Weird foods ordered (or almost ordered) using translation apps?

[CTLawGal]

On a recent thread involving the question whether or not to take a phone on the Camino, some of us got a little off topic talking about the value of having your phone to use translation apps on menus.

In case you missed it, my point was that it I had had limited success using it to understand menus in foreign countries, not so much the technique of using the app, but more in the results. It's sometimes just understanding what the offering is, what the ingredients are or the preparation (after a certain point after more than 4 weeks on my Camino, I found I just coudn't bear one more fried dish, it wasn't always obvious from the translation that the menu item was a lump of breaded something that was going to be deep fried).

Sometimes it's obvious from the translation, sometimes it's not. Simple example: if the menu item is translated as Russian Salad, you need to know what that means in that part of the world. I'm pretty adventurous, but I do like to know what I'm eating and there are some things I don't want to eat. I once ordered something translated as fish stomachs, I thought to myself, they must mean the flesh from the side of the fish, but no it was actually stomachs and it was disgusting, I paid for it uneaten and left to find an ice cream to cleanse my palate, hahaha!. So I think the translation is only helpful some of the time.

Anyway, after posting a version of the above, we definitely got offf topic and started mentioning some funny results, so I thought maybe we could start a new thread and hear about other weird or funny results. Maybe some of the posts will get repeated here, like @Jeff Crawley "gluttony stew". There were some other good ones too, maybe some new ones?

Any examples where using a translation app on a Camino menu really didn't help that much or offered weird or funny results?

 

[wisepilgrim]

The pulperia in Melide definitely used a translation app when they created their menu.

To my knowledge they are the only place on the Camino where a hungry pilgrim can order a ‘Meat Bucket’.

 

[trecile]

If I can't translate it myself I use Google Translate, and if it's still not clear I Google the name of the dish. I often get a more accurate description - and recipes!

 

[bestfootforward]

The place: Cambodian restaurant. Not sure what App was used to get this result
The menu: Unseparated Twelve Predestined Affinity
or.....if the separation didn't appeal...Twelve Predestined Affinity
or, if looking for something lighter....Fried Bumps

 

[SYates]

Not a translation mistake but I saw one time on a menu 'selfish dish' instead of 'shellfish dish', still makes me giggle ;-)
BC SY

 

[ShoshTrvls]

Somewhere in Europe, I don’t remember where, I got a plate of blood sausage instead of pork sausage.

Um, no. not eating that.

 

[Anamya]

Not in Spain, but in Brazil, I've had to help some travellers with Google-translated menus... Desserts have amazing names there.
- Brat's foot or Boy's foot (Pé-de-moleque) - a peanut and melted brown sugar slice
- Soft Maria (Maria Mole) - sugar, gelatine and egg whites, similar to a marshmallow
- Brigadier (Brigadeiro) - Balls of Sweet condensed milk cooked with chocolate
- Little Kiss (Beijinho)- Balls of Sweet condensed milk cooked with coconut
- Mother in Law's Eye (Olho de Sogra) - a Beijinho with a dry plum on top. It does look like a big eye.

I don't blame anyone for being utterly confused when going to patisseries and bakeries there...

 

[Bradypus]

Here in the UK we have traditional foods which include Toad in the hole and Spotted dick. Which are not what the unsuspecting might imagine at first sight! I see that Google Translate gives a literal word-for-word translation rather than an explanatory one if you translate these into Spanish for example. If there is some doubt about what a menu item means I tend to search on Google if possible rather than relying solely on a translation app.

 

[Robo]

Here in the UK we have traditional foods which include Toad in the hole and Spotted dick. Which are not what the unsuspecting might imagine at first sight! I see that Google Translate gives a literal word-for-word translation rather than an explanatory one if you translate these into Spanish for example. If there is some doubt about what a menu item means I tend to search on Google if possible rather than relying solely on a translation app.

Spotted Dick! Brings back memories of School Lunches.

(it's a steamed pudding)

 

[Paladina]

I was trying to explain to a native Spanish speaker what traditional Irish coddle was. A helpful intermediary whipped out his phone and, after various abortive attempts with the translation app, adjusted the search terms and came up with the distinctly unpalatable pañal desechable.

 

[CTLawGal]

If I can't translate it myself I use Google Translate, and if it's still not clear I Google the name of the dish. I often get a more accurate description - and recipes!

Yes, agree - I sometimes go through that two step process, even just to get a sense of what the dish or some pasta shape I'm not familiar with might look like and depending how much time I want to linger over the menu before ordering, but if it's just the restaurant's name for their dish (named after the mother or something) that's not going to be helpful, and in any event I do enjoy a good chuckle over the translations!

