We often speak of our culinary traditions as if they were museum pieces: static, dusty, and meant only to be looked at through a glass display. But our food is a living, breathing technology, and the language we use to cook it is the code that keeps it alive. When we try to describe our cooking in English, we are forced to use generic labels that make no sense in our kitchens. We use words like "boiling" or "simmering" because that is what the dictionary gives us. But these w