Hypothesis & Findings
My hypothesis for this project was that words used today in and describing cooking would reflect the influence of French cuisine culture that emerged with the first restaurant in the 18th century, a language-external change. Secondarily, I expected to find that culinary words would reflect a lower proportion of Old English words than the language as a whole, because of the influence of other cultures on the culinary arts in the English speaking world. Thirdly, these cooking words would altogether show the general trends in linguistic features that matched those which were present during each period in the history of the English language.
French Restaurant Revolution?
Only one word within my top eight reflected this emergence of the French restaurant culture: braise, but that appeared in English before the first restaurant. Three other words in this series come from French, but they are borrowed into the English language during the Middle English period, with the influence of the Norman Conquest: cuisine, blanch and boil (Oxford English Dictionary). It is possible there are other words which appeared in English after the first restaurant.
This shows that French influence on the English language included influence on our culinary culture from that language's first interaction with English in the 11th century. English had been borrowing from French from before the restaurant culture emergence, or been forced to adapt to incorporate French, or use it during the underground period of the English language (Adventure of English, Episode 2).
Latin Words in English?
From these top eight words, the two Latin words appear at very different times in the life of the English language. The first Latin word I list is culinary. It comes to us relatively late in the Early Modern English period in the mid-17th century. The second one I list is recipe, appearing as an imperative in the early part of the Middle English period, and then as a noun in the Early Modern English period in the 16th century. But, its true meaning in cookery appeared in the mid-17th century, during the same period. It is this third meaning we use today.
While one is an adjective and the other a noun, together they show the influence of the Renaissance period and Enlightenment in Europe on English speaking culture in the kitchen. (Kitchen comes from Old English.) At that time, the spark of interest in Latin and Greek culture that pervaded the continent was an attempt at reinvigorating the classics of the ancients (Van Gelderen).
Proportions of Loan Words?
Together, Latin plus French words make up 75% of the words used in or about cooking from my list - 25% Latin and 50% French of the total. The final 25% come from Old English: cooking and bake. (Though cooking is debatable, it is an Old English word.) Both seem to be basic words for practices that date back well before Old English was even a language. Perhaps their common use and application is what made them remain and not get replaced by loan words.
Compare these to Van Gelderen's estimate of the proportions for these languages' influence on English: the proportion of French words on my list is higher than her 11% for the first 1,000 most common words in English, but it is just slightly above her 46% for the first 2,000 and 3,000. However, the Latin influence is much higher in all three cases: her 2% for the first 1,000 words, and 11% and 14% for the first 2,000 and 3,000, respectively, are lower than my estimate. In contrast, her estimates of Old English in the first 1,000, and 2,000, and 3,000 are 83%, 34%, and 29% respectively. Those numbers are all higher than my sample's 25%.
Morphology and Spelling Over Time
As for the morphology and spelling of these words, those which come from Old English display the many affixes of that period, such as -an in bacan and the -es on the plural noun version of cook.
These affixes are somewhat carried through and applied to the loan words from French during the Middle English period. They show their presence with the prefix y- and the suffix -yd/-ed in y-baunchyd for 'blanch'. But French words from the same period like cuisine are spelled exactly as they are in Modern English from second usage or earlier.
The simpler, more regularized endings on culinary and recipe don't deviate from their first adaptation, and are a microcosm of the nature of the English language during its Early Modern period.
The dominant trend is that Early Modern English versions of these words stay the same into the Modern English period.
Conclusion
While some of my hypothesis proved false, other aspects proved true. I was not able to pinpoint the influence of French restaurant culture on the English speaking world from just these eight words - its determination is still up for debate but it would appear less relevant than I predicted, considering my findings. Similarly, with just eight words to use, I may not have the proportions quite right on the loan words, but from these findings it appears Old English is represented less than it is in the language as a whole. However, what is certain is that these words all fit the trends of change in linguistic features that occurred during each period in the history of the English language, following the recipe, so to speak.
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Bragg, Melvyn. The Adventure of English, Ep.2: English Goes Underground. ITV, 2003. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG7REAOG1kc
Oxford English Dictionary. "Bake, v." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/bake_v?tab=meaning_and_use#29171332
Oxford English Dictionary. "Blanch, v." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/blanch_v1?tab=meaning_and_use#19088873
Oxford English Dictionary. "Boil, v." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/boil_v?tab=meaning_and_use#17053588
Oxford English Dictionary. "Braise, v." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/braise_v2?tab=meaning_and_use#15321510
Oxford English Dictionary. "Cook, n." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cook_n1?tab=meaning_and_use#8306705
Oxford English Dictionary. "Cook, v." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cook_v1?tab=meaning_and_use#8307780
Oxford English Dictionary. "Cooking, n." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cooking_n?tab=meaning_and_use#8309965
Oxford English Dictionary. "Cuisine, n." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/cuisine_n?tab=meaning_and_use#7727049
Oxford English Dictionary. "Culinary, adj." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/culinary_adj?tab=meaning_and_use#7729791
Oxford English Dictionary. "Recipe, n." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/recipe_n?tab=meaning_and_use#26568611
Oxford English Dictionary. "Recipe, v." Oxford English Dictionary, Third Edition. Retrieved October 2025 from: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/recipe_v?tab=meaning_and_use#12938349
Van Gelderen, Elly. "The English Language." A History of the English Language, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2006.
*AI image generated by Google Gemini.