 

[J Willhaus]

Our first Camino I had enough Spanish to know if something was beef, fish, chicken, etc. Phil was dependant on that tiny bit of knowledge for his meals. Once on a menu del dia in Leon, I ordered him a seafood soup and something made with beef. I ordered me a salad and something made with pork.

His soup came with crab shells floating in it and he has referred to it since as "crab eyeball soup". I switched with him as he found the thought of crab eyes revolting. Then when our entres came I got a lovely grilled pork steak while he got some kind of oxtail preparation that was mainly gristle. He ended up sharing mine.

I like to try new foods although not sure I want an entire plate of some things like pigs ears. Thank goodness for the small preparations like pinchos and tapas!

 

[Keyser]

Beware of Google Translate on menues

 

[Michael Mattalo]

On a recent thread involving the question whether or not to take a phone on the Camino, some of us got a little off topic talking about the value of having your phone to use translation apps on menus.

In case you missed it, my point was that it I had had limited success using it to understand menus in foreign countries, not so much the technique of using the app, but more in the results. It's sometimes just understanding what the offering is, what the ingredients are or the preparation (after a certain point after more than 4 weeks on my Camino, I found I just coudn't bear one more fried dish, it wasn't always obvious from the translation that the menu item was a lump of breaded something that was going to be deep fried).

Sometimes it's obvious from the translation, sometimes it's not. Simple example: if the menu item is translated as Russian Salad, you need to know what that means in that part of the world. I'm pretty adventurous, but I do like to know what I'm eating and there are some things I don't want to eat. I once ordered something translated as fish stomachs, I thought to myself, they must mean the flesh from the side of the fish, but no it was actually stomachs and it was disgusting, I paid for it uneaten and left to find an ice cream to cleanse my palate, hahaha!. So I think the translation is only helpful some of the time.

Anyway, after posting a version of the above, we definitely got offf topic and started mentioning some funny results, so I thought maybe we could start a new thread and hear about other weird or funny results. Maybe some of the posts will get repeated here, like @Jeff Crawley "gluttony stew". There were some other good ones too, maybe some new ones?

Any examples where using a translation app on a Camino menu really didn't help that much or offered weird or funny results?

When my wife and I walked the Camino Portuguese in 2019, we surely wanted to eat the popular Portuguese BBQ chicken. Alas, the very first day out of Lisboa, we saw a chalkboard menu in a town featuring the daily special (which I thought was) “pollo con arroz”. Our anticipation was soon dulled when we were brought octopus with rice. Okay, we thought, a small communication error. A number of days later, the same thing happened … never thinking to check using Google translate. It wasn’t until a week or more later, we asked the hospitiliero where we were staying where we can get that famous BBQ chicken explaining what we have been ordering to which she replied, “oh you mean Frango con arroz because you’ve been ordering polvo con arroz … or octopus”. That was our one of a few language lessons learned of the difference in many words being different in Portuguese than Spanish. Then, we finally got to savour the famous “Frango Churrasco”.

 

[Tickbush]

I was in a restaurant, maybe in Nepal, that had translations on their menu. They had Chicken Cordon Bleu, for which they provided an English translation of Gordon Blue, the Chicken.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

It's usually a cultural thing when food is considered "weird" to us.
I shared this before, but I once ordered rabbit stew on the Primitivo with two other people and looked forward to the meal. Ladling the chunks of meat and vegetables onto my plate from the tureen of stew, rabbits heads were staring at me including their tiny white teeth. I doubt my translation app or googling would have helped with that.

 

[Jeff Crawley]

On a recent thread involving the question whether or not to take a phone on the Camino, some of us got a little off topic talking about the value of having your phone to use translation apps on menus.

In case you missed it, my point was that it I had had limited success using it to understand menus in foreign countries, not so much the technique of using the app, but more in the results. It's sometimes just understanding what the offering is, what the ingredients are or the preparation (after a certain point after more than 4 weeks on my Camino, I found I just coudn't bear one more fried dish, it wasn't always obvious from the translation that the menu item was a lump of breaded something that was going to be deep fried).

Sometimes it's obvious from the translation, sometimes it's not. Simple example: if the menu item is translated as Russian Salad, you need to know what that means in that part of the world. I'm pretty adventurous, but I do like to know what I'm eating and there are some things I don't want to eat. I once ordered something translated as fish stomachs, I thought to myself, they must mean the flesh from the side of the fish, but no it was actually stomachs and it was disgusting, I paid for it uneaten and left to find an ice cream to cleanse my palate, hahaha!. So I think the translation is only helpful some of the time.

