Given that I loved it when Vic Reeves used to say "Uvavu", it may seem surprising that I have come to the realisation that anyone who uses the word "umami" is unworthy of attention.
But it's intention that matters. Although the two words sound the same, one was uttered to provoke laughter while the other is used to show off, I reckon.
After all, the English speaking world managed to talk about food for the best part of 2000 years without this addition to our vocabulary. Sure, as we became more familiar with the cuisines of South East Asia, so the word snuck in. But now it's used in almost any and every context. I even saw a reference to umami in relation to Yorkshire pudding and gravy recently.
That's when it really came home to me that umami is just an extremely pretentious way of saying savoury. What does it add to the language except bafflement and a sense of them - the fancy pants foodies who write things like this:
- and us, the people who just eat stuff? In other words, it increases alienation, which is why I think it must go.
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