blood cash·ews

blood cash·ews (noun): Nuts processed by inmates enduring human rights abuses at Vietnamese forced labor camps.

The term is an analogy to blood diamonds (or conflict diamonds), precious gems that are sold in order to fund armed conflict and civil war.

Time magazine reported on allegations made in a report by Human Rights Watch about the production of blood cashews in Vietnam:

First there were blood diamonds from the Congo. Then blood rubies from Burma. Could blood cashews from Vietnam be next?

That's one implication of a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) report that claims cashew nuts and other Vietnamese exports are produced by drug addicts detained in forced-labor camps across the country. Those who refuse to work are beaten with truncheons, given electric shocks, locked in isolation, deprived of food and water, and obliged to work even longer hours, the report says. Joseph Amon, director of the New York City–based organization's health and human-rights division, says what's happening at the centers "constitutes torture under international law."

zab·ster zal·ad

zab·ster zal·ad (noun): A salad sold by Zabar's that closely resembles lobster salad, but whose primary ingredient is crawfish.

After a minor controversy erupted when Doug MacCash, a reporter for The Times-Picayune of New Orlean, noticed that Zabar's so-called "lobster salad" was actually made from freshwater crawfish, not lobsters, the salad has been renamed zabster zalad to better reflect its eternal lobsterlessness:

Zabar’s, the Upper West Side grocery store, has renamed the lobster salad that contains no lobster “zabster zalad.” The main ingredient remains the same: wild freshwater crawfish. Like the lobsterless lobster salad before it, “zabster zalad” also contains mayonnaise, celery, salt and sugar.

“It’s a combination of lobster and Zabar,” said Saul Zabar, the president and an owner of Zabar’s. “We could have called it Zobster salad, but our name is Zabar’s. And instead of the word ‘salad,’ we put a Z in there.”

For the record, he pronounced “zabster” to rhyme with Napster, the music-sharing service, not the ingredient that his lobster salad never had.

boat-to-ta·ble

boat-to-ta·ble (adjective): Of, relating to, or denoting a direct relationship between chefs and fishermen with the goal of optimizing freshness.

You've no doubt heard of "farm-to-table," the term used (and abused) to describe cuisine based on a close relationship between chefs and farmers. Now comes the boat-to-table phenomenon, which, as described by Joan Nathan in the New York Times, involves the sourcing of fish by chefs, restaurants, and retailers directly from fishermen, bypassing wholesalers in order to increase freshness:

This boat-to-table initiative is part of Trace and Trust, a program that Mr. Arnold; Christopher Brown, the head of the Rhode Island Commercial Fishermen’s Association; and Bob Westcott, another local fisherman, started this year to make fishing more lucrative and shopping more reliable. By cutting out the wholesaler, Trace and Trust lets fishermen get a bigger cut of what chefs and stores pay, and lets restaurants and retailers know they are buying the freshest fish possible. (Consumers can go to its Web site, traceandtrust.com, to find participating stores and chefs, and to trace a fish’s identification tag back to the boat or fisherman who caught it.)

The term originates from the early 1990s, when it was used to describe new initiatives by the Food and Drug Adminsitration aimed at monitoring the seafood industry to prevent food poising.

Mc·Path

Mc·Path (noun): A footpath that leads to McDonald's.

The UK town of Bridgend in south Wales is weighing a proposal to create a half-mile footpath -- dubbed the McPath -- that would link a school with a local branch of McDonald's.

Naturally, the proposed trail of fries has generated a fair amount of controversy. According to the Guardian:

The children seem keen but the champions of health eating are less so. For a local authority is considering building a half-mile footway that will link a school with a McDonald's restaurant used by scores of pupils every day.

Inevitably nicknamed McPath, the link between the school and the burger bar could cost up to £100,000.

