Checking The Nation’s Restaurant Communications For Freshness.

Fifteen Forbidden Food Cliché Words

1. Delicious

2. Delectable

3. Succulent

4. Sumptuous

5. Scrumptious

6. Mouth-Watering

7. Piping Hot

8. Grilled To Perfection (Anything “To Perfection”)

9. Treat Your Tastebuds

10. Taste Sensation/Celebration/Explosion

11. Golden-Brown/Tender-Flaky

12. Yum(my)

13. Palate-Pleasing

14. Luscious

15. Like Grandma/Mom/Other Fictional Female Relative Used To Make

(sigh)

Hype. Inaccuracy. Mindless repetition of phrases thought up by people who died before we were born. Practically every food advertisement, every menu is guilty. And the problem with sounding like everybody else is, you sound like everybody else. And people stop listening, or don’t believe you. That leaves you no chance of distinguishing yourself, other than by word of (watering) mouth.

How does one inspire something as complicated as appetite, as unpredictable as a hankering? By deciding what you want your readers or listeners to conclude, and then finding simple, descriptive, non-clichéd language to convey your meaning. Dare to be interesting.

And stop using (at least) those fifteen clichés.

 

Stop saying “Real.”

As opposed to what?

No more. Stop. It’s a fake position.

It sounds like you’re taking a strong position. It sounds like you’re standing up against…what? Food made out of plastic? You’re all sourcing your foods from approximately the same places, right?

It’s cliché. It’s meaningless at this point. If your food is appreciably less fake than other people’s, say why.

.

Nobody Knows How To Sell Food

Is the food fine, Syd? Really? Isn't that more of your opinion, Syd, and no offense? You actually don't know what to tell me about the food, do you, Syd? So I’ll just assume it's a typical bar menu and be on my way.

You know what I love? I love that even after all this time, nobody can agree completely on what makes customers trade money for food.

Not the professsionals with their PowerPoint decks and marketing MBAs and Effie Awards and years of experience.

Not the directors who specialize in super close-up, slowly rotating shots of perfectly groomed food mounded meticulously or mysteriously flying through the air.

Not the random batches of regular folks convened in focus group rooms across America. Not the kid who inherited his or her parents’ successful restaurant and is scared to death to try anything different for fear it might break the spell. Certainly not the food critics for The New Yorker, nor for Indianapolis Monthly, nor for Yelp.

Not even the elderly Presbyterian ladies in church basements whose self-esteem is tied to whether you take a bigger scoop of their homemade mac and cheese, or of Connie Musgrave’s green bean casserole.

Nobody knows.

That’s beautiful, isn’t it?

It’s certainly worth taking a look at what people are trying, though, and how they’re communicating it.