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the aubergine is tender. Check the seasoning and leave to cool slightly (or to room temperature).

Scatter the torn basil and toasted pine nuts over the caponata and serve with toasted country bread.

The example shows that the way commas and the coordinating conjunction „and‟ are used in the recipe text implies a sequence and order in which the actions should be undertaken. The next example shows a range of coordinating conjunctions used in more extensive recipe. The coordinating conjunctions highlighted in blue are contrasted with the conjunctions of complex sentence which are to be discussed in the following subchapter.

Example 31 (JO 11)

Crunchy garlic chicken

The example shows that the coordinating conjunctions in this very case slightly prevail over complex conjunctions.

7.2.2. The Complex Sentence

One of the most frequent ways of joining sentences in complex sentence-type is by means of participle constructions or infinitives. This way is commonly used in recipes too. The figure below gives the numbers of occurrences when participle constructions and infinitives are used to form complex sentence. In some cases, the numbers may be comparable

to the numbers of occurrences of some of the coordinated conjunctions discussed above.

Figure 19: Occurrences of Participle Constructions and ‘to’ infinitives

NL JO GR Participle constructions 36 24 13 ‘to’ infinitive 37 18 24

The use of participle constructions and infinitives is exemplified on the example recipe below. Example 32 (GR 15)

Banana mousse with butterscotch ripple

100g light brown sugar 40g unsalted butter 550ml double cream, chilled 4 large ripe bananas, ideally chilled in the freezer for 1 – 2 hours squeeze of lemon juice dark chocolate, for grating

Pour the remaining cream into a blender. Peel and chop the bananas and add to the blender along with a squeeze of lemon juice. Whiz until smooth, thick and creamy.

7.2.2.1. Adverbial Clauses

As the recipe provided above may already suggest, the most frequent type of clause which is used extensively in the recipe texts is that of adverbial clause. This fact corresponds with the very nature of the recipe and the main functions it has. The main goal of every recipe is to instruct the reader towards the successful preparation of a dish. This involves not only clear specification of the order of the steps, which is ensured by means of above discussed

coordinating conjunctions, but also the detailed description of the way in which the steps should be done and some information on time specifications. Especially the last mentioned feature clearly accounts for the fact that time clauses exhibit the highest numbers of occurrences out of all the adverbial clauses in recipes. Time clauses, as indicators of durations and time specifications are an indispensable part of every recipe. The figure below gives numbers of time clauses, presented according to the different conjunctions that are used to join the clauses.

Figure 20: Occurrences of Time Clauses

Time clauses NL JO GR with ‘when’ 16 6 0 with ‘before’ 10 5 0 with ‘while’ 4 1 0 with ‘as’ 5 1 2 with ‘until’ 24 23 24

The data in the figure clearly shows that the conjunction „until‟ is by far the most frequent coordinating conjunction used in all the recipe texts. The phenomenon of adverbial clauses is given some more attention towards the end of this chapter. At this point, one recipe is used to illustrate the use of the time adverbial clause with „until‟ as the most common type of the complex clause in recipes. The recipe below features two adverbial clauses with „until‟.

Example 33 (GR 9)

Mussels in an aromatic coconut broth

3 tbsp olive oil 2kg fresh mussels, scrubbed clean (beards removed) 2 garlic cloves (unpeeled), halved few thyme sprigs 100 ml dry white wine 400g can coconut milk 1 lemongrass stalk halved lengthways 1 red chilli, thinly sliced on the diagonal 2 spring onions, trimmed and finely sliced on the diagonal

sea salt and black pepper coriander leaves, to finish

Heat a large heavy – based saucepan with a tight – fitting lid until it is very hot, then add the olive oil. Quickly tip in the mussels, garlic, thyme and wine. Cover the pan with the lid and let the mussels steam for 3 – 4 minutes until they are fully opened.

Drain the mussels over a bowl to catch the liquor, then pour it into a clean pan and boil to reduce by half. Add the coconut milk, lemongrass, chilli, spring onions and seasoning. Bring to a simmer and let bubble for 2 minutes.

Meanwhile, discard any unopened mussels and the garlic, then divide the mussels among warm serving bowls. Ladle the hot coconut broth over the mussels, picking out and discarding the lemongrass. Scatter over some coriander leaves to serve.

The above stated example illustrates how the time clauses with „until‟ help to specify the duration of the action or the point up to which the action should be done and at which it should be brought to an end. The examples also show that the adverbial clauses with „until‟ are very often reinforced or accompanied by the adverbials of duration. The most frequent of these is the adverbial „for‟, which specifies for how long an action should be done. This specification tends to be given in the form of a number. While time clause with „until‟ relies primarily on the linguistic description of external conditions, „for‟ is more specialized in that it gives exact time specifications in numbers, minutes, hours, days or even weeks. Therefore, depending on how exact and precise time specification is deemed necessary, the time specification may be given by means of adverbial of duration and number of minutes alone, by the linguistic description provided by the time clause with „until‟, or, in case of the highest measure of specificity required, by means of the combination of both. The figure below shows the numbers of „for‟ constructions in the whole sample of recipes and the numbers of „fors‟ which are used as adverbials of duration. The numbers show that in case of the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay, all the „fors‟ are used as time adverbials.

Figure 21: Occurrences of ‘for’

NL JO GR ‘for’ as time adverbial 22 29 25 occurrences of ‘for’ in total 35 38 25

7.2.2.2. Conditional Clauses

Apart from the adverbial clauses, more specifically the time clauses with „until‟, which have been discussed above and which are touched upon again from slightly different perspective towards the end of this chapter, there are not many clauses which recur in the sample of recipes and which could be therefore considered as typical of the register concerned. The other type of clause, which is mentioned here on the basis of the relatively high numbers it shows in the recipes analyzed, is the conditional clause with „if‟. The figure below shows the numbers of occurrences of the conditional „if‟ clauses across the three recipe books.

Figure 22: Occurrences of Conditional Clauses

NL JO GR Conditional Clauses with ‘if’ 12 17 5

The numbers provided show that the extent to which „if‟ clauses are used is much smaller when compared with the time clauses. However, even despite the pronounced difference in the frequency of occurrences between the two types of clauses, the numbers which the „if‟ clauses feature make it the second most widely used type of complex clause in recipe texts. The example below shows the „if‟ clauses in the extract from a recipe by Jamie Oliver, whose cookbooks shows the highest numbers of occurrences of „if‟ clauses.

Example 34 (JO 14)

Banana tarte tatin

cream in it until coated * Serve your tarte tatin with a dollop of crème fraîche or coated ice cream and eat immediately!

The numbers of occurrences of other clauses and conjunctions are so small that they are not dealt with here in the chapter which tries to establish syntactic distinctiveness of the language of recipes. The other types of clauses are mentioned in passing in the chapter comparing the results and findings between the individual cookbooks. This subchapter dealing with the ways of organization of the message conveyed by recipes and mainly with the ways of linking the individual clauses is concluded by two example recipes, which are intended to show rather limited diversity of complex and compound clauses.

Example 35 (JO 15)

Griddled tuna and asparagus a bunch of asparagus 1/2 a fresh red chilli olive oil a small handful of sun – dried tomatoes 2 tuna steaks ( about 200g each, 1cm thick) 1 lemon extra virgin olive oil For the dressing balsamic vinegar a small bunch of fresh basil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To prepare your dressing and tuna Put a large griddle pan on a high heat and let it get screaming hot * Pick the basil leaves off the stalks and finely chop * Deseed and finely chop the chilli * Finely chop the sun – dried tomatoes and put into a bowl with the basil and chilli * Halve the lemon and squeeze all the juice into the bowl * Add a lug of extra virgin olive oil and mix together * Add a splash of balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper and put to one side * Bend the asparagus gently until the woody bottoms of the stalks break off * Discard these woody ends * Drizzle a little olive oil over the tuna, then season with salt and pepper and rub into the fish

To cook your tuna Lay your asparagus tips on the hot, dry griddle * Turn them every minute or two, letting them char a little but not burn – this will give them a wonderfully nutty flavour * After a few minutes, push them to one side and add the tuna to the pan * You will be able to see the heat cooking up the tuna from the bottom * After a minute or so, when the tuna has cooked halfway through, flip both steaks over * Cook for another minute or two * You may think it strange, as it’s fish, but the tuna should actually remain slightly pink in the middle when you serve it – it will become too dry if you overcook it

To serve your tuna Pile a few asparagus spears on each plate and spoon some of your tangy dressing over them * Lay the tuna fillets over the asparagus and spoon another dollop of the dressing on top * Drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil before serving

Example 36 (GR 1)

Leek, potato & smoked haddock soup

3tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle 2 large leeks, trimmed and thinly sliced 500g Charlotte potatoes, peeled and cut into 1cm cubes 1 tsp curry powder sea salt and black pepper 400ml milk (whole or semi-skimmed) 300ml fish or vegetable stock 1 bay leaf 250g smoked haddock fillets knob of butter small bunch of chives, finely chopped

Both the examples presented show that the compound clauses slightly prevail over their complex counterparts. This finding may result in drawing a conclusion that the syntactic complexity of the language of recipes, on the level of clauses and their combinations, is not very extensive. Moreover, on the basis of the examples and numbers provided, it might be possible to assume that the variety of conjunctions used for linking the clauses is rather small.

7.2.3. Direct Object Omission

The chapter dealing with lexical distinctiveness of the language of recipes included discussion of the variety of verbs making their appearance in recipes. When considering syntax of recipes, it is especially the constructions the verbs form with other words that seem to be of prime interest. This introduces the topic, which probably represents one of the most distinctive

phenomena of the register of recipes. It seems that one of the most typical features that the language of recipes manifests on the level of syntax and in general, is the occurrence of zero anaphors or, as it is also designated the null anaphors or pro - drop (from pronoun – dropping language). This stands for the phenomenon when the direct object of transitive verbs is omitted. One recipe quoted in full and one recipe extract presented below show examples of the incidences of pronoun omissions. The symbol Ø indicates the place where the pronoun has been dropped.

Example 37 (GR 2)

Sicilian caponata

Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy - based pan and sauté the aubergine, onion, celery and red pepper with some seasoning over a high heat for about 5 minutes.

Drop the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water for a minute, refresh Ø under cold water and peel Ø. Halve Ø, deseed Ø and cut Ø into chunks. Add Ø to the pan with the garlic, sugar, vinegar, olives and capers.

Cook Ø over a high heat for 5 - 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the aubergine is tender. Check the seasoning and leave Ø to cool slightly (or to room temperature).

Scatter the torn basil and toasted pine nuts over the caponata and serve Ø with toasted country bread.

Example 38 (NL 7)

CAULIFLOWER CHEESE

Cut the cauliflower into small florets, put Ø into a saucepan with the bay leaves and cover Ø with cold water. Add a sprinkling of salt and bring Ø to the boil, then drain Ø and refresh Ø with cold water. Let the cauliflower drain again in a colander, pluck out the bay leaves and discard Ø . When the cauliflower is completely drained, put Ø into an ovenproof dish in an even layer. You can clingfilm the dish at his point and leave it to finish later.

Though the numbers of direct object omissions are not provided for each cookbook separately, the comparison of the occurrences of „it‟ as direct object pronouns may be used instead as indicators of the tendency towards direct object omissions in recipes. The numbers provided imply that the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay exhibits the highest tendency towards

direct object omissions.

Figure 23: Occurrences of ‘it’ as Direct Object Pronouns

NL JO GR Direct Object Pronouns ‘it’ 26 40 3

This, for English, rather rare feature of language, i.e. the omission of definite object noun phrases, has been already noted by several observes studying language of recipes. On the basis of the few observations made on this subject it is possible to maintain that the language of recipes is one of the few registers of English that actually exhibit this quite rare phenomenon. Culy (1996) points out in his study of pronoun dropping in recipe texts that apart from recipes, there are very few registers that show this phenomenon. The few rare examples of registers which make some use of this language pattern of pronoun dropping are telegraphese and note – taking (Culy 1996: 91). It has already been mentioned that the register of recipes has not been subjected to detailed register analysis. However, most of the linguistic studies that have been concerned with the language of recipes have focused their attention on the very phenomenon of pronoun omissions. These studies include already mentioned Culy (1996) and apart from him also Haegeman (1987), Kittredge and Lehrberger (1982) and Massam (1987, 1992). The first named study undertaken by Culy (1996) represents a “rare exception of a register study with a diachronic component” (Ferguson 1994: 20) inquiring into the occurrences of zero anaphors as direct objects in cookbooks coming from different time periods to see how the incidence of zero anaphors changed. “Culy examined English language cookbooks from the fifteenth century to the present and found that „the use of zeros […] increased dramatically over time,‟ especially in the period between 1830 and 1880” (Fergusson 1994: ibid). Culy (1996) himself explains in the introduction to his paper his motivation to undertake the research. “Recipes and other registers in English that exhibit zero anaphors as direct objects (e.g. telegraphese, note-taking) have received relatively little attention in the literature and few if any quantitative studies have been done of the phenomenon in English” (Culy 1996: 91). This lack of reliable quantitative data results in the fact that the phenomenon of zero anaphors has not been properly studied and accounted for, at least not in the way as it has been studied in other languages where the phenomenon also appears.

Ferguson offers a speculative interpretation of the occurrences of direct object omissions, especially with respect to Culy‟s finding of the dramatic increase of zero anaphors in the period between 1830 and 1880 (Culy 1996: 99). In response to this finding Ferguson offers a suggestion “ that the language of cookbook recipes was at first not very different from other written varieties of English, that it began to develop as the circulation of books increased, and that it took definitive form in the midnineteenth century with mass literacy and the popularity of cookbooks” (Fergusson 1994: 20). The half of the nineteenth century indeed marked the beginning of the rapidly increasing interest in cookbooks. It remains an undeniable and undisputable fact that the nineteenth century witnessed the publishing of the greatest English cookbooks, which were, unlike the earlier cookbooks, meant for the domestic reader rather than a professional cook or chef. Probably the first cookbook of this kind was Modern Cookery for Private Families by Elizabeth Acton (1845), followed by Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management by Isabella Beeton (1861). These cookbooks have revolutionized the attitude to cooking in the nineteenth century. They have been analyzed from social and cultural perspective. However, to my knowledge, they have not been subjected to linguistic investigation, possibly enquiring into the presence of zero anaphors which could bring more light into the patterns of their use. The shortage of evidence is probably the main reason why Ferguson needs to admit that his interpretation of Culy‟s findings “would require of course a great deal of evidence to validate” (Ferguson 1994: 21). In relation to pronoun dropping, Ferguson comes with another interesting observation. He mentions that the language of French recipes manifests some of the features of simplified language and of pronoun dropping, which are two common features that French recipes, to certain extent, share with the language of recipe texts in English. However, Fergusson comes to conclusion that the incidence of omissions in French is much lower (Fergusson 1994: 21) than in English. A question therefore arises, whether there might be a connection between the occurrences of zero anaphors in French and English recipes, since both the languages concerned used to be in close contact and used to exert a considerable influence on each other. It is also true that this linguistic influence came to be reflected to a considerable extent in the language of cookery texts and cookbooks. In conclusion to the subchapter dealing with direct object omissions in recipes it should be mentioned that on the basis of the undisputable tendency of the language of recipes to drop pronouns Ferguson includes recipes among so called simplified registers of English (Ferguson 1994: 21). The issue of simplified registers is discussed in greater detail towards the end of this chapter.

7.2.4. Ellipsis

Direct object omissions discussed above may be considered to be specific instance of a phenomenon which seems to appear commonly in the language of recipes, i.e. the phenomenon of ellipsis. Ellipsis is, by definition, “the omission of elements which are precisely recoverable from the linguistic or situational context” (Biber 1999: 156). The phenomenon of ellipsis is not a unified phenomenon but rather comprises several subcategories. “Omission of elements which are recoverable from the linguistic context may be called textual ellipsis” (Biber 1999: ibid). Another type of ellipsis is situational ellipsis, “where the omission and interpretation are dependent upon the situational context” (Biber 1999: ibid). This type of ellipsis is more common in spoken discourse, especially in conversation. The phenomenon of ellipsis in recipes has been observed by several researchers. Among these are Brown and Yule (1983) who characterize language used in cookery texts “as the elliptical written language of a recipe” (Brown and Yule 1983: 175 – 176). This type of language is manifested by “selecting an entity as „topic entity‟ for a sequence of events within a sentence, and then producing no further mentions of that entity within the sentence, relying on ellipsis” (Brown and Yule 1983: ibid). As an example they use the following extract from the set of instructions.

Example 39 (from Brown and Yule)

Slice the onion finely, brown (00) in the butter and then place (00) in a small dish.

The ellipsis, which is exemplified in the extract from the book by Brown and Yule (1983), may be included into the category of textual ellipsis, since the omitted elements are easily recoverable from the linguistic context. However, the situation plays an important role too, as it helps to determine the unspecified elements. The interplay of both situational and textual context seems to help avoid misunderstandings caused by occasional instances of ambiguous language. The case of ambiguity caused by linguistic expression is exemplified on the extract from the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay.

Example 40 (GR 12)

Toss the squash and kohlrabi into the pan. Season well and cook over a high heat for 2 – 3 minutes. Tip them into the hot roasting tray and sit the quails on top. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes. Lift the quails on to a warm platter and rest Ø for 5 minutes. Return the vegetables to the oven for another 5 minutes or until they are tender.

In the above quoted extract the verb „rest‟ is again followed by null object and therefore represents another instance of direct object omission. However, in this very case the linguistic expression suggests that it should be the performer of the action, i.e. the cook, not the object being subjected to cooking, i.e. the quails, that should be rested. It is therefore the situational context that helps to avoid any possible misunderstandings.

7.2.4.1. Ellipsis in Adverbial Clauses with ‘until’ and ‘if’

The elliptical pattern is not observable only with respect to direct object omissions, but seems to extend to a number of other instances too. Ellipsis in recipes seems to be very common in some types of clauses, adverbial clauses with „until‟ in particular. In the beginning of this chapter, it has been established that time clauses featuring „until‟ represent the most frequent type of clause used in the sample of recipes. The figure below shows again the total number of adverbial clauses with „until‟ occurring in the recipes analyzed. This number is further supplemented by numbers standing for the full adverbial time clauses and their abbreviated elliptical counterparts.

Figure 24: Occurrences of Ellipsis in Adverbial Time Clauses

NL JO GR full adverbial time clauses with ‘until’ 17 11 10 abbreviated adverbial time clauses with ‘until’ 7 12 14 total number of adverbial time clauses with ‘until’ 24 23 24

The numbers in the figure show that in two out of three cookbooks the elliptical adverbial clauses slightly prevail over those which are worded in full. The same tendency for ellipsis is notable in some other types of clauses, for instance in „if‟ clauses, though, as the figure below shows, to much smaller extent.