Anyway, after posting a version of the above, we definitely got offf topic and started mentioning some funny results, so I thought maybe we could start a new thread and hear about other weird or funny results. Maybe some of the posts will get repeated here, like @Jeff Crawley "gluttony stew". There were some other good ones too, maybe some new ones?

Any examples where using a translation app on a Camino menu really didn't help that much or offered weird or funny results?

The "gluttony stew" certainly repeated on itself for several hours afterwards!

 

[Jeff Crawley]

Not from an app but from tiredness. Ate Mignon de Veau avec Riz in a charming restaurant in Perpignan and a few days later fetched up at a restaurant near Chateaubriand after a long day's drive. My wife spotted something on the menu:

Her "What's that?"
Me "Ris de veau? Well veau is veal and ris is rice so . . . something like the meal I ate in Perpignan?"

Nope, ris de veau are sweetbreads - to her credit she ate it up and said it was like eating chicken soused in cream.

And don't get me started on "white kidneys"

 

[PiesIrlandeses]

While queuing at the bar on board a train bound for Rome, I overheard the anglophone North American passenger in front of me ask the barista for a latté (a word invented in North American café chains).

Unsure of what the customer wanted, the barista - an Italian-speaking Italian, working in Italy on an Italian train - replied with a different word: "Latte?".

The customer replied "Yes."

"Caldo...warm?" asked the barista.

"Yes", replied the customer, with a look of disdain.

With a shrug, the barista proceeded to heat some milk and serve it in a glass.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

The "gluttony stew" certainly repeated on itself for several hours afterwards!

By the end of the day all patrons ordering the rabbit stew probably had 80% of the heads in the tureen if everyone throws them back in immediately like we did. In all fairness to the cook, the ears were removed.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

And don't get me started on "white kidneys"

Oh no! I've had black pudding and white pudding in Ireland with my "full Irish breakfast". I knew the black was blood sausage, but wondered what the white was. I hope not white kidneys.

 

[Keyser]

In a mountain restaurant in Corsica many years ago (before Google translate) my wife ordered Cerveau d'Agneau. A German couple at a nearby table suddenly were furiously going through their German to English phrase book and approached our table pointing to the book. Luckily it was just in time for us to change the order as Lambs Brains would not be part of our typical Irish fare.

 

[Keyser]

White pudding in Ireland is barley & spices.

 

[Camino Chrissy]

White pudding in Ireland is barley & spices.

Whew! So glad to hear that...yum.

 

[Keyser]

However white pudding also contains some pork fat.

 

[geot]

I ordered a soda in Mexico once and was asked if I wanted it "en una bolsa". I knew enough Spanish to know that meant "in a bag". What I didn't know, though, was they were not asking if I wanted the bottle wrapped in a bag but rather the soda _poured_ into a bag so I wouldn't have to worry about the bottle deposit! I can't imagine a translation app would have done any better.

 

[wynrich]

If I can't translate it myself I use Google Translate, and if it's still not clear I Google the name of the dish. I often get a more accurate description - and recipes!

A nice trick we learned: Go to the Spanish Google site (https://google.es) and search for the item and then click on Images. You'll get lots of pictures of the dish.

 

[ShoshTrvls]

It's usually a cultural thing when food is considered "weird" to us.
I shared this before, but I once ordered rabbit stew on the Primitivo with two other people and looked forward to the meal. Ladling the chunks of meat and vegetables onto my plate from the tureen of stew, rabbits heads were staring at me including their tiny white teeth. I doubt my translation app or googling would have helped with that.

Rabbit stew is the national dish of Malta and we had it a few times. Never got a head, but there were a lot of little paws seemingly reaching out to us to save them.

 

[Paladina]

White pudding in Ireland is barley & spices.

… and suet!

 

[WayWalker]

On the Podiensis, a menu choice included the translation of "Trumpet of Death". Which I later found out was a mushroom. Still. Who would eat a mushroom with that name? And it was interesting to find out that the French translation for sleeping bag is "meat bag". Got a big laugh about that!

 

[lalaone]

We once went to a state fair in the US with an Asian friend, who looked up a deep-fried peanut butter and jelly sandwich on an old Blackberry translator. The answer was completely baffling: “Sod’s Law.” I’ve since learned that Sod’s Law is a British expression meaning that for anything that can go wrong, it will

 

[Damien Reynolds]

I have learned to look up the recipes by searching on the words on the menu.

This one time, I got a bowl full of mollusks in Fin. Like I had to suck worms into my mouth from shelled creatures picked off the rocks nearby. They looked like candies, but I got a serious case of diarrhea after. My guess it was because of the sea water ingested while sucking.

 

[Albertagirl]

I can see now why I, as a vegetarian, lost a lot of weight while walking in Spain.

