Cupboard Love

Cupboard Love
by Mark Morton
Published by Shadowpaw Press Reprise
Review by Michelle Shaw
$29.99 ISBN 9781998273355

If you’ve ever wondered about the plural of asparagus (asparagi), or the origins of Camembert (invented during the French revolution) or why there are so many spellings of perogie…perogey…piroghi (it’s complicated),then wonder no more. Mark Morton’s extensively researched Cupboard Love: A Dictionary of Culinary Curiosities explores the definitions and origins of a vast array of culinary terms in a fascinating and very witty way.

From à la (as in à la carte and à la king) to zuppa inglese, Morton examines how the definitions of words have developed – sometimes far from their original meanings.

This is actually the third edition of the book (so clearly, it’s stood the test of time) and it has been updated and expanded. It was originally published in 1996 and was one of three books nominated for a 1996 Julia Child Cookbook Award in the Food Reference/Technical Category (Calphalon Award) and was included in The Globe and Mail’s list of “required reading” notable books for 1997.

I’m a linguistic nerd so I was fascinated about Morton’s research process through the years. When the book was first published in 1996, his primary research tool was the Oxford English Dictionary – which had just been released on CD for the first time! The second edition, in 2004, contained more words (some of which didn’t even exist in 1996) and revised entries incorporating new etymological findings.

The world has changed a lot since then so, with all the research widely available nowadays, why is a third edition even necessary? Well, in my personal opinion, I think this book is something special. For starters it’s extensive (I gave up counting but from A to C alone there are 309 entries). It’s also very funny. It’s extremely well researched (he does the hard work for us) and Morton puts everything together in a way that highlights the absurd, hilarious and often simply weird ways in which words develop.

Mark Morton was born on a farm in the southeastern corner of Saskatchewan. You may recognise his name from CBC radio (Definitely not the Opera), or as the co-founder of the Winnipeg International Writers Festival. He’s also written more than 50 columns for Gastronomica: A Journal of Food and Culture (University of California Press), and his book The End: Closing Words for a Millenium won the Alexander Isbister Award for nonfiction. He also writes fiction and his young adult science fiction novel The Headmasters came out from Shadowpaw Press in early 2024.

THIS BOOK IS AVAILABLE AT YOUR LOCAL BOOKSTORE OR FROM WWW.SKBOOKS.COM