The figure below shows the numbers of „if‟ clauses compared to their elliptical and full counterparts.

Figure 25: Occurrences Ellipsis in Conditional Clauses

NL JO GR total number of ‘if’ clauses 12 17 5 abbreviated ‘if’ clauses 0 9 2 full ‘if’ clauses 12 8 3

The numbers show interesting differences in the occurrences of elliptical forms of „if‟ clauses and non-elliptical „if‟ clauses across the three cookbooks. The differences are given more detailed treatment in the chapter comparing the language of recipes among the three individual cookbooks. The following recipe shows examples of the use of adverbial clauses with „until‟ and adverbial „if‟ clauses. Clauses with „until‟ are highlighted in blue, „if‟ clauses are highlighted in green.

Example 41 (GR 1)

Leek, potato & smoked haddock soup

Add the fish and poach for 2-3 minutes until flaky. Lift out with a slotted spoon and break into large flakes, removing the skin. Transfer a quarter of the leeks and potatoes to a bowl, add

the butter and crush lightly with a fork. Stir through the haddock and chives.

The example shows that three out of five occurrences of clauses are elliptical. The three elliptical clauses are abbreviated by means of deleting the subject and the verb „be‟.

7.2.4.2 Ellipsis in Partitives

In the previous chapter dealing with lexical distinctiveness of the language of recipes, some attention has been given to the discussion of partitives. Partitives have been so far used as an illustrative example of high level of lexical complexity and specialization of the language of recipes. In the present subchapter, partitives are used to show another incidence of ellipsis featuring in recipes. Partitives are conventionally used in „of construction‟. However, as the next figure shows, by far not all the partitives are used in the „of construction‟ which is typical of them.

Figure 26: Occurrences of Ellipsis in Partitives

NL JO GR partitives 164 120 93 partitives with ‘of’ 40 97 25 partitives without ‘of’ 124 23 68

The figure shows that in the two cookbooks out of three, „of‟ which is normally used with partitives when a noun follows is in many cases omitted. Therefore, the partitives are used in elliptical „off-less‟ constructions as abbreviated wordings of regular partitives. The short recipe below provides illustration of four occurrences of partitive expressions, three of which are used in elliptical shortened construction, while only one is used in the regular „of construction‟.

Example 42 (GR 5)

Crayfish, avocado & mayo toasties

Toss 400g cooked crayfish tails with 4 - 5 tbsp mayonnaise and ½ tsp white truffle–infused olive oil. Stir through 1 chopped avocado and season with sea salt and black pepper to taste.

Lightly toast 4 thick slices of rustic white bread. Sandwich the crayfish filling between the toast slices and serve.

7.2.5 Compound Nouns

Generally speaking, ellipsis may be viewed as a principal type of condensation of a text. The large numbers of elliptical constructions showing themselves in recipes imply that ellipsis contributes significantly to the condensation of a recipe text. The condensation of recipe is further implemented by some other devices, namely by compound nouns. This phenomenom is partially related to partitives too, since some of the compound nouns seem to perform the function of partitive constructions. The following example shows the use of partitives, both in „of constructions‟ and in elliptical constructions without „of‟, and the use of compound nouns. Partitives of both types are highlighted in green, the compound nouns are highlighted in blue.

Example 43 (GR 7)

Pastrami & cream cheese bagel

Split 2 poppyseed bagels in half. Lightly toast them if you’re preparing lunch to eat straight away.

Mix 100g cream cheese with 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard and salt and pepper to taste. Spread evenly over the cut surfaces of the bagel halves.

Arrange 2 or 3 pastrami slices, a sliced large gherkin and a small handful of rocket leaves on each bagel base. Sandwich together with the bagel tops.

The recipe example features five compound nouns and three partitive expressions, two of which are elliptical partitives without „of‟ and one regular „of construction‟. The recipe shows that some of the compound nouns indeed perform the function of partitive constructions, eg. „bagel halves‟, „pastrami slices‟, which seem to replace partitive

constructions „halves of bagel‟ and „slices of pastrami‟ respectively.

7.2.5. Summary

The recipe as a written text is subjected to space constraints. As a page-bound piece of writing, it needs to be rendered with compressed information, but, at the same time, it needs to preserve its intelligibility. All these factors seem to exert a considerable influence on the syntax of recipes and on the organization of the message in general. Several observers have noted that the language of recipes shows some signs typical of the language of simplified registers (Fergusson 1994: 21). My analysis aiming to identify the features characteristic of the language of recipes on the syntactic level seems to partially confirm this view. According to my findings, the syntactic level of the language of recipes indeed shows some indications of simplified language, to use the term introduced by Ferguson. The simplifications in language are manifested in several areas of language use. The range of compound and complex sentences is rather restricted; there is only a limited selection of conjunctions used to introduce clauses. Moreover, a significant proportion of the clauses tend to be elliptical (conditional „if‟ clauses and adverbial clauses with „until‟). The frequent occurrences of ellipsis, direct object omissions and partitives further contribute to the simplified organization of the message conveyed by a recipe. This simplified organization of the message is further compounded with rather short sentence length and the use of a limited number of syntactic structures. The syntax of recipes clearly reflects condensed organization of the information. It is especially in this very area of condensed language that the results of lexical and syntactic analysis of the sample of recipes converge.

7.3. The Level of Discourse

The next subchapter of the linguistic analysis of recipes is concerned with the characteristic features of discourse which are manifested in the sample of recipes analyzed. Discourse is treated in the subchapter as a particular unit of language above the sentence (Schiffrin 1994: 20). The aim of the subchapter is to look at how writing “is patterned and linked across the text as a whole” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 3). The information provided in this subchapter expands on the information given about the syntax of recipes on the level of clause. The previous chapter dealing with syntactic

distinctiveness of recipes has already touched upon the issue of the range of linking devices that appear in recipes and perform the function of joining the individual clauses. It has been concluded that the range of these linking devices is restricted in the sense that there is a limited selection of conjunctions that recur throughout recipes to introduce clauses or to form complex sentences. The present subchapter examines the role of linking devices in the overall organization of message conveyed by the recipe text. As every piece of written text, recipe needs to make use of cohesive and coherence devices in order to organize the text into a form which is comprehensible and easy to follow. However, what makes recipes different from other pieces of written text is the range of linking devices used and their greater dependence on visual and typographical means for clear organization of the message.

7.3.1. Linguistic Devices of Discourse Organization

Cohesive markers used in the recipes analyzed seem to reflect the nature and function of recipe text itself. The main function of recipe is to provide readers with comprehensible instructions for preparing a dish. The main body of every recipe consists of a number of steps which direct the readers towards the successful achievement of the goal. Therefore, a recipe needs to use cohesive markers which help to establish the order and the sequence in which the individual steps should be performed.

7.3.1.1. Cohesive Markers of Order

The most frequent cohesive marker which helps to express the order of the actions is „then‟. At the same time, it is the most frequent cohesive marker in all the recipes analyzed. The following figure shows the numbers of occurrences of „then‟ across the recipes.

Figure 27: Occurrences of ‘then’

NL JO GR Then 34 20 10

The following example shows how „then‟ is used as a cohesive device to establish the order of steps. The occurrences of „then‟ are highlighted in blue. The other cohesive devices, which are discussed further on, are highlighted in green.

Example 44 (JO 1)

Chicken and leek stroganoff sea salt and freshly ground black pepper a knob of butter 150g long–grain or basmati rice a glass of white wine 1 large leek a bunch of fresh parsley a big handful of chestnut or oyster mushrooms 285 ml single cream 2 chicken breasts, preferably free-range or organic 1 lemon olive oil

Pour boiling water from the kettle into a large pan, place on a high heat and add a pinch of salt * Add your rice, bring back to the boil, then turn the heat down slightly * Cook for the length of time given in the packet instructions * Cut both ends off the leek, quarter lengthways, slice across thinly, then wash well under running water * Slice the mushrooms * Slice the chicken breasts into little–finger–size pieces

Put a large frying pan on a high heat and add a good lug of olive oil and a knob of butter * Add the leek to the pan with the white wine, a small glass of water and a good pinch of salt and pepper * Let it bubble away for 5 minutes, covered loosely with a piece of foil *Meanwhile finely chop the parsley, stalks and all * Remove the foil and add the chicken strips, most of the parsley, the cream and the mushrooms *Stir, bring back to the boil, then turn the heat down to a medium and simmer for 10 minutes * Drain your rice * Just before serving, cut your lemon in half and squeeze the juice of one half into the stroganoff * Season to taste

Spoon some rice on to each plate and top with the stroganoff * Scatter with the rest of the chopped parsley * Serve with the other lemon half, cut into wedges

7.3.1.2. Cohesive Markers of Simultaneity

As many of the steps taken during the cooking process are not done consecutively but simultaneously, the recipes need to use also the cohesive markers which help to establish the relationship between the individual steps and actions performed at the same time. The cohesive markers which help to accomplish this function include „meanwhile‟, „in the meantime‟ and „while‟. The figure below presents the numbers of occurrences of these linking devices which help to establish the simultaneity of the actions.

Figure 28: Occurrences of Linking Devices Expressing Simultaneity of Actions

NL JO GR while 4 1 0 meanwhile 2 2 2 in the meantime 0 0 1

The numbers indicate that these devices are not used very frequently throughout the sample of recipes. The following recipe shows the use of „meanwhile‟.

Example 45 (JO 10)

Broccoli with Asian dressing

7.3.1.3. Cohesive Markers of Beginnings and Ends of Actions

Interestingly enough, the recipe texts analyzed are poor in the cohesive markers which establish the beginnings and ends of actions. The numbers provided in the figure below suggest that the occurrences of „first‟, „finally‟ and „eventually‟ are very rare, ever rarer than the use of „meanwhile‟, „in the meantime‟ and „while‟, mentioned above.

Figure 29: Occurrences of ‘first’, ‘finally’ and ‘eventually’

NL JO GR First 0 0 0 Finally 0 1 0 Eventually 1 0 0

In this very connection, the above discussed conjunction „until‟ and „when‟ should be mentioned again, as these conjunctions play a significant role in marking the beginnings and ends of actions in recipes. While „until‟ is used extensively to mark the situation or time when the action should be brought to an end, „when‟ seems to mark the beginning of another action, as the following recipe extract shows.

Example 46 (JO 15)

7.3.1.4. Overview of Cohesive Devices in Recipes

The figure below shows, for the sake of comparison and contrast, the numbers of occurrences of all the conjunctions and cohesive markers so far disused. They all contribute to clear organization of the message conveyed by recipe and ensure that the text is coherent and cohesive enough to be processed by readers without any difficulty.

Figure 30: Overview of the Cohesive Devices Used

NL JO GR Then 34 20 10 While 4 1 0 Meanwhile 2 2 2 In the meantime 0 0 1 Until 24 23 24 Till 1 0 0 First 0 0 0 Finally 0 1 0 Eventually 1 0 0 When 16 6 0

The subchapter on the discourse markers making their appearance in the recipe texts analyzed is concluded with another example recipe showing some of the conjunctions and discourse markers which have been touched upon throughout the subchapter and which contribute to a coherent and cohesive rendering of the recipe.

Example 47 (GR 9)

Mussels in an aromatic coconut broth

Drain the mussels over a bowl to catch the liquor, then pour it into a clean pan and boil to

reduce by half. Add the coconut milk, lemongrass, chilli, spring onions and seasoning. Bring to a simmer and let bubble for 2 minutes.

7.3.1. Non-linguistic Cohesive Devices

In the introduction to the chapter dealing with the discourse features of recipes it has been mentioned that one of the characteristic features of recipes is their greater reliance on visual, graphic and typographical devices. It is especially the layout of recipe texts that deserves some attention in this respect. Recipes make use of many attention seeking devices which are in great extent used in the texts aimed at, for example, advertising. Despite the fact that the main focus of the thesis is placed on the distinctive linguistic features of recipes, it may be of some interest to devote some attention to the nonlinguistic devices too, since they, especially on the level of discourse, play an important role in helping to establish the coherence and cohesiveness of the text. Therefore, in this very respect, it is not only important how the message is delivered linguistically, but also how it is rendered typographically and possibly if the message is accompanied by images. All these aspects seem to be part of the “interrelation of language, image and layout” (Goddard 2002: 1). There are many pieces of writing, which are recognizable and clearly distinguishable from other pieces of writing on the basis of their distinctive typographical features. Recipe too seems to belong to the category of texts which may be at first sight identified on the basis of its visual properties. The first part of the recipe is its name, which is usually made more salient by using different size and typeface of letters from the rest of the recipe. The section of ingredients is usually rendered in a column layout, sometimes also in different typeface from the main body of the recipe and the title. Finally, the main body of the recipe text may be laid out in paragraphs which are either numbered or differentiated from the remaining text by means of headlines and subheadlines or just set apart by means of indentations. The main body of a recipe seems to be typographically the most variable part of a recipe text. Finally, most recipes are accompanied by pictures, which serve the function of important attention seeking devices. Many of the cookbooks include images as an indispensable part of every recipe. This is related to the important function images perform and to the fact that “readers do not simply read images in isolation from the verbal text that accompanies them; nor do

they read the verbal text without reference to accompanying images” (Goddard 2002: 13). All the recipes analyzed, or rather all the three cookbooks analyzed show typographical variations and variations in layouts. As Goddard (2002) writes in her book on the language of advertising, “writing is a form of image-making” (Goddard 2002: 13) and it has its own paralanguage. As a result, the choice of particular typographical features may create a variety of effects on the readers. Besides, the typeface and typographical features may facilitate comprehension of a recipe. All the three cookbooks, which provide the sources of recipes analyzed, make use of different sets of typographical and graphic features, varying from the plain texts with a minimum of graphic and typographical devices to typographically complex recipe texts. The recipe layout, along with its graphic and typographical design is usually uniform across the recipes coming from one cookbook. To show the different devices which may be used in recipes to reinforce the unity of the text, as well as its cohesion and coherence, one example from each cookbook is provided.

7.3.1.1. Non-linguistic Discourse Devices in Cookbook by Gordon Ramsay

The example of a recipe from the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay shows the variety of typographical features which are used in vast majority of recipes contained in the cookbook concerned. The typeface variations below are aimed to mirror those in the original recipe text. The colours have not been differentiated on the basis of the original, though it may be granted that the different colour of the letters may create some additional effects on the readers too. However, the psychological effects related to the use of different colours are not considered here.

Example 48 (GR 4)

Salad of griddled asparagus & spinach

Serves 4

450g asparagus, trimmed 5 tbsp olive oil sea salt and black pepper 100g Roquefort or other blue cheese 1 tbsp Dijon mustard 2 tbsp cider vinegar

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3 tbsp walnut oil, plus extra to drizzle 200g baby spinach leaves 50g walnut halves, toasted

Peel the asparagus (lower part of the stems). Toss with 2 tbsp olive oil and seasoning. Heat a griddle pan until hot. Add the asparagus spears and cook for 8 minutes, turning occasionally, until tender. Set aside.

Crumble half the cheese into a large bowl and crush with a fork, mixing in 1 – 2 tbsp water and the mustard to loosen it. Stir in the cider vinegar, then whisk in the walnut oil and the rest of the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Toss through the spinach leaves and add a handful of the toasted walnuts.

Pile the spinach on to four plates. Cut the griddled asparagus spears in two on the diagonal, if you like, and arrange on top of the spinach. Crumble over the remaining cheese and walnuts. Drizzle with a little more walnut oil to serve.

The example shows a recipe with standard layout. It is very clearly noticeable that the steps and their order are, apart from linguistic means, reinforced by the nonlinguistic typographical devices. Focusing on the main body of the recipe, it is easy to recognize and observe that the preparation of the recipe consists of the three main stages which are distinguished by means of paragraphing and further underscored by the large size and bold of the initial instructions of each paragraph. The section listing the ingredients is set apart from both the instructions and the title and it is set in a separate column in bold.

7.3.1.2. Non-linguistic Discourse Devices in Cookbook by Jamie Oliver

The following recipe shows the set of typographical features used in the cookbook by Jamie Oliver. It provides a comparison and contrast with the typographical devices used in the recipes by Gordon Ramsay, as exemplified in the recipe above.

Example 49 (JO 11)

CRUNCHY GARLIC CHICKEN

This crumbing technique is so versatile – you can cook pork or even cod in exactly the same way. As there is butter in the crumb mixture, you can grill, fry, roast or bake the meat dry in the oven and it will go lovely and golden.

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serves 2

To cook your chicken You can either bake or fry the chicken * If baking, preheat your oven to its highest temperature, place your chicken on a baking tray and cook for 15 minutes * If frying, put a frying pan on medium heat, add a few good lugs of olive oil and cook for 15 minutes * If frying, put a frying pan on medium heat, add a few good lugs of olive oil and cook the chicken breasts for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until cooked through, golden and crisp

The example recipe shows that similar strategy, as the one in the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay, is used. The main body of recipe is again divided into three main parts. However, the division of this type is even more reinforced by the subheadings specifying the stage of the preparation of the dish. In addition to the use of subheadings, which are absent in the recipes by Gordon Ramsay, the subheadings are differentiated from the remaining part of the paragraphs by means of different colours. The list of instructions is again set apart from the rest of the text. In this case, the ingredients are laid out in the familiar two-column pattern written in italics. Both the recipes provided so far, have used division of the main body of recipe to emphasize the individual stages and steps of a recipe. Moreover, both the recipes have set apart the list of ingredients from the main body of the recipe text. Another recipe taken from

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the same cookbook by Jamie Oliver shows a different strategy employed to establish the order of steps and provide the overview of the necessary ingredients.

Example 50 (JO 5)

EVOLUTION CUCUMBER SALAD

When it comes to making any salad using cucumber, it’s a really good idea to remember to peel the cucumber and scoop out the seeds first. This will make the salad less watery and much more crunchy and fresh.

Serves 4 – 6 Peel 2 cucumbers, using a speed peeler, chop off the ends, and halve them lengthways * Use a teaspoon to gently scoop the seeds out, and discard them * Chop the cucumber into irregular bite-size chunks and place in a bowl * Season with a good pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper * Add 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and mix well * Pick some leaves off a few sprigs of fresh mint and roughly chop them * Add them to the salad and toss together * Serve the salad simply as it is, or let it evolve…

Add a large tablespoon of natural yoghurt to the cucumber salad * Toss until well coated and serve drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil

Put a large handful of black olives on a clean surface and press down on them with the palm of your hand to remove the stones * Discard the stones and add the olives to the salad * Toss together well

Halve 1 fresh red chilli lengthways, deseed and finely chop * Scatter over your cucumber salad and serve drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil

The example shows that the order of steps is made clear not only by means of separate paragraphs, but also by means of numbers which clearly state the desired sequence of actions. The numbers used make it obvious that the recipe consists of four main stages that are to be followed step by step, one by one. The recipe given above is also one of the examples of recipes where the section of ingredients is absent and the recipe therefore uses other devices, in this case different colour and bold type, to highlight the ingredients directly in the main body of the recipe text.

