Friday, June 15, 2007

My Abalone Has a First Name

And it ain’t Tom.

Now, we should preface this, possums, by saying that we admire and respect Tom Colicchio. He’s knowledgeable as hell, and, based on his blog, he’s undeniably the best writer on the judging panel, except, perhaps, for Anthony Bourdain.

This is why we were so baffled during the premiere to hear Chef Colicchio repeatedly pronounce “abalone” as “a-ba-lawn.” We checked a few dictionaries (Random House, Merriam Webster, American Heritage) and we didn’t find this pronunciation.

And so, of course, we wondered, Have we found this season’s lychee? (The “LEE-chee”/“LIE-chee” debate went on for several weeks last season after Otto Borsich left.)

So we’re not saying Chef Colicchio’s pronunciation is baloney, but can any of you, possums, help dispel the mists of “a-ba-lawn”?

Or is Tom Colicchio led astray
Just like P-A-D-M-A?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think it's an east coast italian thing. Like "min-a-strown" soup or "pro-va-lown" cheese. Or Joey "Fat-own"

The Java Junkie said...

Yes, perhaps he was just having a Soprano's moment. Gabagool. Rigot. Abalawn. Or maybe it was just agita...

Anonymous said...

Italians pronounce the soup "min-a-strown"......it's the non-Italians the emphasis the E at the end...

BigAssBelle said...

whatever, i adore his eyes :-)

eric3000 said...

OMG, don't bring up lychee again!