"A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet."

-
On Valentine's Day, I became recipient of flowers: a real rose from the boys in the lab and a pastillas shaped and colored like a rose. The edible flower didn't have a card on it so I thought it was left on my desk by mistake. But since nobody claimed it by the end of the day, I claimed it for my own before the ants had a chance to attack it.

       

The roses brought back memories of junior year in high school. Ms Apalin was introducing the class to the timeless plays of Shakespeare, starting with the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet. One of the passages stuck to my mind: 

"What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet"

Food scientists and marketing researchers would disagree, however. A product's success is attributable to its naming and branding strategy. In one of the industry-oriented immersions I've been through, I noticed that product developers were very concerned with the images brand names conjure in the minds of consumers. It's not just the name though: people also attach meaning to the sound of the name.

Favalli et al. (2013) refer to this as sound symbolism. The authors mentioned that the name of a food item not only refers to the sensory attributes of the food but to the consumers' overall experience. I agree. For example, I associate the word "sinigang" not only with the sour soup, the meat, and the vegetables; I also associate the word "sinigang" with fun Sunday lunches with my parents and siblings and with dinners with my aunts. Most likely, I favor sinigang over other viands not solely because of the savory flavors; I also love it because I usually eat it with people who I feel at home with.

Of the rose pastillas? Turned out it really was for me. Yum! 

Thanks, Matty!

---
Reference:

Favalli, S., T. Skov, C. Spence, D.V. Byrne. 2013. "Do you say it like you eat it? The sound symbolism of food names and its role in multisensory product experience." Food Research International 54: 760-771.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe
Read more

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in Bagu
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma
Read more