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7.3.1.3. Non-linguistic Discourse Devices in Cookbook by Nigella Lawson

Typographical strategies with respect to discourse remain to be discussed on the example of recipe coming from the cookbook by Nigella Lawson. The recipes from this very cookbook are examples of the least typographically and graphically complex and varied texts from the sample of recipes analyzed. The example below shows the layout discourse strategies used in a plain recipe text.

Example 51 (NL 3)

TIME – HONOURED CHRISTMAS CAKE

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Put the cake mix carefully into the prepared tin and bake following the table above, or until a cake-tester comes out clean. When the cake is cooked, brush with a couple of tablespoons of liqueur. Wrap immediately, still in its tin – using a double-thickness of tin foil – as this will trap the heat and form steam, which in turn will keep the cake soft on top. When it’s completely cold, remove the cake from the tin and re-wrap in foil, storing preferably in an airtight tin or Tupperware, for at least three weeks. It’s difficult to give a precise ingredient list, at least in terms of quantities, for the icing, because I don’t know which sized cake you are making. The quantities below are for a 23cm diameter cake

FOR THE ICING 200g marmalade 1 kg ready-to-roll icing Icing sugar for sprinkling 500g marzipan

The recipe shows that even the plain recipe text, as the above shown recipe seems to be, exhibits some of the discourse layout features. The layout of the recipe above shows that the preparation process consists of two main parts, which are distinguished by means of the list of ingredients for the cake and for the icing respectively. The number and order of the steps is recognizable on the basis of the subdivisions of the paragraphs which make up the main body of the recipe. The subdivision of the paragraphs is used especially in the first part of the recipe. On the basis of the indentations it is possible to note that the first part of the recipe is divided into six paragraphs, which help to establish the substages of the first part of the preparation of the cake. Some of the paragraphs are made up of a single sentence, which represents one step in the whole process. The last example recipe shows that even recipes that make very limited use of typographical and font features do make use of some layout strategies that are combined with the linguistic ones to establish coherence and cohesiveness of a text.

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7.3.2. Summary

The last subchapter aiming to identify the distinctive features of recipes on the level of discourse confirms some of the findings of the analysis undertaken on the level of syntax. The results of the analysis show that recipes from the sample make use of a rather limited range of cohesive markers. These cohesive markers help to establish the order of the steps and their mutual relationships especially with respect to the time and length of their performance. The use of linguistic discourse features is compounded with the use of nonlinguistic means which help to reinforce the unity of the text. These nonlinguistic devices include the use of typographical and graphical devices like subdivisions of paragraphs, numbering of paragraphs, different sizes of letters and different fonts and colours. All the recipes analyzed exhibit a variety of typographical features which are applied to the constituent parts of a recipe: to its title, its list of ingredients and the main body of the recipe. The discussion of typographical features indicates that these features significantly contribute to the cohesion and coherence of the text and that the recipe makes use of these devices to a considerable extent. Moreover, the consideration of layouts and other typographical devices and features associated with the visual aspect of recipes shows that one of the distinctive features of a recipe text is its considerable dependence on the interrelation between language, image and layout.

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8. Formality and Informality in Recipes

The preceding three chapters have established some of the distinctive features which are exhibited in the language of recipes on the lexical level, on the syntactic level and on the level of discourse. Despite the fact that the graphs and numbers of the occurrences of some phenomena have been presented for each cookbook separately, all the findings have so far been treated as representative of the language of recipes as a whole. The present chapter dealing with formality and informality in recipes considers the sample of recipes with respect to formal and informal expressions which are used in the recipes under investigation. However, unlike the previous chapters, which have treated all the recipes as a whole, this chapter takes a slightly different perspective in that it uses the findings of the analysis for the purposes of comparison and contrast. The present chapter on formality and informality in recipes represents a final part of the analysis of the language of recipes. The chapter is included in order to facilitate evaluation of the primary hypothesis, since the features of formality and informality are very closely connected with the features of writtenness and spokenness. Besides, “writing tends to convey important messages and therefore we probably usually write in quite a formal way” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 11). The final part of the analysis therefore considers whether and to what extent the quoted statement is true for the language of recipes. The aim of this chapter is to show that the three cookbooks analyzed represent a continuum, at least as far as formality is concerned. Proceeding from the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay to the cookbook by Nigella Lawson, the language of the cookbooks becomes increasingly less formal and more colloquial. In order to describe the language of recipes in terms of formality and informality, a selection of some language features related to spoken and informal language is used. Depending on the presence or absence of these features in the language of individual cookbooks, a conclusion is drawn as to the place of the cookbook on the continuum of formality.

8. 1. Contracted Forms

The occurrences of contracted forms tend to be considered as indicative of rather informal style. Recipe, as a written text is expected to display low numbers of contracted forms. We can test this assumption against the numbers of occurrences of contracted forms, which are presented in the figure below.

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Figure 31: Occurrences of Contracted Forms

NL JO GR Contracted forms 23 16 1

As the figure shows, the assumption that recipes display low numbers of contracted forms seems to be valid only for the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay, which displays only a single occurrence of contracted form. However, the numbers of contracted forms for the other two cookbooks show stark differences. The numbers are clearly rising when we move from the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay to Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. The numbers of contractions may suggest that the language of recipes moves from formal to more and more informal, reaching the highest levels in the cookbook by Nigella Lawson. The example below comes from the cookbook, which, according to the numbers in the figure, shows the highest numbers of contracted forms.

Example 52 (NL 12)

BELLINI

1 x 75cl bottle of Prosecco icing sugar, optional 250ml white peach purée/pulp or 3 – 4 white peaches

The recipe provided clearly demonstrates that the contracted forms are the preferred option to their non-contracted counterparts, at least in this very recipe.

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8. 2 Expressive Adjectives

The level of formality and informality may also be correlated with the level of expressiveness, evocativeness and emotiveness of the lexical expressions used. A considerable proportion of words, which show clear signs of informal language, may be noted on the occurrences of some adjectives, which show some signs of high levels of expressiveness, emotiveness and sensuality. This seems to be in a slight contradiction to the nature of recipes as factual writings, since adjectives making their appearance in recipes should be accordingly factual. An interesting fact related to the expressive adjectives with respect to all the three cookbooks is that the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay completely lacks the adjectives of this kind. Therefore, the examples below come virtually exclusively from the cookbooks by Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson.

Example 53 (JO 6)

Example 54 (JO 4)

To serve your curry This will be fantastic served with any of my fluffy rice recipes (see pages 95 – 96) and with a few spoonfuls of yoghurt dolloped on top * Sprinkle over the almonds and coriander leaves and serve with some lemon wedges for squeezing over * And a little lemon-dressed green salad would round it off

Example 55 (JO 9)

Example 56 (JO 11)

Example 57 (JO 12)

* Great served with any steamed vegetable or a lovely green salad (the usual story!)

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Example 58 (JO 15)

Turn them every minute or two, letting them char a little but not burn – this will give them a wonderfully nutty flavour *

Example 59 (NL 1)

Put the pan back on a very low heat, add the bread cubes and cook for about 15 minutes, by which time the sauce should be thick and warm and evocatively fragrant

Example 60 (NL 5)

I have gone rather cardamom-mad recently, but this short, aromatic infusion gives a heavenly scent to the little fruited buns later.

Example 61 (NL 5)

Keep kneading until you have silky, elastic dough, but bear in mind that the dried fruit will stop this from being exactly satin-smooth. Form into a ball and place in a buttered bowl covered with clingfilm, and leave to prove overnight in the fridge.

The examples clearly show that what at first sight seems quite a straightforward description is in fact overloaded with expressions to attract reader‟s attention (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 53). The above provided examples come from the main body of recipes providing instructions for the preparations of dishes. However, more evocative vocabulary shows itself sometimes even in the names of recipes. One of the titles in the cookbook by Jamie Oliver is „Super-quick salmon stir-fry‟, which includes the expression „super-quick‟. This adjective may be regarded as a significant attention catcher used in order to attract the reader to the recipe concerned.

8. 3. Verb Phrases with ‘give’, ‘get’ and ‘have’

The verb phrases with „give‟, „get‟ and „have‟ are frequently used in spoken discourse. They “are based on the most common verbs in the language” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 63) and combine with nouns to make common phrases. They are “a common feature of informal spoken discourse” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: ibid) and as such seem to be significant markers of informality. The expressions of this type show considerable number of occurrences, especially in recipes by Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. The examples below show occurrences of these expressions. All the examples come from the cookbook by Jamie Oliver.

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Example 62 (JO 2)

Pasta Al Pangrattato

To prepare your pasta Peel and finely slice the garlic * Finely chop your chillies* Pick the thyme leaves off the stalks * Slice the crusts off the bread and discard * If they’re dry enough, finely grate your slices of bread – if not, break them up into small breadcrumbs with your fingers or give them a quick whiz in a food processor

To cook your pasta Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil * Add the fusilli and cook according to the packet instructions * Halfway through the cooking time, put a large frying pan on a medium heat and let it get hot * Pour about 2 tablespoons of the oil from the tin of anchovies into the pan, let it get hot, then stir in your breadcrumbs * Add the garlic, chili, thyme leaves and anchovies (but not the remaining oil in the tin) and cook for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring every so often, until the breadcrumbs are golden brown * Drain the fusilli in a colander over a bowl, reserving some of the cooking water in case you want to add a splash to loosen up the pasta * Give the pan a shake * Have a taste, and if you think it needs a little more lemon, squeeze the other half over too

Example 63 (JO 13)

Get yourself a small saucepan, fill it three–quarters full with water, and bring it to a fast boil.

With respect to the use of informal expressions with „have‟, „get‟ and „give‟, the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay again seems to show the lowest number of occurrences of this type. The only expression which is used in the sample of recipes from the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay is the expression „give the mixture a stir‟ presented below in the extract from the recipe concerned. This expression may be considered to be an informal counterpart of its more standard and formal version „stir‟.

Example 64 (GR 13)

8. 4. Phrasal Verbs

Another aspect which contributes to the higher level of informality of the language is the extent to which phrasal verbs are used. As has been already mentioned in the chapter dealing with lexical level, phrasal verbs are used extensively throughout all the recipes

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studied and thus represent a significant lexical category of the sample. The extracts from the recipes below show the examples of phrasal verbs, which are closely associated with informal language.

Example 65 (JO 9)

* Fluff up the potatoes in the colander by shaking it around a little – it’s important to ‘chuff them up’ like this if you want them to have all those lovely crispy bits when they’re cooked *

Example 66 (JO 4)

Example 67 (NL 15) How long this takes really depends on the variety of apple you’re using. Coxes cook the fastest, and are good here. Leave to cool, and fish out the rosemary sprig when it is cold.

Example 68 (NL 10)

But anyway you’re the best off cooking the beetroot in advance, so you’ve got plenty of time for it to cool before processing.

8.5. Non-explicit Expressions

The occurrences of non-explicit expressions in recipes may seem to be a little surprising when we consider the character and communicative purpose of recipes. It has been already noted in several places throughout the thesis that the language of recipes uses a variety of devices for the expressions of exact quantities. This is in accordance with the main communicative function of the recipe, i.e. to give instructions for the preparation of the dish by means of providing exact and precise descriptions of steps and quantities. The extracts below show the examples of non-explicit expressions where the requirement of explicitness seems to be floated and where the expressions lacking exactness and preciseness seem to be given preference. The examples come from the cookbooks by Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson. The recipes coming from cookbook by Gordon Ramsay do not provide many instances of non-explicit language.

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Example 69 (JO 7)

Add your pasta and stir, following the packet cooking times – don’t let it cook any longer or it will become too soft – you want it to have a bit of bite

Example 70 (JO 14)

Using the tip of a knife, pull a corner of the pastry up to check if it’s all cooked underneath (if not, pop it back into oven for another couple of minutes), then ease the whole thing out of the tray

Example 71 (NL 4)

Now decant on to a large round or oval plate – or whatever you want to serve this on – and drop a few whole mint leaves over the dressed salad.

Example 72 (NL 9)

Take whatever you need out of the fridge so that all the ingredients can come to room temperature (though it’s not so crucial here, since you’re heating the milk and butter and whisking the eggs). (…) Sandwich the cold sponges with half of the buttercream, and then ice the top with what is left, creating a swirly top rather than a smooth surface. Stud the outside edge, about 1cm in, with a ring of Maltesers or use them to decorate the top in whichever way pleases you.

The examples demonstrate that the most frequent occurrences of the non-explicit words are „a bit of‟ and „a couple of‟ to denote quantities and the determiners „whatever‟ and „whichever‟ to denote not very closely specified referents. The occurrences of these explicitness lacking expressions are of some interest for another reason. They may be regarded as examples of vague language, which is considered to be another “feature of spoken language” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 63).

8.6. Exclamations

The instances of exclamations in recipes may seem to be very surprising phenomenon. Exclamations are examples of highly emotive expressions, which are frequently used especially in spoken discourse. The presence of these expressions in the language of recipes may be considered very unusual, especially when we take into consideration the emotion-free language, which is in general associated with the cookery books and recipe texts.

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Example 73 (JO 7)

Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle over the rest of the Parmesan and scatter with the small basil leaves – bellissima!

Example 74 (JO 6)

Stir until the stock cubes are dissolved, then add to the pan with your tinned and fresh whole tomatoes, including the green stalks that may still be attached to some of them (these give an amazing flavour – trust me!) * Give it a good stir and bring to the boil

Example 75 (JO 7)

Mix up, have a taste, and season with a little more salt and pepper if needed – congratulations! You now have a beautiful Bolognese sauce *

Example 76 (JO 10)

When the broccoli is cooked, place it on a big serving platter * Mix up the dressing one last time before pouring it over * Absolute heaven!

All the examples of exclamations making their appearance in recipes come from the cookbook by Jamie Oliver. This cookbook seems to include the highest numbers of exclamations. Exclamations are completely absent from recipes by Gordon Ramsay.

8.7. Miscellanea

This subchapter gives some more examples of informal expressions making their appearance in recipes studied. The numbers of occurrences of these informal expressions have not been large enough to be included into separate subchapter and given separate treatment. Therefore, the subchapter includes examples of informal adjectives featuring the ending „ish‟, the informal adverb „maniacally‟, and the closely unspecified noun „thing‟.

Example 77 (NL 4)

1 largeish lemon

Example 78 (NL 8)

Whisk the egg whites with the salt until stiffish, not fretting over them unduly, then – in another bowl – whisk the egg yolks for 2 – 3 minutes.

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Example 79 (NL 2)

Put everything into a food processor except for the egg, oil and chilli, and process roughly. Or chop everything by hand maniacally fine and mix together.

Example 80 (NL 1)

Example 81 (JO 14)

* Using the tip of a knife, pull a corner of the pastry up to check if it’s all cooked underneath (if not, pop it back into oven for another couple of minutes), then ease the whole thing out of the tray

8.8. Proximity of Participants

Writing is in general considered to be inherently more impersonal in its nature than speech. Recipe is in this thesis considered as an example of written text. Therefore, the assumption, which results from the above mentioned statement about impersonality of writing, is that recipes display no numbers or low numbers of expressions making direct mention of participants of the action. This has been mentioned by some other observers of recipe texts. Czech linguist Jiří Kraus noted that cookbooks and recipe texts in general are “works written usually in rather factual, emotion-free and impersonal way” (as cited in Rettigová 1986: 23, translated by D.K.). The last aspect of the quotation, the “impersonality of the recipe texts” is challenged in the next subchapter, showing that a large proportion of recipe texts studied show significant marks of personality.

8.8.1. Pronouns ‘you’ and ‘your’

The markers of personality are considered in conjunction with the discussion of pronouns, which are treated as a device establishing the relationship between participants, i.e. between the reader and the writer. The extent of proximity between the reader and the writer is expected to be correlated with the number of occurrences of pronouns.

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In this respect, the recipe texts seem to progress from the impersonal, featuring small numbers of devices which imply a relationship between the speaker and writer, to more personal, which abound with expressions of the formerly mentioned type. With regard to personality and impersonality in recipes, the three cookbooks analyzed seem again to be placed on a continuum. At the least personal end of continuum is again the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay, which features only few occurrences of personal pronouns making direct mentions of the reader or the writer. The cookbooks by Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson seem to be placed closer to the personal end of the continuum, the latter representing the most personal cookbook of the three cookbooks analyzed. The figure below shows the numbers of pronouns „you‟ occurring in the recipes in all the three cookbooks.

Figure 32: Occurrences of Personal Pronouns ‘you’

NL JO GR Personal pronouns ‘you’ 41 21 4

The numbers show marked differences in the frequencies of pronouns in the three cookbooks. There is a pronounced rising tendency progressing from Gordon Ramsay‟s recipes towards Nigella Lawson‟s recipes. The following example shows one of the four occurrences of „you‟ in the recipes by Gordon Ramsay. The example shows that the use of personal pronouns is combined with the use of contracted form.

Example 82 (GR 7)

Pastrami & cream cheese bagel

Split 2 poppyseed bagels in half. Lightly toast them if you’re preparing lunch to eat straight away.

Mix 100g cream cheese with 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard and salt and pepper to taste. Spread evenly over the cut surfaces of the bagel halves.

Arrange 2 or 3 pastrami slices, a sliced large gherkin and a small handful of rocket leaves on each bagel base. Sandwich together with the bagel tops.

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The cookbook by Jamie Oliver represents a middle point of the continuum between impersonal cookbook of Gordon Ramsay and the most personal cookbook by Nigella Lawson. The following two examples provide full versions of two recipes from Jamie Oliver‟s cookbook. The expressions highlighted in green mark informality markers, some of which have been already mentioned in the previous subchapter on informality. The expressions highlighted in blue mark the personal pronouns „you‟, the possessive personal pronoun „your‟ or other expressions referring to the reader, all these expressions establishing a positive relationship between the participants, i.e. between the writer and the reader.

