Funistrada is a fictitious food item. The term was inserted in a U.S. Army survey of soldiers circa 1974[1] regarding their food preferences. Funistrada, along with a fake vegetable dish called "buttered ermal" and a fake meat dish called "braised trake", was inserted "to provide an estimate of how much someone will respond to a word which sounds like a food name or will answer without reading."[2]

Funistrada scored higher in popularity than eggplant, lima beans, and cranberry juice.[3][4] All three fake items, however, had the highest percentage of "never tried" responses.[5]

Appearances

  • Bill Bryson cited the food in his 1990 book Mother Tongue[6] as an example of a word that is made up for a specific purpose.
  • It appears in CHOW: A Cook's Tour of Military Food by Paul Dickson[7]
  • A restaurant in Northern Michigan has used the name Trattoria Funistrada since 2000.[8]
  • A Breeders' Cup horse took the name in 1985.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Armed Forces Food Preferences" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on December 26, 2022.
  2. ↑ Armed Forces Food Preferences p. 4
  3. ↑ "» Funistrada, the Army's 'Ghost Food' - Entropic Memes". www.slugsite.com.
  4. ↑ Davidson, Alan. "Funistrada." The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
  5. ↑ Armed Forces Food Preferences p. 54
  6. ↑ Bryson, Bill (1990), The Mother Tongue, London, UK: Hamish Hamilton, p. 77, ISBN 0-380-71543-0
  7. ↑ "CHOW: A Cook's Tour of Military Food by Paul Dickson - Kirkus Reviews". kirkusreviews.com.
  8. ↑ "Trattoria Funistrada".
  9. ↑ Equibase.com. "Equibase - Profiles". equibase.com.


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