Monday, 31 May 2010

Food Writing Cliche Bingo

We've had Book Review Bingo I've seen wine review bingo so now it's time for Food Writing Cliche Bingo. The participating phrases have been gathered from different twitter requests for words in food writing that various bloggers and journos feel more than a slight antipathy towards, and can been seen as a collective effort of the wonderful hive mind that is twitter rather than any individual's taste.
Print out the PDF, choose your own word or phrase to fill in the blank space, select the food blogs, journals or magazines and begin. You can do this on your own or turn it into a group activity by selecting different articles and blogs and seeing who can score a line or the entire card first.
Be warned it may become addictive.
Please comment below if you feel any phrases are not of high enough cliche quality and please suggest alternatives and additions.
 Download Food Writing Cliche Bingo

14 comments:

Hilary said...

'studded' is unfairly maligned. It can work but all too often people use it to mean 'x with a bit of y in it'. Fine where x is a cake, say, but daft where x is a soup. In my opinion.

How about 'mouthwatering'?

Myffy said...

I agree with Miss Hilary. There are far worse crimes against food writing: sinful, sip on, munch, gourmet, decadent, crispy, indulgent, perfectly cooked, glorious, silky, sexy and ooze.

Unknown said...

Funny and for the most part fair, although I think the inclusion of 'tasty' is taking it a bit far! Cliches only become so through repetition and none of these are all that terrible if used sparingly; scanning my blog archive I found a solitary 'plumped for' which I didn't cringe at (much). There's no excuse though for laziness - I used to scream every week at the repeated use, by the reviewer of a now-defunct newspaper, of 'in raptures' whenever she or a co-diner liked something!

A Scot in London said...

Thanks for the comments. It's a 'collaborative work in progress' (I've always wanted to have one of those). My only bestia negras are 'packs a real punch' and a small part of me dies everytime I read 'moreish'
Just keep the suggestions coming and then start playing the game.

Ann/applelisafood said...

Both 'Toothsome' and 'Yielding' give me a little involuntary muscle twitch whenever I read them...

Myffy said...

I'd like to see the words scabbed, viscous and goo used more. I'd be highly entertained by the word scabbed becoming a cliche.

theundergroundrestaurant said...

haha.
funnily enough I was looking at an old post of mine yesterday complaining about how difficult it is to write about food...may overhaul it.

meemalee said...

"Accurately cooked" annoys me although I'm sure I've used it myself :p

Kavey said...

I know I've used some of those, particularly as I don't mind moreish - it's the best way I know of to describe something you feel compelled to keep eating and keep eating and keep eating...

I don't like yummy but tasty is fine by me!

Actually, what I hate is when people are so desperate not to use the regular vocab that their posts come across as a bit of a thesaurus!

Greedy Diva said...

Very funny, although I'm guilty of using a few of these - some are hard to avoid ("tasty" - and apologies but I kind of like "moreish"!). The phrase "achingly hip", which is popping up in restaurant reviews all over the place, has the same effect on me as fingers down a black board, and "unctuous" is getting tedious - I've never heard anyone say "unctuous" in real life over a meal (except on Master Chef), but it gets a fair go in the written word.

Douglas Blyde said...

Presumably we could do the same with Masterchef phrases?

Douglas Blyde said...

Presumably we could do the same with Masterchef phrases?

A Scot in London said...

Wonderful idea Douglas. Surely we could persuade MiMi to do one?

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