Example 83 (JO 7)

Bolognese sauce

To make your sauce Finely slice the bacon * Peel and finely chop the onions, garlic, carrots and celery – don’t worry about technique, just chop away until fine * Place a large casserole – type pan on a medium to high heat * Add 2 lugs of olive oil, your sliced bacon and the oregano and cook and stir until the bacon is lightly golden * Add the veg to the pan and stir every 30 seconds for around 7 minutes or until softened and lightly coloured * Stir in the minced meat and the tinned tomatoes * Fill both empty tins with water and add to the pan * Stir in a good pinch of salt and pepper * Pick the basil leaves and place in the fridge for later * Finely chop the basil stalks and stir into the pan * Bring to the boil * Turn the heat down and simmer with a lid on for about an hour, stirring every now and again to stop it catching * Remove the Bolognese sauce from the heat * Finely grate the Parmesan and stir half into the sauce * Tear and stir in any larger basil leaves, keeping the smaller ones for sprinkling over before serving * Mix up, have a taste, and season with a little more salt and pepper if needed – congratulations! You now have a beautiful Bolognese sauce * At this stage you can allow it to cool, bag it up and freeze it, or eat it straight away with the pasta below

To cook your pasta and serve Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil * Add your pasta and stir, following the packet cooking times – don’t let it cook any longer or it will become too soft – you want it to have a bit of bite * Saving a little of the cooking water, drain the pasta in a colander * Put the drained pasta back into the pan * Add half the Bolognese sauce to the cooked pasta and mix well, adding a little of the reserved cooking water to loosen * Divide between your plates and spoon the remaining sauce over the top * Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle over the rest of the Parmesan and scatter with the small basil leaves – bellissima!

Example 84 (JO 15)

Griddled tuna and asparagus

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juice into the bowl * Add a lug of extra virgin olive oil and mix together * Add a splash of balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper and put to one side * Bend the asparagus gently until the woody bottoms of the stalks break off * Discard these woody ends * Drizzle a little olive oil over the tuna, then season with salt and pepper and rub into the fish

The two example recipes demonstrate that, the recipes include also some well- intended advice from the writer to the reader, which help to foster good relationship between the two participants. The two pieces of advice featuring in the recipes „don‟t worry about technique, just chop away until fine‟ and „don‟t let it cook any longer or it will become too soft – you want it to have a bit of bite‟ both contain some emotive and informal vocabulary („just chop away until fine‟ and „you want it to have a bit of bite‟ respectively) which even reinforces the attempt to establish the proximity between the participants. Moreover, the words like „congratulations‟ and „bellisima‟, while serving as exclamations, make the impression of the praise from someone who guides the reader through the cooking process. All the informal expressions make the recipes sound relaxed and natural, evoking the exchange of information between two close friends. The examples further show that in addition to the occurrences of personal pronouns, possessive pronouns „your‟ feature in the recipes too. Interestingly enough, the cookbook by Jamie Oliver makes the biggest use of this possessive pronoun. As the figure below shows, the recipes by Gordon Ramsay do not feature a single occurrence of this possessive pronoun, while the recipes by Nigella Lawson include only 11 occurrences.

Figure 33: Occurrences of Possessive Pronouns ‘your’

NL JO GR possessive pronouns ‘your’ 11 51 0

The above provided recipes show that most of the references are made towards the reader and the author seems to be backgrounded. Indeed, the recipes from the whole sample do not contain many references to the writer of the recipes. The extract below shows one of

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the few instances when the author is explicitly placed into foreground. The example illustrates how the writer encourages the readers to trust his expertise and experience.

Example 85 (JO 6)

So far, there have been only two people involved in the cooking process, the writer of the recipe as the guide and expert and the reader. Other participants are involved only implicitly and they are not usually referred to. Explicit reference to other people is made only once. This is shown by the following recipe extract, where the reference to other participants is highlighted in blue. The informal expressions which follow the reference are highlighted in green.

Example 86 (JO 12)

The passing reference to other people involved is further accompanied by informal end expressive language like „great served‟ and „lovely green salad‟, supplemented by exclamation in parenthesis „the usual story!‟.

8.8.2. Personal Pronouns ‘I’

The discussion of personal and possessive pronouns „you‟ and „your‟ respectively, has shown how the focus in recipe can be placed on the addresses of the text, i.e. the target readers. In the present subchapter the attention is devoted to the personal pronoun „I‟ and its possessive counterpart „my‟. The figure below shows the numbers of occurrences of personal pronouns „I‟ in all the recipes studied.

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Figure 34: Occurrences of Personal Pronouns ‘I’

NL JO GR Personal pronouns ‘I’ 17 0 0

The numbers clearly show that recipes by Nigella Lawson seem to be playing a prime role in this respect. What seems to be of some interest is the absence of any occurrences of personal pronouns „I‟ in the remaining two cookbooks. Possessive pronouns „my‟ follow the same quantitative pattern of occurrences as the personal pronouns „I‟. However, as the figure shows, the contrast of occurrences between Nigella Lawson and the remaining two cookbooks is not that stark and the number of occurrences seems to be not very important.

Figure 35: Occurrences of Possessive Pronouns ‘my’

NL JO GR Possesive pronoun ‘my’ 3 1 0

The following recipe examples and recipe extracts exemplify how the writer, in this case Nigella Lawson, projects into her recipes references to herself. The words highlighted in green mark the expressions referring to the reader, the words highlighted in blue refer to the writer of the recipe and the yellow expressions mark other informal expressions, some of which have been already commented upon.

Example 87 (NL 1)

BREAD SAUCE

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Remove from the heat, cover the pan and let it foggily infuse. As I said above, I tend to do this first thing in the morning when I get up, but if you forget or can’t cope with it then, then just make sure you get the infusion done about an hour before eating. Put the pan back on a very low heat, add the bread cubes and cook for about 15 minutes, by which time the sauce should be thick and warm and evocatively fragrant. I have to say I don’t bother with removing any of the bits, the onions, the peppercorns and so on, but you can strain the milk before adding the bread if you want to. Just before serving, stir in the butter and, if you happen to have a carton open, the cream and some more salt if you think it needs it. Grate over quite a bit of nutmeg, adding more once you’ve decanted it into a warmed bowl or gravy boat.

The example clearly demonstrates that the recipe includes very personal pieces of information, where the writer shares her personal cooking experience with the reader and even discloses to the reader some of her cooking habits. The following recipe includes the information of the same type, describing how the writer proceeds when cooking in order to offer the reader some advice and guidance.

Example 88 (NL 8)

Whisk the egg whites with the salt until stiffish, not fretting over them unduly, then – in another bowl – whisk the egg yolks for 2 – 3 minutes. Fold in the flour and sweetcorn and then the whites. I just tip the bowl of whites into the yellow ingredients and fold, though not gently, with a rubber spatula until everything’s combined. Meanwhile, heat a smooth griddle or heavy non-stick pan and dollop out the fritters: I use a coffee scoop which is a 2-tablespoon measure. Cook for up to 2 minutes per side. You end up with golden pancakes about 5 – 6cm in diameter.

Example 89 (NL 9)

Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/170°C. Butter and line two 20cm loose-bottomed sandwich cake tins with baking parchment. Whisk together the sugars and eggs while you weigh out the other ingredients; I use a freestanding mixer here which explains why I can do both things at once. Heat the milk, butter and Horlicks powder in a saucepan until the butter melts, and it is hot but not boiling. (…) Once the cakes are cold, you can get on with the icing. I use a processor just because it makes life easier: you don’t need to sieve the icing sugar. So: put the icing sugar, cocoa and Horlicks in the processor and blitz to remove all lumps. Add the butter and process again. Stop, scrape down, and start again, pouring the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running until you have a smooth buttercream.

Apart from the overt references to the writer‟s experience, which the recipe is meant to exemplify, there is another interesting phenomenon, which deserves attention. It is the connecting device „so‟, highlighted in yellow. It sounds very informal and speech-like, this characteristic being even more reinforced by the colon which follows it.

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The next recipe provides interesting example of a detailed and rather personal description of a situation towards the end of the cooking process, revealing the thoughts and ideas of the author. The description even includes the mention of assistant Hettie. This personal description of the situation compounded with the direct reference to assistant Hettie exemplify how the author of the recipe can effectively reduce the social distance between the reader and the writer. The concluding part of the recipe deserves attention too, since it ends with an unfinished sentence. This seems to be of interest in the written text like recipe, as it may be considered another aspect not very typical of writing, where full sentences are considered to be the norm (Goddard 2002: 109).

Example 90 (NL 2)

CHRISTMAS BUBBLE AND SQUEAK

Preheat the oven to gas mark 3 / 170°C. Put everything into a food processor except for the egg, oil and chilli, and process roughly. Or chop everything by hand maniacally fine and mix together. Add the egg and process again; it should resemble a knobbly purée. Heat the oil in a frying pan or sauté pan that can go in the oven, and tip the bubble and squeak into the hot oil in the pan. Fry for 3 – 5 minutes over a medium heat, leaving it whole like an omelette. Put then pan in the oven and cook for about 20 minutes. Slide the bubble and squeak out of the pan on to a dish and – if you like a bit of fire, as I do – sprinkle with a Christmas confetti of red chopped chilli. To tell the truth, I’d have been perfectly happy just to dollop on a little chili sauce, or maybe some drops of Tabasco, but as I was about to finish cooking my bubble and squeak I happened to see that my assistant, Hettie, was just finishing making a very neat pile of chopped chilli for the red seasonal salad, above, and I swooped down and swiped some. When such an opportunity presents itself…

The next recipe is another example of both the references to the writer and the reader and of the informal and speech-like language. The informal expressions add to the speech- like character of the language, fostering the close relationship between the participants.

Example 91 (NL 5)

HOT CROSS BUNS

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just halve the dough, and keep halving it until it’s in eight pieces, and use that piece of dough to make two buns. Or just keep the dough as it is, and pinch off pieces slightly larger than a ping-pong ball and hope you end up with 16 or thereabouts. Not that it matters.

All the above mentioned examples featuring both the personal pronouns „I‟ and „you‟ help to make the recipe texts sound more personal and individualized, suggesting that the recipe authors make some effort to get closer to the readers and in doing so to establish a close relationship with them. As Goddard (2002) says, “It is important that we have confidence in the writer as a good teacher, and one way we may feel confident about a teacher is if they „speak our language‟, if they are „on our wavelength‟. To achieve this, it is important for the writer not to seem too remote and authoritarian, but rather to be a friend who just happens to be an expert” (Goddard 2002: 40). The accommodations which the writers of recipes make to the written language and the expressions the authors use when giving advice to the reader seem to be in accordance with the above cited quote. The next example shows how tentatively the advice to the reader is sometimes given, trying not to impose any authority or obligation, rather making unobtrusive suggestion. The tentative character of the suggestion is created especially by the use of „might‟, which implies a subtle encouragement from the writer to the reader.

Example 92 (NL 14)

You need no butter to make the sandwiches, just share the filling out between eight slices of black bread, top with another eight slices and cut in half. You might put a few cornichons, those tiny gherkins, around the sandwiches on their platter.

The next recipe extract provides another interesting example of how the recipe writer presents her ideas while, at the same time, maintaining an equal relationship with the reader.

Example 93 (NL 3)

As for decorating, it is entirely up to you of course, but see my suggestions on page 98, overleaf, and, indeed, the photograph above right.

The concluding part of the recipe shows how the recipe writer acknowledges the primacy of the reader by saying „it is entirely up to you of course‟, while at the same time encouraging the reader to follow her advice and guidance by giving the reference to her

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recommended ideas. The expression „of course‟ here seems to be again reminiscent of the everyday spoken language. What can be noted in the examples of recipes provided and commented upon, is the fact that the extent to which the texts use personal and possessive pronouns as signs of proximity between the participants may be correlated with the extent to which the informal vocabulary typical of speech is used. Using features of language that we associate with spoken interactions can help to construct friend-like profile for the writer, who appears to be more like a close friend than a distant expert (Goddard 2002: 40 - 41).

8.9. Summary

The examples and figures provided in this chapter seem to be in accordance with the previously stated argument that the cookbooks studied represent a continuum on the level of formality. This continuum of formality is marked by the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay, standing at one end of the continuum as the most impersonal and formal cookbook. The cookbook by Nigella Lawson stands at the other end of the continuum as the most personal and informal cookbook. The cookbook by Jamie Oliver seems to lie somewhere in-between, though it is closer to the personal and informal end. The placement of the two cookbooks by Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson closer to the personal and informal end of the continuum is partly related to the fact that they contain more indications of human agency and consequently convey a sense of personal relationship between the recipe writer and the reader. The sense of human agency is derived from several sources, mainly from direct references to participants, i.e. to people involved in the communication, and also from the writers‟ accounts of their personal experiences and feelings. As a result, they appear to be more personal and individualized and, due to the vocabulary used, also more emotionally expressive and informal. The use of sensual adjectives and emotive expressions seems to be correlated with the attempts of the writers to make their cookbooks „user – friendly‟ by not sounding overwhelmingly precise or technical. The placement of all the three cookbooks on the continuum is supported by the examples and numbers of occurrences of some of the linguistic features (contracted forms, expressive vocabulary, markers of proximity etc.) related to informality. The findings of this chapter dealing with the formality and informality of the language of recipes are summarized in the subsequent chapter, which draws conclusions from the

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results of the analysis to see whether the primary hypothesis formulated in the beginning is valid or not.

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9. Evaluation of the Primary Hypothesis

The previous chapter has considered the sample of recipes with respect to formality and informality. The placement of the cookbooks on the continuum on the level of formality and informality seems to be correlated with the extent to which the recipes reflect the conventions of written text. This finding reintroduces the primary hypothesis, which aims to test whether the language of recipes, as a representative of the written text, exhibits the selection of characteristics4 featuring in the written discourse. The five characteristics of written discourse are discussed first, followed by the five characteristics of spoken discourse.

9.1. Evaluation of Five Criteria of Writtenness

The present subchapter aims to comment on the five criteria selected as representative features of written discourse, based on Biber‟s study (2006) of university language. The five features selected are absence of pronouns, low frequency of contracted forms, the frequency of abbreviations, rich structure and organization of complex clauses and finally voice, tense and aspect in written discourse.

9.1.1. Absence of Pronouns

Biber (2006) in his corpus based study of academic language finds out that “pronouns are generally rare in academic prose” (Biber 2006: 15). This conclusion is adopted as representative of written discourse in general. The analysis of the sample of recipes with respect to occurrences of both personal and possessive pronouns has shown different results when compared to the findings presented by Biber. The analysis reveals that the recipes analyzed show significant level of personality. This level of personality has been established on the basis of numbers of occurrences of personal and possessive pronouns. The occurrences of pronouns show that the authors of the recipe come often to the foreground and interact with the readers. The considerable level of interaction between the participants, i.e. between the reader and the writer has been treated as

4 The selection of features is presented on page 13.

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indicative of the attempt on the side of the writer to establish close relationship with the reader and to make the cookbook more user-friendly.

9.1.2. The Contracted Forms

Written discourse in general shows preference for language with no contracted forms. This is related to the fact that contracted forms are viewed as a way of language shortening, which is characteristic of the spoken discourse, rather than written discourse. The analysis of the sample of recipes shows a general tendency for the uses of non- contracted forms. This tendency is in correspondence with the conventions of written text. However, the recipes examined nevertheless show considerable numbers of contracted forms. Interestingly enough, the occurrences of contracted forms in recipes seem to appear in places where informal and expressive language is used too and where the writer attempts to establish a connection with the reader. This seems to imply that contracted forms are used in recipes as an efficient device evoking proximity between the participants.

9.1.3. The Abbreviations

The occurrences of abbreviations are generally more readily associated with writing than with speech. In writing they serve as the means providing efficient and conventionalized shortcuts for referents which they represent. The analysis of the sample of recipes undertaken on the lexical level showed that language of recipes makes use of a wide range of abbreviations. These abbreviations mostly stand for quantities and measures. The abbreviations most frequently used in the sample of recipes are „g‟, „ml‟, „tbs‟ and „tsp‟. It should be noted in this place that the use of abbreviations is only a small part of a bigger discussion relating to the condensed information organization, as being manifested in recipes.

9.1.4. Rich Structure and Organization of Complex Clauses

Written discourse is associated with higher occurrence of complex clauses, which are more structured and more richly organized (Brown and Yule 1983: 15). However, the

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investigation of the syntax of recipes shows that the recipes analyzed do not display a rich array of syntactic structures. The individual clauses are joined, in most cases, by means of commas or coordinative conjunctions. The range of clauses employed in the language of recipes seems to be constrained; the adverbial time clause with „until‟ being the most common type of complex clause used. The low variety of structures noted in the language of recipes seems to be more consistent with what we associate with speaking rather than with writing, since “in writing, we expect variation of structures, which we see as a part of stylistic elegance” (Goddard 2002: 108).

9.1.5. Passive Voice, Present Tense and Simple Aspect

Biber‟s study (2006) shows that academic prose, and, by extension, written discourse, relies primarily on simple aspect and present tense verb phrases, passive voice being common especially in its short version with no „by-phrase‟ (Biber 2006: 16). All these findings seem to be true for recipes analyzed. The examination of the sample shows that simple aspect is indeed the unmarked form of aspect, with only occasional occurrences of progressive aspect. Present tense is the default mode when the range of tenses is considered, although there are small numbers of occurrences of other tenses. The passive voice, though showing some occurrences throughout the sample, does not seem to be the preferred option to the active voice. However, when the passive voice is used, it is used always in its short version with no „by-phrase‟.

9.2. Evaluation of Five Criteria of Spokenness

The present subchapter aims to comment on the five criteria selected as representative features of spoken discourse, as based on Cornbleet and Carter (2001). The five features selected are ellipsis, vague language, coordination, informal and expressive language and incomplete clauses.

9.2.1. Ellipsis

The analysis enquiring into syntactic peculiarities of recipes established that elliptical constructions are employed in different areas of language across all the recipes studied. The

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phenomenon of ellipsis may be noted in partitives, in clauses and in direct object omissions. The frequent occurrences of ellipsis, compounded with the occurrences of abbreviations and contractions may be viewed as a part of language shortening. However, the tendency towards using different forms and structures of shorthand is in general more characteristic of speech than writing, since “we often save time in speaking by cutting down on language where possible, by using contractions and ellipsis” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 62).

9.2.2. Vague language

Vague language stands for the language lacking preciseness and explicitness of expression. As such it is considered to be more characteristic of spoken discourse than writing. It has been mentioned in several places throughout the thesis that one of the basic requirements of a recipe is its explicitness and preciseness of expression. This requirement is related to the main function of a recipe. However, it has been also noted that apart from including explicit expressions, there are also vague expressions featuring in the recipe texts analyzed. These vague expressions include „thing‟, „a bit of‟, „a couple of‟, and the determiners „whatever‟ and „whichever‟.

