Espasol - a native delicacy made of toasted gluttinous rice flour
In my other blog, placesandfood, I share some of my own recipes with readers, particularly the recipe for espasol (pictured above) which took me many years to perfect. In that blog, I often talk about the human interest side of the recipe, like where to buy the best espasol, where to get the ingredients, where to have the toasted sticky rice milled or where I started cooking it. Yet, I haven’t really explored if the measurements and procedure are easy to understand to blog readers out there.
Before the year 2007 ended, our DC132 class discussed the various readability formulas and calculated the reading ease of sample materials using the Flesch formula, Gunning’s Fog Index, SMOG test, and the cloze procedure. These readability tests illuminated some rules about how to make our prose understandable: use simple words, avoid polysyllables, and use shorter sentences.
Well, what do you know? Just as I was about to start a series of posts on a step-by-step guide to content analysis for my DC132 students, I stumbled on an interesting report published in UK’s Telegraph. The study, conducted by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, examined the readability of recipes of popular celebrity chefs. The research was carried out to highlight the Government’s adult learning campaign.
The study assessed 35 recipes published by five of the most popular celebrity chefs and assessed their readability and writing style. Female celebrity chefs, who used complex language in their cookbooks, appeared to be harder to understand in print than their male counterparts. The report noted that Gordon Ramsay’s language is so easy to read that his cooking methods could be followed by a seven-year-old. Similarly Nigel Slater, whose book The 30-Minute Cook is a best-seller, writes instructions that a child of 11 would have no problems comprehending.
However, more than 5.3 million adults would not be able to understand Nigella Lawson’s instructions as her writing style is too “chatty” and she uses long sentences.
The report confirmed what readability tests have long pointed out — that in order to understand the long sentences, complex measurements and complicated words, one must have GCSE standard reading and numeracy skills
3 responses so far ↓
Jojo // January 17, 2008 at 12:03 am
Ma’am Moni,
This study amuses me. I’ve learned about readability tests when i was in college and I know what they can do but I never thought of using them on recipe books.
I’ve always wanted to learn to cook something just for the sake of having something to (ahem, excuse my motives) brag about but one thing that really stumped me was the terminologies used in cookbooks. Admittedly, I don’t understand them, what with all the lame attempts to sound french and italian. In my opinion, they just make cooking more complex than it actually is.
I was almost tempted to buy Recipe ni Lola booklets (the ones sold outside MRT stations) just to learn a recipe but, well, i got busy and forgot all about my bragging intentions, lol.
Anyway, thank you very much for this blog post.
Monina Escalada // January 17, 2008 at 7:21 am
Jojo, thanks. You are right about the terminologies in cookbooks. Besides just the language, sometimes the measurements are off and you need to adjust them to your taste. The proof of the pudding, excuse the pun, is to follow the recipe and see if you can approximate the end product. For starters, how about trying out my recipe for biko in http://placesandfood.blogspot.com. Let me know if the language I used in that recipe is clear enough for a yuppie like you to follow. Then we can have a potlock with your Powerbatch in late February 2008 at The Columns and feast on biko, espasol, pork binagoongan, green Indian mango, and halang-halang (if we can track down Eva Hermoso for the recipe).
Jeri // February 13, 2008 at 9:59 am
Ma’am Moni,
I agree that cookbooks are really hard to understand. I thought it was just me hehehe. I love cooking too, but I dont know a lot of recipes so I read recipes to learn cooking tips and recipe. I agree with Kuya Jojo that most cookbooks use terminologies that are hard to understand for people who are “not so good” in cooking like me. Still I read them and modify the recipe and end up experimenting. It was fun and exciting though.
This article reminds of me your “matchless espasol,” really the best espasol I’ve ever tasted. I hope we can meet again and feast on your deli-yummilicious food. Angelica, also cooks good “halang-halang.” She indeed is a good cook. One of the friends I invited for lunch in the house even asked if Angie works in a restaurant after feasting on her beef broccoli and corn soup.
Anyway, thank you for posting this article.
Best regards.
Jerissa Panilag, BSDC alumna
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