Co-op Food sheds light on how to pronounce exotic foods

Co-operative Food is issuing a training guide to help staff pronounce foods found in the store correctly.

As British food tastes become more exotic and the range of foods in our supermarkets grows, the more problems there are of how to pronounce what is on sale.

Co-op Food is on hand to help its staff. The new training guide will help staff with popular, and tricky-to-say, foods like bouillabaisse, prosciutto and edamame,

And it’s not just the staff who will get a helping hand. A recent national survey showed around half of the 2000 people asked had no idea how to pronounce certain products, with 69% getting the pronunciation of the popular grain quinoa wrong. So, the store plans to place explanatory cards on shelves to help shoppers out.

Some of the other products causing problems are the Latin American seafood dish ceviche, Spanish wine Rioja, and even commonplace items like chorizo and guacamole.

Here are a few tips on some of the food pronunciations that might be tripping you up:

Quinoa – keen-wah

Rioja – ree-o-hah

Ceviche – suh-vee-chay

Edamame – eda-marmay

Bouillabaisse – boo-yuh-baize

Paella – pie-ey-yah

Prosciutto – proh-shoot-oh

Parmigianno reggiano – parmi-gee-ah-no red-gee-ah-no

Dr Catherine Sangster, head of pronunciation at Oxford English Dictionary, explained the difficulties in deciding upon one ‘correct’ way of saying it: “These pronunciations can be unexpected or controversial.

“Some speakers will want to say the name in a completely authentic manner, matching the original language, and other speakers will be influenced by the spelling or prefer to anglicise the sounds.”

Apart from having problems with the words, the survey also showed that this wasn’t putting people off from ordering more unusual foods. Less than one in fifty people would avoid ordering something for fear of messing up the pronunciation.