Food and Languages

 

Last week, I finished reading the book “The language of Food, a Linguist Reads the Menu”, written by the American Linguist Dr. Dan Jurafsky. This is one of the books I enjoyed the most reading.

Dr Jurafsky explains different topics where languages and food are the protagonists. There are different chapters dedicated to different topics such as the origin of the name of some dishes, the secrets around those names and the history of some social customs we still have around our meals today. Linguistics also provide an interesting interpretation on how to read the restaurant reviews. This book is extraordinary, easy to read and it does not matter if you like linguistics or not, I am sure you will enjoy reading it. I fully recommend to read this book.

Food and Languages are definitely 2 of the topics I love the most. Many of my readers know about my blog about foods. You can check it here: http://yuryjakygourmet.blogspot.com/. But I never before dedicated an article to merge both topics.

It is a fact that an important part of our vocabulary is related to food and nourishment in general. Cooking is part of the culture of any nation and the language used to communicate. When we learn a new language, part of the new vocabulary is related to foods and we would expect to learn something new about their culinary traditions.

But the interrelations between languages, concerning the terms used for food or how to prepare it, are not simple. According to an article written by Prof. Adrienne Lehrer, “foods can be named according to different levels of generality”. The article explains that terms used at a basic level usually are consistent and easy to translate. At a higher level we find real challenges due to cultural differences leading to different categories. Basic level involve terms such as “carrots”, “apple” or “chicken”. At a higher level we can find differences in the classification of the foods (Ex, a tomato, is it a fruit or a vegetable?). When we talk about cooking, there are terms that might be non existent in other languages. The word bain-marie in French does not exist in English. The word Roast Beef was later adopted in French where it did not exist, using a slight different spell (rosbif). 

Loan words are common, specially when we want to talk about exotic foods or unusual flavours. The Translation Bureau of Canada has a blog with interesting articles. One of them is dedicated to explore the origin of some culinary terms in English. They show a list of terms coming from languages like French, Italian, German, Spanish, Arabic and Turkish. But English has been borrowing culinary terms from other less common languages as well. We can see terms like Paprika from Hungarian, Rutabaga from Swedish (Rotabagge), Borscht from Ukrainian ( Борщ = Borshch ), Caviar from Persian ( خاویار = khaviyar), Bagel from Yiddish ( בײגל = beygl), Sashimi from Japanese ( 刺身 ), Kim-chi from Korean ( 김치 ) and many more examples. In multicultural cities, those words are very often the first words foreigners learn in that language. For example, I can say that it is normal that a student of Italian, knows words in this language like Amaretto, Spaghetti or Lasagne, even before show up for his first day of classes. Btw, during my research, I found some pages in Spanish advertising language courses while learning to cook. A different strategy used to teach languages. I personally used this strategy before.

One thing is to borrow terms to name specific dishes, and something different is to deal with terms in other languages that describe situations rooted in a foreign culture. We have words like Sobremesa in Spanish (Time you spend after the meal sitting around the table with your family or friends talking enjoying and relaxing), Pålegg in Norwegian (Anything that you can put in a slice of bread), and შემომეჭამა (Shemomech’ama, defined as “I did not want to eat that much but accidentally I did”). [If you say the word შემომეხარჯა or Shemomekharja, you are saying: “I did not want to spent the money but accidentally I did”. Such a good excuse!!!]. 

A quick search in Google will reveal that not only our own language has plenty of expressions and idioms related to food, but this is true for any language you search. Some expressions have an equivalent in other languages using food idioms. Lets use this example: “Too many cooks spoil the broth” (Means: Too many people involved in a task, this will not end well); you can find in French « trop de cuisiners gâtent la sauce » (same meaning); in German “viele Köche verderben den Brei”; in Swedish “ju fler kockar, desto sämre soppa“; in Spanish “Muchas manos ponen el caldo morado” (Too many cooks make the broth purplish).

Another example: “The icing on the cake” (Means: something that makes a good situation even better); you can find in French: « la cerise sur le gâteau » (The cherry on the cake); in Spanish: “La guinda del pastel” (idem); in Italian: “la ciliegina sulla torta”; in Swedish: “grädde på moset” (Icing on the cake); in Finnish: “sokerina pohjalla” (Sugar at the bottom). 

You may find loans like the expression “ crème de la crème ” that exists in English, French and Danish, keeping the same meaning.

I am going to finish my article with some famous quotes based on food and cuisine topics.

“Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first” - Ernestine Ulmer

“Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for Lunch.” - Orson Welles

“Wine is bottled poetry.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

« Une bonne cuisine est l’engrais d’une conscience pure. » (Good cookery is the food of a pure conscience) - Nicolas-Toussaint Des Essarts

« C’est dans la cuisine que vous verrez si les gens communiquent vraiment avec vous : en dehors du lit, c’est le seul endroit de la maison qui sont vraiment intime » (It’s in the kitchen that you will see if people really communicate with you, except for the bed, is the only place inside home that is really personal) - Roger Fournier

“Dilema del cocinero: El poeta triste escribe poemas y te hace llorar. El pintor triste pinta cuadros y te logra emocionar. El músico triste compone canciones y te hace cantar. Al cocinero triste... le esta prohibido cocinar.” (Chef’s dilemma: The sad poet writes poems and makes you mourn. The sad painter paints a picture and moves you. The sad musician writes songs and makes you sing. The sad chef... is prohibited to cook) - Gastón Acurio

« La vita è una combinazione di pasta e magia » (life is a combination of magic and pasta) - Federico Fellini