9.2.3. Coordination

Speech, as opposed to writing, does not tend to exhibit very complex organization of ideas, which is considered to be more typical of writing. Coordination represents one of the most frequently used ways of joining the individual utterances. In the analysis of syntax of recipes, it has been established that recipes do not show a wide variety of syntactic structures, the coordinative conjunctions being among the most frequent means of joining the individual sentences. As Goddard (2002) says, “such coordination is the norm for speech, particularly in storytelling episodes” (Goddard 2002: 108). When it is used in writing extensively, as it in recipes indeed is, it is sometimes considered to be indicative of poor style (Goddard 2002: ibid).

9.2.4. Informal and Expressive Language

As has been already mentioned, the dichotomy of written and spoken tends to be associated with the dichotomy of formal and informal. On the basis of this dichotomy, written

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discourse is expected to be formal in its language use, while spoken discourse may be rich in informal and expressive language. As the chapter on formality and informality in recipes shows, a large number of recipes analyzed are pervaded with informal expressions. These expressions include emotive adjectives („lovely‟, „fantastic‟ and „great‟), informal adjectives („stiffish‟ and „largish‟) and some highly emotional language like expressions „belissima‟, „congratulations‟ and „absolute heaven‟. The large proportion of phrasal verbs should be mentioned in this connection too, as some of the phrasal verbs significantly add to the informality of the language used in recipes. This is also true for some of the delexical verbs, featuring „have‟, „give‟ and „get‟ as in „have a taste‟, „give a shake‟ and „get hot‟ respectively. They represent “a common feature of informal spoken discourse” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 63) and their use in recipes is therefore highly reminiscent of the spoken style.

9.2.5. Incomplete Clauses

It has been already mentioned that speech does not reach very elaborate structural organization as the writing typically does. This is partially related to the spontaneous character of speech, which does not allow the speaker to organize the utterance in advance. This results in the incidence of false starts, pauses and incomplete utterances. Despite the fact that recipes do not show very complex organization of structures on the level of syntax, the majority of clauses show features of completeness. Occurrences of cases where the sentences are not worded in full and make sense only when they are referred back to the previous element, are rather rare.

9.3. Summary

On the basis of the above presented findings it is possible to reach the conclusion that the recipes studied, although being page-bound and written, often use “aspects of language that we associate with spoken interactions” (Goddard 2002: 41). These aspects of spoken language cover a multitude of areas which have a common denominator; they seem to be indicative of spoken discourse. They include the use of contractions and of personal pronouns, informal and expressive expressions, delexical verbs, ellipsis and vague language. Framing the recipe text in an interactive way and making an attempt to call up a spoken voice may help to make the recipe more user friendly (Goddard 2002: 39) and facilitate the comprehension of the recipe for its readers. Likewise, wording the

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recipe in a speech-like manner may help the writers to construct a close relationship between them and the readers. The recipe is then presented in a form which is more reminiscent of a friendly exchange of cooking experience between two equals than of an uneven piece of communication between a knowledgeable expert and the inexperienced lay person. Many of the features typical of spoken discourse which recur throughout recipes are common to the grammar of conversation as a typical spoken discourse. Cornbleet and Carter (2001) propose the occurrences of simple clauses, contractions, ellipsis and straightforward word order as consequences of “the real-time nature of spontaneous conversation” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 70), its face-to-face and interactive nature and the pressure of time. All these phenomena are notable in the recipes under study, though the situational context between recipes and conversation differs. Despite the fact that the language of recipes exhibits some significant signs of spoken discourse, the inherently written mode of the recipe necessarily has some effects on its language too. The high level of lexical density and the highly condensed organization of information are probably the most salient features which may be noted in a recipe at first sight, as far as the characteristics of writtenness are concerned.

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10. Differences between Cookbooks

The findings in the previous chapters clearly show that there are some significant differences between the languages of the three cookbooks analyzed. These differences are probably the most pronounced on the level of formality and informality, where the differences resulted into the argument that the cookbooks studied represent a continuum with respect to formality of expression. However, as is shown in this chapter, the linguistic differences between the cookbooks are not restricted only to the level of formality. The next part therefore aims to identify the main differing features of the language of recipes between the cookbooks. The identification is based on the principle that “context determines meaning” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 14). Therefore, the identification of the differing features is done with special account taken of the message that the recipes convey, context of the production, purpose of producing the recipes and, last but not least, the target readership. These extralinguistic aspects are considered on the grounds that they all should be somehow reflected in the language. The assumption is that the relationship between the language and the contextual features is reciprocal, i.e. “we get a lot of clues as to context from the language itself which in turn is greatly influenced by the context” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 48). The purpose of the communication plays a major role in the discussion, since it is considered as the main aspect which determines the form of the message as well as the style and the language used. Moreover, “once we know the purpose, it‟s easier then to look at the means by which the purpose has been achieved” (Cornbleet and Carter 2001: 92). The present final chapter of the thesis therefore attempts to account for the differences in the linguistic features displayed by the individual three cookbooks. The justification for the linguistic differences is provided on the basis of sociolinguistic theories and on the basis of functional framework designed by Halliday (1976) and applied to the study of registers as a threefold model of mode, field and tenor.

10.1 Gordon Ramsay

The title of the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay is Fast Food (2008) with subtitle Recipes from the F word. In the introduction to the cookbook the author mentions that he tries to “re-define the concept of fast food and prove that anyone can prepare speedy meals in less time than it takes to get a pizza delivered” (Ramsay 2008: 8). The same motto is provided on

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the blurb of the book too, where it reads that the cookbook concerned is “perfect for cooking in a hurry”. In other words, though it is not expressed explicitly, the cookbook seems to be designed for very busy people who find it hard to find time for cooking homemade meals. Therefore, it is meant for people who already know how to cook, they therefore do not need a detailed and comprehensive description of the basic steps and techniques; they rather need ideas on how to prepare quickly-to-make dishes. The goal of the cookbook seems to be reflected in the language used throughout the recipes. It seems as if the aim of the cookbook, i.e. to prepare fast food in as little time as possible, was correlated with the language used in the cookbook. The instructions are given in rather minimalistic manner, without any explanations or clarifications that are present in the cookbook, for example by Jamie Oliver. The recipes are short, simple and easy to follow. This makes them very apt for the busy people in a hurry who want to spend as little time with cooking as possible. The instructions therefore make the impression that every single word is used for a very good reason and not a word should be wasted. As a result, the instructions in the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay are given in the most condensed way from all the recipes analyzed. The condensation of recipes is also related to the fact that the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay displays the highest tendency for ellipsis on different levels. The figure showing the occurrences of pronoun „it‟ used as direct object (see Figure 23) clearly demonstrates that Ramsey‟s cookbook shows very few instances of „it‟ as direct objects, which correlates with the tendency of the cookbooks to make use of direct object omissions. The tendency towards shortening and ellipsis shows itself on other levels too, especially in partitives and some clauses. The numbers of partitives clearly show that the elliptical partitives prevailed over their non-elliptical counterparts (see Figure 26) The same could be said about the time adverbial clauses with „until‟ (see Figure 24) The comparison of the numbers relating to elliptical constructions shows that the language used in the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay indeed seems to show the highest tendency towards ellipsis and shortening. Apart from the condensed language and the tendency towards ellipsis, the recipes by Gordon Ramsay also show the smallest number of language phenomena which would make the language sound informal. As has been already commented upon above, there are very few occurrences of contracted forms or phrasal verbs. Moreover, the recipes lack expressive or informal language and overt references to participants involved in the communication.

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As a result, the recipes by Gordon Ramsay reflect in greater extent the features that are expected to be present in a written text; they appear more impersonal, less emotionally expressive and much less individualized. In conclusion, it may be summarized that language of recipes by Gordon Ramsay seems to fit best the earlier provided definition of language of cookbooks as given by Czech linguist Jiří Kraus, who maintains that recipes are rendered usually in rather factual, emotion- free and impersonal way. It should be noted that this definition seems to reflect the general expectations of a typical recipe text.

10.2 Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver in the introduction to his cookbooks writes, “If you thought you could never learn how to cook, then believe me, take these recipes and their step-by-step pictures and within 24 hours you‟ll be making some really delicious grub. Cooking good food from scratch is a basic skill and having it in your life can save you money, give you loads of enjoyment and put you, your family and your friends on track to a healthier life. Anyone can learn how to cook” (Oliver 2009: 1). Jamie‟s cookbook is therefore clearly intended for beginner cooks with not much cooking experience. This fact is reflected on several levels of language expressions. On the most obvious level, the instructions include factual details which may seem redundant or unnecessary for people who are already skilled cooks. Following extracts from some of the recipes exemplify this phenomenon.

Example 94 (JO 14)

When your tarte tatin is ready you must turn it out at once or it will end up sticking to the baking tray * To do this, cover your hand with a tea towel, carefully hold the tray with a serving plate or board on top and gently turn it over * Using the tip of a knife, pull a corner of the pastry up to check if it’s all cooked underneath (if not, pop it back into oven for another couple of minutes), then ease the whole thing out of the tray

Example 95 (JO 8)

Stick a knife into them to check they’re soft all the way through *

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The examples suggest that the detailed instructions include a number of recommendations which seem to be specifically tailored for cooks-beginners, who may benefit from them. Apart from these, the instructions also include many explanatory comments which further clarify why or for what purpose the given actions should be done. The following extracts show examples of these explanatory comments.

Example 96 (JO 9)

Fluff up the potatoes in the colander by shaking it around a little – it’s important to ‘chuff them up’ like this if you want them to have all those lovely crispy bits when they’re cooked * Put a large roasting tray over a medium heat and either add a few generous lugs of olive oil or carefully spoon a little of the fat from the meat you’re cooking * Add the garlic and rosemary leaves * Put the vegetables into the tray with a good pinch of salt and pepper and stir them around to coat them in the flavours * Spread them out evenly into one layer – this is important, as you want them to roast, not steam as they will if you have them all on top of each other *

Example 97 (JO 14)

Rather than putting your pastry down flat and rolling it out, place it on its side (see the picture opposite) and roll it from there, as this will give you a lighter, crisper texture *

The extra details on the steps that should be taken during the cooking process along with explanatory comments on the steps are obviously included into the recipe to make the instructions as clear and comprehensible as possible. The desirability of a high level of comprehensibility is manifested in some other aspects of language too. In the chapter dealing with syntax of recipes, it has been established that the language of recipes in general shows numerous instances of ellipsis. Probably the most salient ellipsis has been identified with respect to verbs and their direct object omissions. However, the cookbook by Jamie Oliver shows rather small tendency for direct object omissions. This is demonstrated by the highest number of occurrences „it‟ as direct objects (see Figure 23). This finding may be correlated with the lowest tendency of his recipes for direct object omission. As has been also shown, the direct object omissions may sometimes result in the ambiguity of expression. Therefore, the small numbers of direct object omissions, generally typical of recipes as a whole, may be again accounted for by the fact that Jamie Oliver‟s cookbook is meant for non proficient cooks and strives therefore to be as explicit as possible,

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trying to avoid any misunderstanding caused by language. This reasoning might have therefore given preference for full wordings without any omissions. The preference for full wordings is notable in partitives too. The numbers (see Figure 26) shows that the cookbook by Jamie Oliver shows the highest numbers of partitives in the regular and standard „of construction‟. Apart from the fact that the language of recipes by Jamie Oliver shows the lowest tendency for ellipsis and the biggest attempt to provide the instructions in as comprehensive way as possible, it also contains considerable number of signs of informality. This informality manifests itself in the use of informal and expressive vocabulary used in recipes as well as in the numerous references to the reader of the recipes, serving as indicators of proximity between the participants.

10.3. Nigella Lawson

A mere passing look at the cookery book by Nigella Lawson reveals that it is the most voluminous and comprehensive from the three cookbooks discussed. The short description of the book provided on the blurb says that “Feast proclaims Nigella‟s love of life and great food to celebrate it with. It‟s about enjoying the small pleasures as well as the big occasions, and includes everything from Christmas, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Eid to Passover and Easter, from Meatless Feasts to Midnight Feats, from weddings to funerals, from kitchen feats to kids‟ favourites, from Partytime to the ultimate Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame”. The account aptly reflects the true character of the cookbook and its purpose of providing a multitude of recipes which could be used on highly festive occasions for large numbers of people, as well as for private occasions. The target reader is, by implication, highly proficient cook who has already mastered a great variety of cooking techniques. The complex nature of the content of the cookbook seems to be again reflected in the language used. Interestingly enough, the language of recipes by Nigella Lawson, unlike the other two cookbooks, manifests the largest number of signs of syntactic complexity on the level of clause. While it has been established that adverbial time clause with „until‟ is the most frequently used clause employed in the language of recipes in general, recipes in Nigella‟s cookbook include a number of other clauses, though, in much smaller numbers. The following figure shows occurrences of some other clauses, more specifically reason clauses, clauses of manner, concessive clauses and purpose clauses. These clauses did

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not deserve to be mentioned in the chapter dealing with the level of syntax, for the small number of occurrences in the remaining two cookbooks. The numbers of occurrences relating to the selection of different types of clauses suggest that recipes by Nigella Lawson show the highest level of syntactic complexity from the three cookbooks analyzed.

Figure 36: Occurrences of Reason Clauses

Reason clauses NL JO GR since 1 0 0 because 3 0 0 as 1 3 0

Figure 37: Occurrences of Clauses of Manner

NL JO GR Clauses of manner with ‘as’ 3 2 0

Figure 38: Occurrences of Concessive Clauses

NL JO GR Concessive clauses with ‘though’ 3 0 0

Figure 40: Occurrences of Purpose Clauses

Purpose clauses NL JO GR with ‘so that’ 3 1 0 with ‘so’ 4 2 0 non-finite with ‘to’ infinitive 35 18 24

This high level of syntactic complexity may be further exemplified in the numbers of non-present tenses used. While present tense is the prevalent tense in all the recipes analyzed, recipes by Nigella Lawson contain the highest numbers of non-present tenses (see Figure 15). This may be caused by the fact that Nigella‟s language is, as has been already commented, the closest to everyday spoken language, which naturally does not limit itself to the use of present

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tense. Nigella‟s cookbook seems to surpass the other two cookbooks in a number of other aspects too. The language of recipes by Nigella Lawson clearly shows the highest number of occurrences of both highly expressive and informal vocabulary, contracted forms and direct references to both the reader and especially the writer. The language does not seem to show the signs of condensed language as is the case with the language of recipes by Gordon Ramsay, and to certain extent by Jamie Oliver. Likewise, the tendency for ellipsis is quite small, especially on the level of clause. The two figures showing the numbers of full clauses compared to their elliptical counterparts (see Figure 24 and Figure 25) clearly demonstrate that both the conditional clauses and the adverbial time clauses are in larger extent used in their full forms. The preference for the full form is most clearly demonstrated on the conditional clauses, where not a single elliptical „if‟ clause is used (see Figure 25). The subchapter has shown that purpose of the recipe and target readership seem to be among the most important characteristics affecting the language of the recipes. The most important characteristics which underlie the variation of the language across recipes are summarized in the figure below.

Table 2: Overview of Situational Characteristics

Context Purpose Producer Receiver

professional Jamie modern cookery to provide simple chef inexperienced cook - Oliver book and easy-to-make recipes male beginner professional Nigella modern cookery to provide recipes for a wide chef modern, proficient and Lawson book range of festive occasions female sophisticated cook to provide recipes on professional Gordon modern cokery speedy meals chef experienced cook interested in quickly-to-make Ramsay book for busy people male meals

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10.4. Language Differences from the Point of View of Sociolinguistic Characteristics of the Writers

The linguistic differences have been so far accounted for mostly on the grounds of the different goals and purposes of all the cookbooks and of the different levels of proficiency of the target readers. In the preceding subchapter I characterized the target readers mainly by means of their proficiency levels of cooking. No distinction has been made in this respect whether the text presumed a male reader or female reader, though cookbooks have been traditionally associated with the domain of women. However, the issue of gender is not relevant only when it comes to the discussion of the intended reader, but also when the writer of the recipes is considered. This is related to the fact that the differences in language among the individual cookbooks may be justified by a rather speculative reasoning. The speculative interpretation is based on the viewpoint of the author‟s gender. Nigella Lawson is the only female cookbook writer which was included in the sample of recipes. “Numerous observes have described women‟s speech as being different from that of men” (Wardhaugh 1992: 313). Therefore, the question arises whether gender of the writer plays any role in the stark linguistic difference between the cookbook by Gordon Ramsay and Nigella Lawson and in general, whether the differences in speech between men and women may be manifested in the language of recipes too. Some studies of the language of women claim that they use in biggest measure than men some adjectives („lovely‟ and „sweet‟) and more expressive vocabulary („fantastic‟, „lovely‟, „good‟) (as cited in Wardhaugh 1992: 315). It has also been noted that women show more inclinations to the talk about family and home (Wardhaugh 1992: 319). As has been already observed, the recipes by Nigella Lawson include a number of references to her personal cooking experiences and even to some personal details like the name of her assistant. These details seem to be missing in the recipes by Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay. It is likewise true that the recipes by Nigella Lawson include a high number of expressive words, adjectives in particular. However, it has been noted that recipes by Jamie Oliver contain some clearly highly emotional vocabulary and expressions too. Therefore, it is hard to reach any generalized conclusions with respect to the gender of the recipe writer and the language he or she uses. Besides, I am fully aware of the fact that the sample of 15 recipes is very small to serve as a basis for some generalized conclusions. However, the above stated hypothesis may

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possibly serve as a point of departure for a different analysis enquiring into the possible correlations between the language of the recipes and the gender of the author of the cookbook. Another sociolinguistic characteristic which may exert powerful effects on the way an individual speaks is age. However, though the three authors of the cookbooks differ in their age, the difference is not that significant so that linguistic differences may be attributed to it. Other sociolinguistic factors, like factors of social class and region (see Table 1) have not been considered, since they were not deemed important factors that would account for the language variation between the cookbooks.

10.3. Summary

This chapter has summarized the main differences between the three cookbooks analyzed and has provided possible justifications for the differences in language. Tenor, as one of the sociolinguistic parameters from Halliday‟s threefold model of register, has shown itself to be particularly influential in affecting the choice of language used. The differences in language have been attributed mainly to the specific purpose of the recipe and to the presumed reader‟s proficiency. The assumption is that the recipe writer, as every writer in general, needs to take account of his target readership. The variations in language across the three cookbooks show how important considerations of target reader and purpose of communication are, and the huge impact they can have on the actual implementation of language in the text.

