I have had enough of cooking show jargon

This year I have watched several episodes of My Kitchen Rules. It is the first time I have done it. So now I finally feel qualified to criticise it. The jargon is especially annoying to me. I have never once referred to an element in my cooking. I am assuming that there are several dozen of them in every single meal I have ever cooked. Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Hydrogen to name four of the more common ones. Magnesium and Selenium to name two of the rarer. 

     Jus is not on any of the periodic tables I ever saw at school, including the one I tried to program into my graphing calculator. As far as I am aware, Pesto was never listed as one of the Lanthanides or the Actinides. Yet these people spout them as if they are chefs of the highest calibre who have earned the right to use jargon.

     If ever there was an industry that could vomit jargon like a virgin drinker on a bender it is the one in which I earn my living. Health. And at every opportunity I endeavour to use lay language. In fact, it is required. So why do wankers on television use such language as if to elevate themselves above the watching audience? Realistically most of the watching audience is watching thinking these people are amazing and even moreso for their use of hierarchical language. As with any watching audience though, the IQ, on average is less than the number of noble gases anyway so they will watch a chef prepare porridge for hours if they are told to.

     But that is not the one most annoying to me. There is one piece of terminology, that I assume has crept into the cooking lexicon long before My Kitchen Rules or MasterChef or Jamie's Kitchen or Nigella's Food Brothel (sorry, Kitchen Brothel). It is a concept really. And I am sure I am not the only person to notice this.

     The concept is that of a deconstructed whatever. The one I have seen is Deconstructed Taco.

     For something to be deconstructed, it first needs to be constructed. So, the chef (loose term) needs to construct his or her taco and then take it apart again and lay it on the plate. But that is not what they do. No, they fail to construct it at all. They make all the parts of the taco (dare I say elements of the taco?) and lay them on the plate expecting the patron, or perhaps subject, to put it together. It is laziness. Both in language and in food preparation. A taco is a taco. Apparently a plate with meat and sauce, salad, cheese and corn chips is a deconstructed taco. 

     To me, it is an unconstructed taco. More correctly, it is an unassembled taco.

     Say what you fucking mean!

     For anyone unimpressed at my pedantry, it was a vain attempt to change the tenor of the blog. With so many references to things my children have said or done I felt I was running the risk of being pigeonholed as a mummy blogger.

Tom