Supporters say it will create a safe route to the McDonald's and also to a residential area. Critics, however, believe it could prompt more pupils to shun healthy school meals in favour of burgers, chips and fizzy drinks.

vir·tu·al wa·ter

vir·tu·al wa·ter (noun): Also known as embedded water, the water that is used in the production of a good or service.

The Guardian recently published an article on the amount of embedded water that is essentially lost in all of the food that goes to waste in the UK.

try·ver·tis·ing

try·ver·tis·ing (noun): A marketing technique involving the distribution of free product samples to create buzz among potential customers.

According to the website Social Commerce Today, Heinz has launched a tryvertising campaign on Facebook to interest customers in its new Balsamic vinegar flavored ketchup:

sel·me·lier

sel·me·lier (noun): An expert in gourmet salts who advises customers on salt varieties, flavor profiles, and food pairings.

A recent article in the Guardian on gourmet sea salts quotes Alison Lea-Wilson, founder of the Halen Mon Anglesey Sea Salt company, on the growing market for for artisan salts and the emergence of selmeliers:

When the Lea-Wilsons started 15 years ago, business experts said there was no market for artisan sea salt. But over a decade in which many people have become more interested in what is on their plates, the company's success – demand has always outstripped supply – does not overly surprise them. "There are even restaurants in America that employ 'selmeliers' to advise diners on which salt to choose for which dish," says Alison.

The most oft-cited selmelier is Mark Bitterman, the author of Salted: A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, with Recipes and the owner of The Meadow, a gourmet shop in Portland, Oregon, that specializes in specialty salts. An Associated Press story profiling Mr. Bitterman and his devotion to salt noted his status as a selmelier: "Using the language of wine, Bitterman talks about salts that are 'unctuous,' that impart 'spiciness' or 'butteriness.' He refers to a salt’s 'meroir,' the qualities it derives from its ocean, and calls himself as a 'semelier.'"

food bub·ble

food bub·ble (noun): The inflation of food production based on the unsustainable use of water and land.

Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, explained the term food bubble in an interview with New Scientist:

That's when food production is inflated through the unsustainable use of water and land. It's the water bubble we need to worry about now. The World Bank says that 15 per cent of Indians (175 million people) are fed by grain produced through overpumping - when water is pumped out of aquifers faster than they can be replenished. In China, the figure could be 130 million.

Frederick Kaufman also used food bubble, but to describe inflation in food prices, in a July 2010 article in Harper's titled "The food bubble: How Wall Street starved millions and got away with it."

best·o·vore

best·o·vore (noun): One who eats foods they deem to be the best in taste and quality whenever possible, regardless of their geographical provenance. Antonym: locavore.

In an interview with Eater, former New York Times restaurant critic Mimi Sheraton described her philosophy of eating as that of a bestovore:

If it tastes good, then that's fine. I'm not a total locavore. I'll say that. I consider myself a bestovore. Nevermind local if it is not the best. But if I were faced with a Pennsylvania peach or Georgia peach, I would take the Georgia peach every time and let them sort it out in Pennsylvania. I think the locavores should stay home, that they shouldn't fly back and forth, especially from California making big carbon footprints in the sky to speak to us about the importance of being local.

bor·ough·wash·ing

bor·ough·wash·ing* (noun): The process whereby Brooklyn's cachet as a locus of urban artisanal food culture is deployed for branding and marketing.

In an article titled "Brooklyn: The Brand," the New York Times reports on how corporations like the Gap and Williams-Sonoma are seeking to cash in on Brooklyn's growing reputation as a center for hand-crafted artisanal foods:

Small restaurants and large companies, like Williams-Sonoma, are lining up to hitch their wagons to Brooklyn’s D.I.Y. chic, as though the borough offers something missing in mainstream food culture, maybe in culture in general. It’s not that Brooklyn artisans are going corporate, but that corporations are Brooklynizing.

In a first for the Dictionary of Modern Gastronomy, we're inventing a new word and calling this phenomenon boroughwashing.

*Denotes a DoMG original word.