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11. Evaluation of the Secondary Hypothesis

The secondary hypothesis aims to establish whether the language of recipes represents a unified register with stable set of structures and expressions common to all the recipes. On the basis of the results of the analysis and findings provided so far, it can be concluded that the register of recipes does not represent a unified register, but falls into several subregisters. The three cookbooks studied prove that while all the recipes share some lexical, syntactic and discourse features, there are clearly distinguishable subregisters within the register. These subregisters and their language seem to be primarily dependent on the purpose of the specific cookbook and on the intended target readers. The complexity of the subject discussed may play a role too.

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12. Conclusion

In the thesis I have attempted to (1) define the recipe as a specific genre with respect to its purposes and organizing features, (2) define the recipe as a written text from the linguistic point of view, (3) provide a terminological background to the study of recipes in linguistics, (3) describe the situational characteristics of recipes, (4) analyze a sample of recipes on several levels, and (5) propose justifications accounting for the linguistic differences between the cookbooks analyzed. One of the aims of the thesis has been to identify the main distinctive features of the language of recipes. In the search for the salient characteristics pertaining to recipes, the focus was placed on three aspects: lexis, syntax and discourse. The analysis was undertaken on a sample of 45 recipes coming from three different cookbooks. The findings derived from the register analysis were subjected to investigation which inquired into the relationship between informality and formality, and, by extension, between writtenness and spokenness. The investigation was carried out in order to test two hypotheses. The main hypothesis tested whether the recipe texts as representatives of written discourse exhibit chosen features conventionally associated with the written mode. The secondary hypothesis tested whether the register of recipes represents a unified register or not. On the basis of the internal register analysis, which treated all the recipes as a representative of the register of recipes as a whole, regardless of the authorship of the individual cookbooks, it has been determined that recipes represent a highly specialized register, on the level of lexis in particular. The lexical analysis showed occurrences of specialized terminology, expressions and collocations which seem to be register specific, i.e. restricted purely to the language of recipes. The analysis on the level of syntax and discourse has shown that language of recipes does not reach a high level of syntactic complexity and that it exhibits some features of simplified language. The analysis of language of recipes with respect to the issues of formality and informality and writtenness and spokenness showed that recipes, despite being written and page-bound, manifest a wide range of features typical of spoken language. On the basis of the comparative analysis, which examined the linguistic differences between the languages of individual cookbooks, it was concluded that the language of recipes varies considerably in some areas of its use. The differences are accounted for especially on the basis of the „tenor‟ of the language according to Halliday‟s three-fold model. The

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language of recipes seems to show significant variation with respect to the audience for whom the cookbook is intended. The nature of the target readership, and by extension, the purpose of the cookbook therefore seem to be the most significant factors influencing language variation from the sociolinguistic factors considered.

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Bibliography

ACTON, E. (2009), Modern Cookery for Private Families, London: General Books. ALEXANDER, L. G. (1988), Longman English grammar, London: Longman. BEETON, I. (2008), Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, Oxford: Oxford UP. BHATIA, V.K. (1993), Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings, Harlow: Longman. BIBER, D. (1994), „An Analytical Framework for Register Studies‟, in Biber, D. and Finegan E. (eds), Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register, Oxford: Oxford UP, pp 31 – 54. BIBER, D. (1998), Corpus Linguistics: Investigating Language Structure and Use, Cambridge: Cambridge UP. BIBER, D. (1999), Longman grammar of spoken and written English, London : Longman. BIBER, D. (2006), University language: a corpus-based study of spoken and written registers, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. BROWN, G., and YULE, G. (1983), Discourse Analysis, Cambridge: Cambridge UP. CORNBLEET, S., and CARTER, R. (2001), The language of speech and writing, London and New York : Routledge. COUNIHAN, C., and Van ESTERIK, P. (ed) (1997), Food and culture, New York: Routledge. CRYSTAL, D. (1985), A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. CRYSTAL, D. and DAVY, D. (1969), Investigating English Style, London: Longman. CULY, C. (1996), „Null objects in English recipes‟, Language Variation and change, 8, 91 – 124. ATKINSON, D., and BIBER, D. (1994), „Register: A Review of Empirical Research‟, in Biber, D. and Finegan E. (eds), Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register, Oxford: Oxford UP, pp 351 – 369. FERGUSON, C.A. (1994), „Dialect, Register, and Genre: Working Assumptions about Conventionalization‟, in Biber, D. and Finegan E. (eds), Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Register, Oxford: Oxford UP, pp 15 – 29. FLOYD, J., and FORSTER, L. (ed.) (2003) The Recipe Reader: Narratives, Contexts, Traditions, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited. GADSBY, A. (ed), 2003, Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture, Pearson Education Limited, Harlow. GODDARD, A. (2002), The language of advertising, London: Routledge.

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HAEGEMAN, L. (1987), „Register variation in English: Some theoretical information‟, Journal of English Linguistics, 20.2, 230 – 248. HALLIDAY, M. A. K. (1976), Cohesion in English, London: Longman. HALLIDAY, M.A.K. (1989) Spoken and Written Language, Oxford: Oxford UP. KITTREDGE, R. and LEHRBERGER, J. (1982), Sublanguage: studies of language in restricted semantic domains, Berlin: De Gruyter. LEE, D. (2007) „Genres, registers, text types, domains, and styles: clarifying the concepts and navigating a path through the BNC jungle‟, Language Learning & Technology, 5.3, 37 – 72. MASSAM, D. (1987), „Middles, tough, and recipe context constructions in English‟, North Eastern Linguistic Society, 18, 315 - 322. MASSAM, D. (1992), „Null objects and non-thematic subjects‟, Journal of Linguistics, 28, 115-137. RETTIGOVÁ, M.D. (1986), Domácí kuchařka : spolu s ukázkami z beletristického díla M.D. Rettigové a čtením o její osobnosti, Praha: Odeon. SAMS, C. (2003), The little food book, Bristol: Alastair Sawday publishing. SCHIFFRIN, D. (1994), Approaches to discourse, Oxford: Blackwell. SWALES, J. (1990), Genre analysis : English in academic and research settings, Cambridge: Cambridge UP. SINCLAIR, J. (1990), Collins Cobuild English Grammar, London: Collins. VACHEK, J. (1976), Selected writings in English and general linguistics, Praha: Academia. WARDHAUGH, R. (1992), An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford: Blackwell.

Primary sources

LAWSON, N. (2004), Feast: Food that Celebrates Life, London: Chatto & Windus. OLIVER, J. (2009), Jamie’s Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours, London: Penguin Books. RAMSAY, G. (2009), Gordon Ramsay’s Fast Food: Recipes from The F Word, London: Quadrille Publishing.

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Internet sources

Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen. Karin Ikas. 25 May 2010 Cambridge Dictionary. 10 April 2010 Oxford English Dictionary. 5 May 2010

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Summary

The present thesis entitled „The Language of Recipes and Cookbooks‟ deals with the linguistic peculiarities of recipes. Recipes are treated in the thesis as a specific representative of written text. As such, they are characterized by their setting, communicative functions and participants. The theoretical concept of „register‟ is used for the purpose of the comprehensive analysis of the salient linguistic features of the language of recipes. The linguistic features were examined on a sample of 45 recipes, which come from three modern British cookbooks. The sample of recipes was subjected to analysis on several levels: on the lexical level, on the syntactic level, and on the level of discourse, and also from the point of view of formality and informality. The analysis was expected to answer two main research questions. The first research question enquired into whether recipe as a written text manifests chosen features of written language. The second research question aimed to establish whether the language of recipes represents a unified register. The lexical analysis showed occurrences of specialized terminology, expressions and collocations which seem to be register specific. The analysis on the level of syntax and discourse showed that the language of recipes does not reach a high level of syntactic complexity and that it exhibits some features of simplified language. The analysis with respect to formality and informality showed that the language of recipes uses a considerable number of features typical of spoken language. Comparison between the languages of individual cookbooks suggests that there is a considerable variation, this variation being dependent on contextual factors. The most important factors influencing the language used are target readership and purpose of the communication.

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Resumé

Diplomová práce nazvaná „The Language of Recipes and Cookbooks“ se zabývá jazykovými zvláštnostmi receptů jako osobitého typu psaného textu, který je definován specifickými kontextuálně-situačními faktory. Jazykové zvláštnosti receptů jsou zkoumány na vzorku 45 receptů, pocházejících ze tří moderních britských kuchařek. Tento vzorek je podroben analýze na třech úrovních, a to především na úrovni lexikální, syntaktické a na úrovni diskurzu. Poslední část analýzy nahlíží na výzkumný vzorek z hlediska formálnosti a neformálnosti jazykového projevu a současně sleduje rozdíly mezi jazykem jednotlivých kuchařských knih. Analýza má za cíl zodpovědět dvě hlavní výzkumné otázky. Hlavní otázka sleduje, zda recept, jako psaný útvar, vykazuje vybrané prvky psaného textu. Druhá otázka sleduje, zda jazyk receptů tvoří jednotný registr, popřípadě do jaké míry se uvnitř registru projevuje variabilita. Analýza ukázala, že recepty vykazují jisté specifické rysy, které se nevyskytují v jiných jazykových varietách. Na lexikální úrovni je patrná především značná specializovanost výrazových prostředků. Lexikální analýza rovněž odhalila některé kolokace, které jsou specifické pouze pro recepty. Na úrovni syntaxe a diskurzu se ukázala tendence ke značné kondenzaci textu, přičemž k této kondenzaci dochází vlivem častého užívání elipsy a zkracování. Analýza z hlediska formálnosti a neformálnosti projevu ukázala, že jazyk receptů využívá značné množství prvků mluveného jazyka. Jazyk receptů se dále ukázal jako značně variabilní. Tato variabilita se zdá být závislá na kontextuálních faktorech, z nichž nejdůležitější roli hrají účel komunikace a cílový čtenář.

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Appendix - Corpus

The appendix contains the material which has been subjected to linguistic analysis. The material is derived from three different cookbooks written by three different authors and comprises in total 45 recipes, 15 recipes being extracted from every book. The material is presented in the alphabetical order based on the surnames of the cookbook authors. Recipes coming from the cookbook by Nigella Lawson, are presented first, they are followed by the recipes coming from the cookbook by Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay. The individual recipes are presented in the order in which they have been taken from the original cookbooks; the method of their selection has been described in the chapter dealing with the methodology of research. The recipes are presented in their full length, with all the parts that belong to them, including the title of the recipe, number of servings, the list of ingredients and the instructions for preparations. What is missing is the commentary given by the author, which in many cases preceded the actual recipes, and notes on the recipe or on the instructions which also feature in some of the recipes. Note and commentary are not included in the corpus, since they did not comprise the material under analysis. However, the presence or absence of commentaries and notes given by the authors is indicated in the corpus by means of square brackets saying note or commentary with additional number giving the number of lines that the commentary / note occupied in the original text. The corpus reproduces the layout of the recipe, including the indentation of the paragraphs and the layout of the paragraphs. The punctuation marks are also reproduced according to the original. I also followed the abbreviations and capitalizations as these are used in the original recipes. The corpus presented in this appendix represents the body of data used for the qualitative as well as quantitative analysis.

NL 1

BREAD SAUCE

(Commentary - 18 lines)

Serves 8 – 10

1 day-old loaf unsliced white bread 2 teaspoons Maldon salt / 1 litre milk 1 teaspoon table salt 1 onion 30 g butter 4 cloves 2 tablespoons double cream,

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2 bay leaves optional 1 tea spoon white peppercorns fresh nutmeg 2 blades of mace or heaped ¼ teaspoon ground mace

Remove the crust from the bread, and tear at the denuded loaf with your bare hands to turn it into a mound of rough chunks or cubes. You should end up with between 175 g and 200 g cubes. If they are not slightly stale already, leave them out on a wire rack somewhere to dry out, or speed the process along by putting them in a very low oven – only don‟t forget they‟re there. Pour the milk into a pan. Peel and quarter the onion, and stud each quarter with a clove as you drop it into the pan of milk. Add the bay leaves, peppercorns and the blades of mace (or sprinkle the ground mace over) along with the salt and bring close to the boil, but do not actually let it boil. Remove from the heat, cover the pan and let it foggily infuse. As I said above, I tend to do this first thing in the morning when I get up, but if you forget or can‟t cope with it then, then just make sure you get the infusion done about an hour before eating. Put the pan back on a very low heat, add the bread cubes and cook for about 15 minutes, by which time the sauce should be thick and warm and evocatively fragrant. I have to say I don‟t bother with removing any of the bits, the onions, the peppercorns and so on, but you can strain the milk before adding the bread if you want to. Just before serving, stir in the butter and, if you happen to have a carton open, the cream and some more salt if you think it needs it. Grate over quite a bit of nutmeg, adding more once you‟ve decanted it into a warmed bowl or gravy boat.

NL 2

CHRISTMAS BUBBLE AND SQUEAK

(commentary – 11 lines)

Serves 1 – 2

Note: 16 lines

275g cold cooked roast potatoes 2 spring onions 250g cold cooked Brussels sprouts 1 egg with pancetta (see page 30) 1 tablespoon olive oil 50g cold cooked parsnips 1 red chilli, chopped, optional

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to dollop on a little chili sauce, or maybe some drops of Tabasco, but as I was about to finish cooking my bubble and squeak I happened to see that my assistant, Hettie, was just finishing making a very neat pile of chopped chilli for the red seasonal salad, above, and I swooped down and swiped some. When such an opportunity presents itself…

NL 3

TIME – HONOURED CHRISTMAS CAKE sultanas 350g 700g 1kg raisins 110g 225g 350g currants 50g 110g 175g glacé cherries 50g 110g 175g mixed peel 50g 110g 175g brandy or sherry 60ml 120ml 180ml butter 110g 225g 350g brown sugar 90g 195g 300g orange zest, grated 1/3 teaspoon 1 teaspoon 1 ½ teaspoon lemon zest, grated ½ teaspoon 1 teaspoon 1 ½ teaspoon large eggs 2 4 6 marmalade 1 tablespoon 2 tablespoons 3tablespoons almond essence ½ teaspoon 1 teaspoon 1 teaspoon plain flour 250g 350g 525g mixed spice ½ teaspoon 1 teaspoon 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon pinch ¼ teaspoon ¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg pinch ¼ teaspoon ¼ teaspoon salt pinch pinch ¼ teaspoon tin: round or square 18cm 23cm 25.5cm 15cm 20cm 23cm temperature gas mark 2 / 150°C gas mark 2/150°C gas mark 2 / 150°C, reduce to gas mark 1 / 140°C after 1 hour cooking time 2 – 2 ½ hours 3 – 3 ½ hours 4 – 4 ½ hours

Place all of the fruit in a large bowl, and add the brandy or sherry. Cover and let the fruit soak overnight. Preheat your oven to gas mark 2/150°C. Wrap the outside of your tin with a double thickness of brown paper, tying it with string, and line inside with baking parchment, both to come up a good 10cm above the rim of the tin. Cream the butter and sugar, then beat in the orange and lemon zest. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, and then the marmalade and almond essence. Sift the dry ingredients together, then mix the fruit alternately with the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture, combining thoroughly. Put the cake mix carefully into the prepared tin and bake following the table above, or until a cake-tester comes out clean. When the cake is cooked, brush with a couple of tablespoons of liqueur. Wrap immediately, still in its tin – using a double-thickness of tin foil – as this will trap the heat and form steam, which in turn will keep the cake soft on top. When it‟s completely cold, remove the cake from the tin and re-wrap in foil, storing preferably in an airtight tin or Tupperware, for at least three weeks.

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It‟s difficult to give a precise ingredient list, at least in terms of quantities, for the icing, because I don‟t know which sized cake you are making. The quantities below are for a 23cm diameter cake

FOR THE ICING 200g marmalade 1 kg ready-to-roll icing Icing sugar for sprinkling 500g marzipan

Heat the marmalade in a saucepan and when hot and runny strain into a bowl to remove the rind. Or start off with a rindless one, of course. With a pastry brush, paint all over the cake to make a tacky surface. Dust a work surface with icing sugar, roll out the marzipan and drape over the cake. Then press against the cake and cut off the excess with a sharp knife. If you need to do this twice (with two lots of 250g marzipan), that‟s fine, but make sure to smooth over any joins, so that the icing on top lies smoothly. Dust the work surface again with icing sugar and plonk down your block of icing. Beat it a few times with the rolling pin, then dust the top with icing sugar and roll out. Cover the cake with it, again cutting off the excess and sticking bits together to patch up as you need, sprinkling with cold water first. Transfer the cake to a cake stand or board. As for decorating, it is entirely up to you of course, but see my suggestions on page 98, overleaf, and, indeed, the photograph above right.

NL 4

LEMON, MINT AND SPINACH SALAD

(Commentary: 5 lines)

Serves 8

1 largeish lemon ½ tablespoon Maldon salt a fistful of fresh mint leaves, plus 250g baby spinach leaves extra for the top 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Cut off the top and bottom of a lemon, stand it on a wooden board and, cutting down with a small sharp knife, slice off the skin and pith, rotating the fruit until you come full circle. Cut the lemon flesh into 5mm circles and then each circle into eighths, putting them – and all juice – into a bowl as you go. In other words, you want the lemon in small chunks. Cut the mint leaves, with scissors for ease, into thin strips over the lemon pieces, and sprinkle over the salt and some pepper. Add the spinach leaves and oil and toss everything together with your hands. Now decant on to a large round or oval plate – or whatever you want to serve this on – and drop a few whole mint leaves over the dressed salad.

NL 5

HOT CROSS BUNS

(Commentary 13 lines)

Makes 16

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Note (10 lines)

FOR THE DOUGH 150ml milk 1 packet easy-blend yeast (7g) 50g butter 125 g mixed dried fruit zest of 1 orange 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1 clove ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg 2 cardamom pods ¼ teaspoon ground ginger 400g bread flour 1 egg

FOR THE EGG WASH 1 egg, beaten with a little milk

FOR THE CROSSES ON THE BUNS 3 tablespoons plain flour 2 tablespoons water ½ tablespoon caster sugar

FOR THE SUGAR GLAZE 1 tablespoon caster sugar 1 tablespoon boiling water

Heat the milk, butter, orange zest, clove and cardamom pods in a saucepan until the butter melts, then leave to infuse. I have gone rather cardamom-mad recently, but this short, aromatic infusion gives a heavenly scent to the little fruited buns later. Measure the flour, yeast and dried fruit into a bowl and add the spices. When the infused milk has reached blood temperature take out the clove and cardamom pods, and beat in the egg. Pour this liquid into the bowl of dry ingredients. Knead the dough either by hand or with a machine with a dough hook; if it is too dry add a little more warm milk or water. Keep kneading until you have silky, elastic dough, but bear in mind that the dried fruit will stop this from being exactly satin-smooth. Form into a ball and place in a buttered bowl covered with clingfilm, and leave to prove overnight in the fridge. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7/220°C. Take the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. Punch the dough down, and knead it again until it is smooth and elastic. Divide into 16 balls and shape into smooth round buns. I wouldn‟t start worrying unduly about their size: just halve the dough, and keep halving it until it‟s in eight pieces, and use that piece of dough to make two buns. Or just keep the dough as it is, and pinch off pieces slightly larger than a ping-pong ball and hope you end up with 16 or thereabouts. Not that it matters. Sit the buns on a baking parchment or Bake-O-Glide lined baking sheet. Make sure they are quite snug together but not touching. Using the back of an ordinary eating knife, score the tops of the buns with the imprint of a cross. Cover with a tea towel, and leave to prove again for about 45 minutes – they should have risen and almost joined up. Brush the buns with the egg wash, and then mix the flour, sugar and water into a smooth, thick, paste. Using a teaspoon, dribble two lines over the buns in the indent of the cross, and then bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes. When the hot cross buns come out of the oven, mix the sugar and boiling water together for the glaze, and brush each hot bun to make them sweet and shiny.

