You've Been Saying Fage Yogurt Wrong This Whole Time
From starring in one of Nigella Lawson's delicious cakes to pumping up pesto and upgrading deviled eggs, yogurt is the secret ingredient of so many dishes. In fact, sometimes it seems like the world has gone yogurt wild. As dairy brand Dannon so handily lays out on its website, yogurt is an incredibly multifaceted food that can be used in place of a whole host of ingredients when cooking. Its versatility has made it a kitchen staple.
One of the most well-known yogurt brands is Fage, which specializes not in thinner, "regular" American yogurt, but in dense Greek yogurt. The company actually originated in Athens, Greece, and made its way to America markets in the 1990s (via Fage). Given its current ubiquity, you might assume that everyone knows how to say the brand's name correctly — it'd be like mispronouncing Cap'n Crunch or Jif, right? Well, if you've always pronounced it like "sage" or said it with a hard "g," then, unfortunately, you've been butchering the beloved dairy company's name since you first laid eyes on it many breakfasts ago.
The yogurt is pronounced 'fah-yeh'
As noted by Mental Floss, Fage, spelled in Greek as Φάγε (meaning "eat"), is actually pronounced "fah-yeh," similar to Yahweh, "the God of the Israelites," according to Britannica. Additionally, Spoon University explains that you'll want to say the brand's name "with emphasis on the first syllable."
Don't feel too bad if you've been getting the name wrong. America has a history of mispronouncing food names from other countries. One of the most well-known cases of trying to prevent an inevitably incorrect pronunciation of a name is Chef Boyardee. The chef and founder's actual name was Ettore "Hector" Boiardi, but the company was spelled phonetically as Boyardee so that it would be less challenging for Americans to say correctly. Fage is just one example of a brand name that has been met with confusion by the U.S. public. However, now you can go forward and, with some practice, teach others how Fage was always meant to be pronounced.