Okay, so yeah, the restrooms, brand new restrooms.

Very soothing restroom.

Last week, Romeo Regali gave me a tour of his very empty restaurant, an Ethiopian spot in Brooklyn.

Music, there's a speaker.

Along the bar, there's a row of chairs.

And in Romeo's original vision, there were going to be people on those chairs.

Ah, yes. We definitely thought we were going to have people city. But unfortunately...

Yeah. Thanks for that, COVID.

Romeo had grand plans for his restaurant that, A, there would be people in it, and B, that they would

eat the food. But it turns out the original restaurants were going for something very

different. The first restaurants were places you went not to eat. I'm Johanna Mayer, and over the

next few weeks at Science Diction, will investigate the science, language, and history of food,

how restaurants became restaurants,

how ketchup became ketchup.

At its origin, it means, you know, fish sauce.

And how MSG went for being loved to loathed in this country.

While in Japan,

Every house has a MSG shaker on the table.

Plus, the clever little ways that marketers use linguistics to make food just sound delicious.

It has totally ruined my ability to look at names in the way that a normal person does.

Science Diction is back July 28th to Ruman Food Words for you.

Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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