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NL 6

CHEESECAKELETS

(Commentary 10 lines)

Makes 15

Note (5 lines)

3 eggs 50g plain sugar 2 tablespoons caster sugar 1 teaspoon best quality vanilla 225g cottage cheese extract

TO EAT WITH approx. 250g strawberries ½ - 1 teaspoon caster sugar ½ teaspoon balsamic vinegar

Start with the fruit, just so that it can macerate while you make the pancakes. Depending on their size, chop the strawberries into quarters or eighths, sprinkle over the balsamic vinegar and sugar (you‟ll need more or less depending on how sweet and ripe the berries you have are) and swirl the bowl about a bit so the strawberries are coated before covering with clingfilm and leaving to steep while you set about making your cheesecakelets. Separate the eggs. Mix the yolks with the sugar, beating well. Add the cottage cheese, flour and vanilla. Then, in another bowl, whisk the whites till frothy (with a hand whisk only: you‟re not even approaching making meringue or anything) and fold the white spume into the cottage-cheese mixture. Heat a smooth griddle or non-stick frying pan and dollop tablespoons of the curd-thick batter on to it to make cakelets of about 8cm in diameter. Each cheesecakelet will take a minute or so to firm up underneath, when you should flip it and cook the other side. Remove to a warmed plate as and when ready. Turn the strawberries in the ruby syrup they‟ve made and squish some pieces with a fork at the same time. Decant them into a bowl, with a spoon for serving, and bring your cheesecakelets to the table at the same time.

NL 7

CAULIFLOWER CHEESE

(Commentary 6 lines)

Serves 8 - 10

1 large head cauliflower 50g plain flour 2 bay leaves 500ml milk 110g butter 275g strong Cheddar, grated, plus 2 teaspoons English mustard 50g for sprinkling on the top

Cut the cauliflower into small florets, put into a saucepan with the bay leaves and cover with cold water. Add a sprinkling of salt and bring to the boil, then drain and refresh with cold

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water. Let the cauliflower drain again in a colander, pluck out the bay leaves and discard. When the cauliflower is completely drained, put into an ovenproof dish in an even layer. You can clingfilm the dish at his point and leave it to finish later. Preheat your oven to gas mark 7/220°C. To make the cheese sauce, melt the butter in a heavy-bottomed saucepan, then whisk in the mustard and flour, and cook over a gentle heat for about 5 minutes. Whisk in the milk off the heat, and then put it back on the heat and keep stirring until it becomes really thick and begins to bubble. Sprinkle in the 275g grated cheese and stir over the heat until it has melted into the sauce. Check the seasoning, then pour it over the cauliflower in the dish, and scatter the remaining cheese over the top. Cook for 20 minutes at the temperature above, or whatever your oven is at for the roast lunch, or until the cauliflower is hot, the sauce is bubbling and the cheesy top is slightly browned.

NL 8

SWEETCORN FRITTERS

(Commentary 4 lines)

Makes 10

Note: 5 lines

2 eggs, separated 3 tablespoons plain flour scant ½ teaspoon salt 150g drained canned corn

Whisk the egg whites with the salt until stiffish, not fretting over them unduly, then – in another bowl – whisk the egg yolks for 2 – 3 minutes. Fold in the flour and sweetcorn and then the whites. I just tip the bowl of whites into the yellow ingredients and fold, though not gently, with a rubber spatula until everything‟s combined. Meanwhile, heat a smooth griddle or heavy non-stick pan and dollop out the fritters: I use a coffee scoop which is a 2-tablespoon measure. Cook for up to 2 minutes per side. You end up with golden pancakes about 5 – 6cm in diameter.

NL 9

CHOCOLATE MALTESER CAKE

Commentary 3 lines

Makes 8 – 10 slices

FOR THE CAKE 150g soft light brown sugar 2 tablespoons Horlicks 100g caster sugar 175g plain flour 3 eggs 25g cocoa, sieved 175ml milk 1 teaspoon baking powder 15g butter ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

FOR THE ICING AND DECORATION

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250g icing sugar 125g soft unsalted butter 1 teaspoon cocoa 2 tablespoons boiling water 45g Horlicks 2 x 37g packets Maltesers

Take whatever you need out of the fridge so that all the ingredients can come to room temperature (though it‟s not so crucial here, since you‟re heating the milk and butter and whisking the eggs). Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/170°C. Butter and line two 20cm loose-bottomed sandwich cake tins with baking parchment. Whisk together the sugars and eggs while you weigh out the other ingredients; I use a freestanding mixer here which explains why I can do both things at once. Heat the milk, butter and Horlicks powder in a saucepan until the butter melts, and it is hot but not boiling. When the sugars and eggs are light and frothy, beat in the hot Horlicks mixture and then fold in the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Divide the cake batter evenly between the two tins and bake in the oven for 25 minutes, by which time the cakes should have risen and will spring back when pressed gently- let them cool on a rack for about 5 – 10 minutes and then turn out of their tins. Once the cakes are cold, you can get on with the icing. I use a processor just because it makes life easier: you don‟t need to sieve the icing sugar. So: put the icing sugar, cocoa and Horlicks in the processor and blitz to remove all lumps. Add the butter and process again. Stop, scrape down, and start again, pouring the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running until you have a smooth buttercream. Sandwich the cold sponges with half of the buttercream, and then ice the top with what is left, creating a swirly top rather than a smooth surface. Stud the outside edge, about 1cm in, with a ring of Maltesers or use them to decorate the top in whichever way pleases you.

NL 10

BEETROOT PURÉE

(Commentary 8 lines)

Serves 8

Note – 4 lines

500g raw beetroot 20g fresh coriander leaves 2 – 3 cloves garlic, peeled 10g flat – leaf parsley leaves 50g shelled walnuts ½ teaspoon ground coriander ½ teaspoon salt 3 teaspoons red wine vinegar

Preheat the oven to gas mark 7/220°C and wrap the beetroot or beetroots in foil, making baggy parcels (so air can circulate) with tightly sealed edges (so steam builds up). Roast the beetroot like this for about 2 hours, though a beetroot‟s cooking time – even before you take in size differential – can vary enormously, so unwrap one and pierce with a knife to see how cooked it is after an hour. But anyway you‟re the best off cooking the beetroot in advance, so you‟ve got plenty of time for it to cool before processing.

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Put the garlic cloves into a food processor and blitz until finely minced; then add the walnuts, salt and pepper before processing again. Or chop everything finely by hand and squodge down with a masher. Peel and roughly chop (wearing rubber gloves if you don‟t want your hands too spookily incarnadined) the cooled beetroot, adding the ruby pieces to the food processor along with the herbs and ground coriander and continue processing until you have a fine paste. Add the red wine vinegar and pulse again before tasting the purée; it may need more vinegar if the beetroot is very sweet. Transfer the beetroot purée to a bowl and cover with clingfilm before putting it to one side to steep and mellow for at least two hours.

NL 11

TEMPURA-FRIED COD WITH AVOCADO AND ROCKET AND A PEA PURÉE

Commentary 10 lines

Serves 2

Note – 20 lines

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NL 12

BELLINI

Commentary – 8 lines

Makes approximately 1 litre, serves 4

Note: 8 lines

1 x 75cl bottle of Prosecco icing sugar, optional 250ml white peach purée/pulp or 3 – 4 white peaches

Let‟s optimistically presume you‟re doing this, first off, with actual fruit. So, cut the peaches into quarters, and taking each quarter, in turn, hold over the mouth of the blender and peel off the skin (this is because you‟ll lose juice as you do it). Drop the skinned fruit into the blender goblet and purée. If the purée is too tart, add icing sugar to taste and purée again. (One of the virtues of the bought pulp, is that it isn‟t made with underripe fruit.) Leave this hamster- coloured pulp in the fridge to chill. Your only remaining job is to pour the bottle of also chilled Prosecco into a large jug or pitcher, then pour in the white peach purée and stir together.

NL 13

BIG PASTA WITH MUSHROOM, PARSLEY, GARLIC AND THYME

Commentary 6 lines

Serves 16

Note: 13 lines

3 x 500g packets rigatoni or other big pasta of choice

FOR THE BÉCHAMEL 175g butter 2 litres milk 140g plain flour freshly grated nutmeg

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Soak the porcini in the boiling water in a small bowl. In a saucepan, melt the butter for the béchamel, and add the flour; cook gently to make a roux and then - off the heat – whisk in the milk. Turn the heat back on to medium, and stir the béchamel until it begins to thicken and come to the boil. Let it bubble for about 5 minutes to get rid of the floury taste. Take off the heat and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/220°C. Heat a third of the butter and all of the oil for the mushrooms in a large wide pan. Drain the porcini, reserving the liquid, and chop before adding to the pan with half of the chopped parsley, the dried thyme and minced garlic. Stir for a couple of minutes then melt the remaining butter in the same pan and add the chopped mushrooms, stirring for about 5 minutes. The mushrooms will appear dry at first but will eventually start to give off some liquid. Add the porcini soaking liquid, which the mushrooms will largely absorb, but keep stirring while adding the sherry and let it bubble away. Turn off the heat when you have a bronzed, syrupy stew. Stir the mushroom mixture into the béchamel and add half the Parmesan and the remaining half of the chopped parsley. Put a big pan of water on for the pasta, and when it boils, salt it well. Cook the pasta until al dente, then drain and add to the mushroomy white sauce, stirring as best you can to get the pasta covered. Turn into a large roasting pan, of approx. 32 x 42cm. Sprinkle over the remaining Parmesan and bake for 30 minutes or until the top begins to turn golden in places. When the tin comes out of the oven, sprinkle with some more chopped parsley and some sprigs of fresh thyme.

NL 14

SALMON SANDWICHES

(Commentary 8 lines) makes 8 rounds

450g organic farmed salmon fillets, 1 tablespoon black peppercorns skinned few stalks basil 175ml water 4 – 6 tablespoons mayonnaise 1 tablespoon lemon juice, plus more 4 tablespoons chopped basil to squeeze into mayonnaise 16 slices black bread: you‟ll 1 tablespoon Maldon salt / ½ probably need 2 loaves tablespoon table salt

Put the salmon fillets in a large frying pan, cover with the water and add the lemon juice, salt, peppercorns and whatever basil stalks you have, having torn off the leaves to chop into the mayonnaise later. Bring just to boiling point, turn the fish over and switch off the heat. Leave for 3 minutes, then remove with a slotted spatula to a large piece of foil to cool. Flake the fish with a fork, transfer to a bowl, and add the mayonnaise, basil, a further squeeze of lemon and salt and pepper to taste. You need no butter to make the sandwiches, just share the filling out between eight slices of black bread, top with another eight slices and cut in half. You might put a few cornichons, those tiny gherkins, around the sandwiches on their platter.

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NL 15

ROSEMARY REMEMBRANCE CAKE

Commentary 4 lines

Makes approx. 10 slices

Note – 3 lines

1 eating apple (approx. 180g in 1 tablespoon caster sugar weight) juice and zest of ½ lemon 1 small sprig and 1 long sprig 1 teaspoon butter rosemary

FOR THE CAKE BATTER 225g butter 3 eggs 150g caster sugar plus 300g plain flour 1 tablespoon 2 teaspoons baking powder

Peel, core and roughly chop the apple and put into a saucepan with the small sprig of rosemary, the teaspoon of sugar, the lemon zest and juice, and butter. Cover the pan and cook on a low heat for 4 – 8 minutes until the apple is soft. How long this takes really depends on the variety of apple you‟re using. Coxes cook the fastest, and are good here. Leave to cool, and fish out the rosemary sprig when it is cold. Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/170°C. Line a 450g loaf tin with a loaf liner, or butter and line the bottom with baking parchment. Put the cooled apple into a food processor and blitz to a pulp. Then add the butter, 150g sugar, eggs, flour and baking powder and process to a smooth batter. Spoon the scrape into the loaf tin and smooth the top. Sprinkle the surface with the remaining tablespoon of sugar and then lay the long sprig of rosemary along the centre of the cake. On baking, the rosemary sheds its oil to leave a scented path down the middle of the cake. Bake the cake for 50 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean, then leave to cook on a rack. Slip the paper-lined cake out of the tin once it is cool.

JO 1

Chicken and leek stroganoff (19 minutes) serves 2 sea salt and freshly ground black pepper a knob of butter 150g long–grain or basmati rice a glass of white wine 1 large leek a bunch of fresh parsley a big handful of chestnut or oyster mushrooms 285 ml single cream 2 chicken breasts, preferably free-range or organic 1 lemon olive oil

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across thinly, then wash well under running water * Slice the mushrooms * Slice the chicken breasts into little–finger–size pieces

Spoon some rice on to each plate and top with the stroganoff * Scatter with the rest of the chopped parsley * Serve with the other lemon half, cut into wedges

JO 2

Pasta Al Pangrattato serves 4 – 6 2 cloves of garlic sea salt 1 – 2 dried chillies, to your taste 400g dried fusilli 4 sprigs of fresh thyme 8 anchovies in oil 4 slices of stale bread 1 lemon

To prepare your pasta Peel and finely slice the garlic * Finely chop your chillies* Pick the thyme leaves off the stalks * Slice the crusts off the bread and discard * If they‟re dry enough, finely grate your slices of bread – if not, break them up into small breadcrumbs with your fingers or give them a quick whiz in a food processor

To serve your pasta Divide the pasta between your serving bowls, or put it on the table in a large serving dish with a nice crisp salad and let everyone help themselves

JO 3

Super-quick salmon stir-fry

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serves 2 sea salt and freshly ground black pepper a bunch of fresh coriander 200g basmati or wild rice groundnut oil 350g salmon fillet, skin off and bones removed 1 heaped tablespoon Patak‟s tandoori curry paste a handful of shelled peanuts a handful of mangetouts 1 clove of garlic ½ a 400ml tin of coconut milk a thumb – sized piece of fresh root ginger a handful of beansprouts 1 fresh red chilli 1 lime

To prepare your stir–fry Bring a pan of salted water to the boil, add the rice and cook according to the packet instructions * While that‟s cooking away chop the salmon into even – sized 2.5cm chunks * Crush the peanuts up in a pestle and mortar, or else put them into a tea towel or plastic sandwich bag and use a rolling pin to bash them up * Peel and finely chop your garlic and ginger * Halve, deseed and finely slice your chilli * Pick the coriander leaves from the stalks, finely chop the stalks and put the leaves to one side

To cook your stir – fry Put a wok on a high heat and add 2 lugs of groundnut oil * Add the garlic, ginger, most of the chopped chilli and the coriander stalks * Stir for 30 seconds, then add the curry paste and stir for another 30 seconds * Add the salmon, cook for a minute or so, then add the mangetouts and coconut milk * Let everything cook for another minute * Taste and season with a little salt and pepper if you think it needs it

JO 4

Chicken tikka masala serves 4 – 6 4 skinless chicken breasts, preferably ½ a 283g jar of Patak‟s tikka masala free – range or organic curry paste or my tikka masala paste (see page 99) 2 medium onions sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 fresh red chilli 1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes a thumb – sized piece of fresh root ginger 1 x 40ml tin of coconut milk a small bunch of fresh coriander 200g natural yogurt groundnut or vegetable oil a small handful of flaked almonds a knob of butter 1 lemon

To prepare your curry Slice the chicken breasts lengthways into 2cm thick strips * Peel, halve and finely slice the onions * Finely slice your chilli * Peel and finely slice the ginger * Pick the coriander leaves and put to one side, then finely chop the stalks

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To make your curry Put a large casserole – type pan on a medium to high heat and add a couple of lugs of oil and the butter * Add the onions, chilli, ginger and coriander stalks and cook for 10 minutes, until softened and golden * Add the tikka masala curry paste and the strips of chicken * Stir well to coat everything with the paste and season with salt and pepper * Add the tomatoes and the coconut milk * Fill one of the empty tins with water, pour into the pan and stir again * Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down and simmer for 20 minutes with the lid on * Check the curry regularly to make sure it‟s not drying out and add extra water if necessary * When the meat is tender and cooked, taste and add a bit more salt and pepper – please season carefully

JO 5

Evolution cucumber salad

Serves 4 – 6 1) Peel 2 cucumbers, using a speed peeler, chop off the ends, and halve them lengthways * Use a teaspoon to gently scoop the seeds out, and discard them * Chop the cucumber into irregular bite-size chunks and place in a bowl * Season with a good pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper * Add 6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and mix well * Pick some leaves off a few sprigs of fresh mint and roughly chop them * Add them to the salad and toss together * Serve the salad simply as it is, or let it evolve…

2) Add a large tablespoon of natural yoghurt to the cucumber salad * Toss until well coated and serve drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil

4) Halve 1 fresh red chilli lengthways, deseed and finely chop * Scatter over your cucumber salad and serve drizzled with a little extra virgin olive oil

JO 6

Tomato soup serves 6 – 8 2 carrots / 2 sticks of celery / 2 medium onions / 2 cloves of garlic / olive oil / 2 chicken or vegetable stock cubes, preferably organic / 2 x 400g tins of plum tomatoes / 6 large ripe tomatoes / a small bunch of fresh basil / sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To make your soup

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Peel and roughly slice the carrots * Slice the celery * Peel and roughly chop the onions * Peel and slice the garlic * Put a large pan on a medium heat and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil * Add all your chopped and sliced ingredients and mix together with a wooden spoon * Cook for around 10 minutes with the lid askew, until the carrots have softened but are still holding their shape, and the onion is lightly golden * Put the stock cubes into a jug or pan and pour in 1.8 litres of boiling water from the kettle * Stir until the stock cubes are dissolved, then add to the pan with your tinned and fresh whole tomatoes, including the green stalks that may still be attached to some of them (these give an amazing flavour – trust me!) * Give it a good stir and bring to the boil * Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on * Meanwhile, pick your basil leaves

JO 7

Bolognese sauce serves 4 – 6 2 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, 500g good-quality minced beef, pork, or (even preferably free – range or organic better!) a mixture of the two 2 medium onions 2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes 2 cloves of garlic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 2 carrots a small bunch of fresh basil 2 sticks of celery 400 – 500g dried spaghetti or penne olive oil 100g Parmesan cheese 2 heaped teaspoons dried oregano

To make your sauce Finely slice the bacon * Peel and finely chop the onions, garlic, carrots and celery – don‟t worry about technique, just chop away until fine * Place a large casserole – type pan on a medium to high heat * Add 2 lugs of olive oil, your sliced bacon and the oregano and cook and stir until the bacon is lightly golden * Add the veg to the pan and stir every 30 seconds for around 7 minutes or until softened and lightly coloured * Stir in the minced meat and the tinned tomatoes * Fill both empty tins with water and add to the pan * Stir in a good pinch of salt and pepper * Pick the basil leaves and place in the fridge for later * Finely chop the basil stalks and stir into the pan * Bring to the boil * Turn the heat down and simmer with a lid on for about an hour, stirring every now and again to stop it catching * Remove the Bolognese sauce from the heat * Finely grate the Parmesan and stir half into the sauce * Tear and stir in any larger basil leaves, keeping the smaller ones for sprinkling over before serving * Mix up, have a taste, and season with a little more salt and pepper if needed – congratulations! You now have a beautiful Bolognese sauce * At this stage you can allow it to cool, bag it up and freeze it, or eat it straight away with the pasta below

To cook your pasta and serve Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil * Add your pasta and stir, following the packet cooking times – don‟t let it cook any longer or it will become too soft – you want it to have a bit of bite * Saving a little of the cooking water, drain the pasta in a colander * Put the drained

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pasta back into the pan * Add half the Bolognese sauce to the cooked pasta and mix well, adding a little of the reserved cooking water to loosen * Divide between your plates and spoon the remaining sauce over the top * Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle over the rest of the Parmesan and scatter with the small basil leaves – bellissima!

