Snarky

Do you know a food snob? Someone who can tell you everything they ate at The French Laundry last time they were in wine country, someone who has their own prosciutto curing in their garage? Does this person annoy you?

Then you will very much enjoy the snarky tone of "The Food Snob's Dictionary, " a list of all the important things you need to be able to name-check if you need to be on the cutting edge of culinary with-it-ness. It's hilarious. At the same time, it's rather useful to the actual aspring food snob.

"Pulses: Exasperatingly counterintuitive term for the edible seeds of legume plants, e.g. lentils, beans and peas. Primarily used by English ladies and vegetarian cookbook writers looking to liven up their prose."

"Line-caught. Pet phrase of lyrical menu-writers, denoting a fish that has been caught in the old-fashioned rod-and-reel way, presumably by a small-time fisherman, rather than swooped up in a net with its entire school by a crew of unfeeling Russians on a huge, rusty trawler"

And so on. It's all in that tone of making fun of people who dare to make distinctions, while at the same time out food-snobbing them.

Buy it now for your favorite foodie; it will be out of date in a year or so.