 

[Damien Reynolds]

I can see now why I, as a vegetarian, lost a lot of weight while walking in Spain.

Gotta love them lentils.

 

[David]

Some fifty five years ago, first working visit to France, I wanted some strawberry jam .. went into a small food shop but couldn't find it so decided to ask .. at the counter was a man with his teenage daughter .. I couldn't remember what jam was in French but in English preserve would do, so I asked for preservatif .. girl went bright red, man repeated "preservatif?" I said yes, strawberry (fraise) - you want preservatif a la frais? he asked. I said yes - he also went red and directed me to a pharmacy, this confused me but I thanked them and left ... was only when I was outside that I realised I had asked for strawberry condoms - I didn't go back ...

 

[Camino Chrissy]

Gotta love them lentils.

Yum! I often make them at home as soup or a stew. The very best ones I have ever had anywhere, were on the Via Podiensis in France. The soup was of gourmet quality, if there is such a thing.

 

[Gringazolana]

“patatas, por favor”
It’s a good time to be a vegetarian!

 

[wynrich]

A few years, we ordered hígado from a menu del dia; the waiter told us it was good so we didn't take the time to translate it. Turned out to be liver. We ate a little of it but not a lot! So, if you are not a liver fan, that might be a word to remember.

 

[Rick of Rick and Peg]

This story is the best fit I have for the topic at hand. I'm not a coffee drinker but Peg is and she takes it with milk. Back in '88 on a non-camino trip in Spain Peg would get out before me to get her morning cuppa. She had trouble remembering cafe con leche though and often would order it as cafe au lait. She complained that when she ordered the coffee in French she would get an inferior product. Her Spanish has improved since then and I can't recall her complaining about her Spanish coffee since then.

 

[Damien Reynolds]

I thought of another one... on the Portuguese Central (I think before Porto) I stopped at a family run restaurant / hotel. I went down for dinner. I was seated and served by the family's daughter... She asked me what I wanted... I told her "I don't know. What do you recommend? "leitão" she replied. Having no clue I asked what it was. She spoke english and perfectly translated it to "baby pig".

Now I was somewhat hesitant, but I trusted her.

As she took my order and walked away, I had a shuddering thought.

"Wait wait wait..." I said loudly. "It's not going to be an entire baby pig, right?"

I had resigned myself to eat a baby pig out of curiosity, but I wasn't prepared to look it in the eye while doing so.

She told me, "yes, it is the entire baby pig"...

She looked at me and smiled as I asked her to "carve it up for me, before bringing it to the table"

It was so yummy.

 

[Jeff Crawley]

This story is the best fit I have for the topic at hand. I'm not a coffee drinker but Peg is and she takes it with milk. Back in '88 on a non-camino trip in Spain Peg would get out before me to get her morning cuppa. She had trouble remembering cafe con leche though and often would order it as cafe au lait. She complained that when she ordered the coffee in French she would get an inferior product. Her Spanish has improved since then and I can't recall her complaining about her Spanish coffee since then.

A group from our Spanish language class in England went off for a week to Granada and caught the bus up to the Sierra Nevada for a day trip. It was strange seeing the Spanish Army's dog sledging team in action in the snow! While waiting for the bus back to Granada we went into a very alpine looking café. While most of us went for hot chocolate or coffee one lady wanted tea and ordered Té hecho con leche and got exactly that - a cup of semi hot milk with a tea bag floating in it.

 

[JustOneGuy]

This reminds me also of a story that happened many years ago (late 1980s).

A friend had to go to China on business. Since a colleague of ours was Chinese, he asked him to write down a list of good things to order at the restaurant. Remember that back then there were no devices like today and you had to fend for yourself. Besides, Chinese restaurants in italy were still relatively new in those days.

At the end, the guy left with the note. As soon as he arrived he went into a restaurant. He showed it to the waitress and she brought him a great meal. Satisfied, he tried a second restaurant the next day.

There, too, he was very pleased with the food, except that the food was completely different. It went on for the whole week and each time they served him different things. When he got back to work, he went to our colleague Zhang and asked him, “The note worked, but what the hell did you write in it? Everything was very good but completely different each time.”

Zhang explained to him that the note said “This gentleman is a friend of mine and he doesn't understand anything about Chinese food. Please bring him something he might like, thank you. Zhang.”

However, this thread is very interesting, because it really shows how much the issue of food is so tied to culture. I recommend the book “Good to Eat” by Marvin Harris, which explains in a really exciting way what is behind the different food customs of different cultures. Things like why it sucks for many people to eat insects, why in many countries (but not in Italy) they don't eat horse meat, or why most kids hate spinaches or other vegetables.