JO 8

For your mash topping: 1 kg potatoes * a splash of milk * a large knob of butter * sea salt and freshly ground black pepper * a sprig of fresh rosemary * olive oil

Preheat the oven to 190° / 375°F / gas 5 * Fill a large baking dish with the fully cooked stew * Peel the potatoes, cut them in half and put them into a pan of salted, boiling water * Boil for about 10 minutes until tender * Stick a knife into them to check they‟re soft all the way through * Drain in a colander and return them to the pan * Add the milk, butter and a pinch of salt and pepper * Mash until smooth and creamy, adding another splash of milk if necessary * Roughly top the stew with the mashed potato – don‟t worry about it being smooth and even * Pick a few rosemary leaves off the woody stalk and lightly push them into the potato * Drizzle your pie with some olive oil, lightly coating the rosemary leaves * Cook in the oven for 25 minutes

JO 9

Roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots serves 4 – 6 1.2kg potatoes 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary 6 parsnips sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 6 carrots olive oil 1 bulb of garlic

To prepare your vegetables If you‟re cooking these separately and not as part of one of the roast meats in this chapter, preheat your oven to 200°C / 400°F / gas 6 * Peel the vegetables and halve any larger ones lengthways * Break the garlic bulb into cloves, leaving them unpeeled, and bask them slightly with the palm of your hand * Pick the rosemary leaves from the woody stalks

To cook your vegetables Put the potatoes and carrots into a large pan – you may need to use two – of salted, boiling water on a high heat and bring back to the boil * Allow to boil for 5 minutes, then add the parsnips and cook for another 4 minutes * Drain in a colander and allow to steam dry * Take out the carrots and parsnips and put to one side * Fluff up the potatoes in the colander by shaking it around a little – it‟s important to „chuff them up‟ like this if you want them to have all those lovely crispy bits when they‟re cooked * Put a large roasting tray over a medium heat and either add a few generous lugs of olive oil or carefully spoon a little of the fat from the meat you‟re cooking * Add the garlic and rosemary leaves * Put the vegetables into the tray with a good pinch of salt and pepper and stir them around to coat them in the flavours * Spread them out evenly into one layer – this is important, as you want them to roast, not steam as they will if you have them all on top of each other * Put them into the preheated

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oven for about 1 hour, or until golden, crisp and lovely * Serve immediately, with your roast dinner and your gravy (see page 205)

JO 10

Broccoli with Asian dressing serves 4 – 6 Get yourself around 600g of broccoli or purple sprouting broccoli * Heat your steamer pan or put a large pan of water on to boil * Break the broccoli up into little pieces and slice up the stalks * Place the broccoli in your steamer or in a colander placed over the pan of boiling water and cover with a tight – fitting lid or some foil * Steam for around 6 minutes, until the stalks are tender * Meanwhile, make your dressing * Peel a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger and a clove of garlic and grate into a bowl * Halve, deseed and finely chop a fresh red chilli and add to the bowl * Stir in 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of soy sauce and the juice from 1 lime * Drizzle in a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar * Whisk the dressing together and have a taste * What you‟re looking for is a flavour balance between saltiness from the soy sauce, sweetness from the balsamic vinegar, acid from the lime and heat from the chilli * When the broccoli is cooked, place it on a big serving platter * Mix up the dressing one last time before pouring it over * Absolute heaven!

JO 11

Crunchy garlic chicken serves 2 1 clove of garlic 2 heaped tablespoons plain flour 1 lemon 1 large egg, preferably free – range or organic 6 Jacob‟s cream crackers 2 skinless chicken breasts, preferably 25g butter free – range or organic 4 sprigs of fresh flat – leaf parsley olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To cook your chicken You can either bake or fry the chicken * If baking, preheat your oven to its highest temperature, place your chicken on a baking tray and cook for 15 minutes * If frying, put a frying pan on medium heat, add a few good lugs of olive oil and cook for 15 minutes * If frying, put a frying pan on medium heat, add a few good lugs of olive oil and cook the chicken breasts for 4 to 5 minutes on each side, until cooked through, golden and crisp

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JO 12

Salmon en croûe serves 4 – 6 plain flour, for dusting 4 tablespoons black olive tapenade paste 1 x 500g pack of all–butter puff pastry a small bunch of fresh basil 1 x 800g salmon fillet, bones removed 2 ripe tomatoes olive oil 1 x 150g ball of mozzarella cheese sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 1 large egg, preferably free – range or organic

To prepare your salmon en croûte Preheat the oven to 200°C / 400°F / gas 6 * Get yourself a large, flat baking tray and dust it with flour * Dust a clean work surface and a rolling pin with flour and roll out your puff pastry, dusting as you go, until it‟s the same size as the baking tray (about 30cm x 15cm) * Place the pastry on your floured tray * Drizzle the salmon fillet with olive oil and season with a pinch of salt and pepper * Transfer to the pastry, skin–side down, then spoon the black olive paste over the top, spreading it out into a thin layer * Pick the basil leaves and place them over the fish * Slice the tomatoes and place them over the basil * Tear the mozzarella into pieces and scatter these on top * Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil * Gather up the sides of the pastry and pinch and push them together * Crack the egg into a cup and beat it with a fork, then use a pastry brush to paint this egg wash all around the pastry edges

JO 13

Boiled eggs serves 2

Get yourself a small saucepan, fill it three–quarters full with water, and bring it to a fast boil. * Add a good pinch of salt and, using a spoon, dip in and out (dipping helps prevent the shock of the change in temperature from the fridge to boiling, which sometimes makes them crack open) and then lower 4 large free – range or organic eggs into the water, slowly, so the shells don‟t crack on the bottom

Cook for the following times, depending on how you like your eggs: 5 minutes for runny 7 minutes for semi – firm

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10 minutes for hard – boiled

JO 14

Banana tarte tatin serves 6 60g unsalted butter plain flour, for dusting 150g caster sugar 250g puff pastry 4 large bananas optional: crème fraîche ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon optional: vanilla ice cream and a few 1 orange tablespoons of desiccated coconut

To make your pastry topping Dust a clean work surface and rolling pin with flour * Rather than putting your pastry down flat and rolling it out, place it on its side (see the picture opposite) and roll it from there, as this will give you a lighter, crisper texture * Roll it out until you have a rectangle shape about the same size as your tray and about 0.5 thick * Drape your pastry over your rolling pin and carefully lay it on the baking tray, gently tucking it around the bananas to make sure they‟re well covered, with no gaps * Using a knife or fork, prick the pastry a few times * Place the tray at the top of the preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden

To serve your tarte tatin When your tarte tatin is ready you must turn it out at once or it will end up sticking to the baking tray * To do this, cover your hand with a tea towel, carefully hold the tray with a serving plate or board on top and gently turn it over * Using the tip of a knife, pull a corner of the pastry up to check if it‟s all cooked underneath (if not, pop it back into oven for another couple of minutes), then ease the whole thing out of the tray * If using crème fraîche, put it into a bowl, grate over the rest of your orange zest and stir well * If using vanilla ice cream, sprinkle a few tablespoons of desiccated coconut on a plate and quickly roll a scoop of ice cream in it until coated * Serve your tarte tatin with a dollop of crème fraîche or coated ice cream and eat immediately!

JO 15

Griddled tuna and asparagus serves 2 a bunch of asparagus 1/2 a fresh red chilli olive oil a small handful of sun – dried tomatoes 2 tuna steaks ( about 200g each, 1cm thick) 1 lemon extra virgin olive oil

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For the dressing balsamic vinegar a small bunch of fresh basil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

To cook your tuna Lay your asparagus tips on the hot, dry griddle * Turn them every minute or two, letting them char a little but not burn – this will give them a wonderfully nutty flavour * After a few minutes, push them to one side and add the tuna to the pan * You will be able to see the heat cooking up the tuna from the bottom * After a minute or so, when the tuna has cooked halfway through, flip both steaks over * Cook for another minute or two * You may think it strange, as it‟s fish, but the tuna should actually remain slightly pink in the middle when you serve it – it will become too dry if you overcook it

GR 1

Leek, potato & smoked haddock soup

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GR 2

Sicilian caponata

Heat the olive oil in a wide, heavy - based pan and sauté the aubergine, onion, celery and red pepper with some seasoning over a high heat for about 5 minutes.

Drop the tomatoes into a pot of boiling water for a minute, refresh under cold water and peel. Halve, deseed and cut into chunks. Add to the pan with the garlic, sugar, vinegar, olives and capers.

Cook over a high heat for 5 - 8 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the aubergine is tender. Check the seasoning and leave to cool slightly (or to room temperature).

Scatter the torn basil and toasted pine nuts over the caponata and serve with toasted country bread.

GR 3

Balsamic figs with crumbled Roquefort

Serves 4

Take 100g Roquefort (or any leftover blue cheese you may have in the fridge) and wrap well in all-purpose cling film. Freeze for at least 10 - 15 minutes until firm.

Cut 8 ripe figs into quarters and randomly scatter over four serving plates. Unwrap the blue cheese and grate a generous layer over the figs. Drizzle with some good quality balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil. Grind over a little black pepper and serve straight away.

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GR 4

Salad of griddled asparagus & spinach

450g asparagus, trimmed 5 tbsp olive oil sea salt and black pepper 100g Roquefort or other blue cheese 1 tbsp Dijon mustard 2 tbsp cider vinegar 3 tbsp walnut oil, plus extra to drizzle 200g baby spinach leaves 50g walnut halves, toasted

Crumble half the cheese into a large bowl and crush with a fork, mixing in 1–2 tbsp water and the mustard to loosen it. Stir in the cider vinegar, then whisk in the walnut oil and the rest of the olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Toss through the spinach leaves and add a handful of the toasted walnuts.

GR 5

Crayfish, avocado & mayo toasties

Toss 400g cooked crayfish tails with 4 - 5 tbsp mayonnaise and ½ tsp white truffle–infused olive oil. Stir through 1 chopped avocado and season with sea salt and black pepper to taste.

Lightly toast 4 thick slices of rustic white bread. Sandwich the crayfish filling between the toast slices and serve.

GR 6

Bacon, pea & goat‟s cheese omelette

20g butter 8 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, chopped 200g peas (thawed, if frozen) few basil leaves, roughly sliced or torn 8 large eggs, beaten 150g goat‟s cheese log with rind, thickly sliced

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sea salt and black pepper Parmesan, for grating large handful of rocket leaves 2 – 3 tbsp Classic Vinaigrette (see page 28)

Preheat the grill to its highest setting. Melt the butter in a large non - stick frying pan and fry the bacon until golden brown and crisp. Toss in the peas and cook for another minute or two, then add the basil.

Pour in the beaten eggs and gently shake the pan over medium heat. As the omelette begins to set at the bottom, top with the goat‟s cheese. Season generously with pepper and a little salt.

Grate some Parmesan over the omelette and place the pan under the hot grill for a minute or two until the eggs are set on top. Slide on to a warm large plate.

Toss a handful of rocket leaves in vinaigrette to dress lightly, then pile on top of the omelette. Cut into wedges to serve.

GR 7

Pastrami & cream cheese bagel

Split 2 poppyseed bagels in half. Lightly toast them if you‟re preparing lunch to eat straight away.

Mix 100g cream cheese with 1 tbsp wholegrain mustard and salt and pepper to taste. Spread evenly over the cut surfaces of the bagel halves.

Arrange 2 or 3 pastrami slices, a sliced large gherkin and a small handful of rocket leaves on each bagel base. Sandwich together with the bagel tops.

GR 8

Spaghetti with anchovy, garlic & parsley

Cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water for 8 – 10 minutes or until al dente.

Heat the olive oil in a large pan, in the meantime. Add the garlic and fry over a medium heat until golden brown at the edges. Stir in the chopped anchovies.

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Drain the spaghetti and tip into the pan with the garlic and anchovies. Add the chopped parsley and season to taste with salt and pepper. Toss well.

Divide among warm bowls and serve with grated Parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil.

GR 9

Mussels in an aromatic coconut broth

GR 10

Gratin of roasted peppers, basil & feta

2 x 450g jars ready – roasted peppers (ideally mixed red and yellow peppers) large bunch of basil 2 x 200g packs feta cheese black pepper olive oil, to drizzle Parmesan, for grating

Heat the oven to 220°C / Gas 7. Drain the peppers and slice in half if they are whole.

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Arrange a layer of peppers in four small individual gratin dishes. Top with a handful of basil leaves, then crumble over a layer of feta. Season with pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Repeat these layers to reach the top of the dishes.

Grate some Parmesan over the top and grind over a little more pepper. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes or until the cheese is golden brown on top.

GR 11

Tandoori spiced halibut with cucumber

4 skinned halibut fillets, about 150g each 1 tbsp tandoori or hot Madras curry paste 1 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp caster sugar 150g tub natural yogurt 2 cucumbers, peeled handful of mint leaves, chopped squeeze of lime juice 1 – 2 tbsp vegetable oil

Heat the oven to 200°C / Gas 6. Lay the halibut fillets on a plate. Mix the curry paste with the olive oil and sugar. Stir in all but 3 tbsp of the yogurt. Coat the fish with the spiced yogurt and set aside.

Cut the cucumbers lengthways using a swivel vegetable peeler into long wide strips, avoiding the seeds in the middle. Toss with the reserved 3 tbsp yogurt, chopped mint and lime juice.

Heat an ovenproof pan and add the vegetable oil. Scrape off the excess marinade from the halibut fillets and place them in the hot pan, reserving the marinade. Sear for 1 – 1 ½ minutes on each side until golden brown.

Spoon the marinade over the fish and place the pan in the oven for a few minutes to finish cooking. Transfer to warm plates, drizzle over the pan juices and serve with the cucumber salad.

GR 12

Quail with kohlrabi & butternut squash

8 oven–ready quails, legs removed (leaving the crown and wing tips) sea salt and black pepper 2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to drizzle 30g butter, cut into cubes few thyme sprigs 1 butternut squash, 700 – 800g, peeled, deseeded and cut into 2cm cubes 1 kohlrabi, about 400g peeled and cut into 2cm cubes

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Heat the oven to 200°C / Gas 6 and put a large roasting tray inside to heat up.

Season the quails and sear in a hot heavy – based pan with the olive oil over a high heat until golden brown all over (you may need to do this in two batches). Add the butter and thyme, spooning the butter into the quail cavities as it melts. Transfer the birds to a plate.

Toss the squash and kohlrabi into the pan. Season well and cook over a high heat for 2 – 3 minutes. Tip them into the hot roasting tray and sit the quails on top. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes. Lift the quails on to a warm platter and rest for 5 minutes. Return the vegetables to the oven for another 5 minutes or until they are tender.

To serve, divide the roasted vegetables among warm plates and place two quails on top. Drizzle with a little olive oil and serve.

GR 13

Couscous, broad beans, peas & pancetta

Fry 250g chopped pancetta in a little olive oil until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain; save the oil in the pan.

Meanwhile, blanch 150g broad beans and 150g peas in boiling water for 2 minutes. Refresh under cold water and drain well.

Fluff up the couscous with a fork. Add the pancetta, beans, peas and a handful of chopped mint and flat leaf parsley. Season and drizzle generously with olive oil. Fork through and serve.

GR 14

Pain perdu with raspberries & ricotta

125g ricotta cheese, drained 125 g mascarpone 2 tbsp caster sugar squeeze of lemon juice 200g raspberries 25g unsalted butter 4 slices raisin bread 3 large eggs, beaten few basil sprigs, to finish icing sugar, to sprinkle

Beat the ricotta, mascarpone, sugar and lemon juice together in a bowl, then gently fold

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through half of the raspberries to get a rippled effect.

Melt the butter in a wide, non – stick frying pan until it begins to foam. Dip the raisin bread into the beaten eggs, add to the pan and fry for a minute or two on each side until golden brown. Place each slice on a serving plate.

Spoon the ricotta mixture on to the warm pain perdu and tumble the remaining raspberries on top. Finish with basil sprigs and a sprinkling of icing sugar to serve.

GR 15

Banana mousse with butterscotch ripple

100g light brown sugar 40g unsalted butter 550ml double cream, chilled 4 large ripe bananas, ideally chilled in the freezer for 1 – 2 hours squeeze of lemon juice dark chocolate, for grating

Pour the remaining cream into a blender. Peel and chop the bananas and add to the blender along with a squeeze of lemon juice. Whiz until smooth, thick and creamy.

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