Married pair piece? Why the translation of Chinese dishes is difficult

Married pair piece? Why the translation of Chinese dishes is difficult

Is Xiaolongbao a BAO or a dumpling? What exactly do the "wife-and-husband lung strips" consist of? With the increase in international travel to China, thanks to its Friendly Visa guidelines Foreign visitors inevitably come across some amusing translations of restaurant menus while experiencing the country's culinary delights.

challenges in the translation of Chinese dishes

Those who try to find English names for these dishes are not to blame for the often unusual and occasionally alarming results. Not even the translation apps. Loud Isaac yue , an extraordinary professor of translation at the University of Hong Kong and an expert for Chinese gastructure literature, is the translation of Chinese food in English Simply "an impossible task."

The complexity of Chinese gastronomy

In order to understand why the translation of the names of these dishes is so tricky, you have to look at China's long culinary history that linked many dishes with stories and pictures. fuchsia dunlop , a British food author who has been dealing with Chinese cuisine for over twenty years, explains that the problem is that certain words in English simply do not exist.

confusion about dim sum and dumplings

In English, the word "dumpling" is a collective term that includes everything from Jiaozi, Wontons and Baozi to Siu Mai and Xiaolongbao, which confuses some Chinese -speaking people. Dunlop explains: "This is an incredibly confusing topic because the English word 'dumpling' originally referred to dough balls that were cooked in a stew - but now it is used for a variety of Chinese snacks that are very different from an English dumpling and have its own name in Chinese."

insights into different dumplings

• jiaozi: crescent -shaped, capsized dumplings with fillings that are typically steamed, fried or cooked.
• Wonton: Smaller dumplings with long, thin "cocks" made of dough. The fried version often contains little meat-don't worry, your local Chinese restaurant is not stingy-and is served with a sweet and sour dips sauce.
• baozi: damped dowels made of yeast dough with folds above (these can also be turned over and fried on pan and are referred to as Shengjian Bao).
• siu Mai: These subdued snacks have a thin dough coat that remains open at the top. ( Dim Sim , a popular street meal, was inspired by SiU Mai).
• Tang Yuan/Yuan Xiao: These rice balls, which sometimes have fillings, are mostly cute, but are more precise than rice balls referred to as sweet rice dumplings.

While it is not wrong to call them all dumplings, most Chinese use the term only for Jiaozi.

Xiaolongbao - the soup in the dough coat

The name of this popular dumplings filled with soup blurs with the categories. Xiaolongbao means "small basket bao" and refers to the bamboo damper in which they are cooked. With its thinner, unlavened dough, Xiaolongbao is similar to a Jiaozi, but is technically a Baozi.

originally invented during the song dynasty, it had a thicker, filled cover made of broth that melted when steaming. Sometimes it is also referred to in China as a tangbao (soup bao).

It is a hybrid from Bao and Jiao.

Turnip Cake or Radish Cake?

LO BAAK GOU, often referred to as Turnip Cake, actually does not contain a turnip. It is a hearty patty made of grated white radish, dried shrimp and mushrooms. According to Guo-Qing Song, a professor of horticulture on the Michigan State University , the plant is a Raphanus raphanus sub. Sativus - the scientific name of a white radish.

It should actually be called Radish Cake. You can also address it with its Cantonese name (Lo Baak Gou), which is a DIM SUM court from the region.

wife-and-husband lung strips

This spicy Sichuan starter has a confusing name: it does not contain romance or lung. "Wife-and-husband lung strips" (Fuqi Feu Pian) is a selection of thinly cut beef in chilli oil. Legend says that the court was originally sold by a couple of lovers on the streets of Chengdu.

A literal translation could also be "chilli oil cut beef", but that would be not very inviting. Dunlop recommends using fewer literal names in such cases.

in Chinese it is called Fuqi Fei Pian. In this case, it is fun to preserve the original meaning in the translated name-wife-and-husband lung strips-but a description would be a nice addition to the menu.

fish-aromatized eggplant

Another misleading Sichuan court, Yuxiang Qiezi, or "fish-aromatized eggplant", does not contain any fish. The name was inspired by its spices - pickled chillies, ginger, garlic, spring onion, sugar and vinegar - which were often used in traditional fish -based dishes in the region.

Although not exactly, we prefer to call it fish-aromatized eggplant. It is a delicious dish with an interesting story.

pineapple roll

called Bo Lo Baau in Cantonese, these popular Bao actually contain no pineapple. A traditional Hong Kong pastry, the pineapple roll, has a sweet milk bun base. The crust is made from lard or butter, sugar, flour, milk powder, baking powder and egg, which results in a cracked surface when baking.

pineapple roll is an acceptable translation, although pineapple lovers could be disappointed if they bite in.

Buddha jumps over the wall

fotiaoqiang is a lavish soup from the province of Fujian, which is known for their rich ingredients, including abalones and sea cucumbers. According to legend, the aroma of this food attracted a vegetarian monk to jump over a temple wall to find out what this smell was.

Both Fotiaoqiang and "Buddha jumps over the wall" work well for an English menu and give an entertaining historical charm.

lion head

In a collection of anecdotic essays by the author Xu Ke from the Qing dynasty, a dish is said: "The lion's head, named after its appearance-it is a pork frica." Shizitou, in Mandarin, comes from the northeast of China and was particularly popular in Huaiyang, a province near modern Shanghai.

It would be more precise to name this dish using its preparation method, such as the lion's head, and provide some additional details about the ingredients.

Why the names vary in American-Chinese dishes

fans of American-Chinese cuisine who speak Chinese may have noticed that restaurant menus in the USA often have different English spellings and pronunciation for dishes that are now generally known among their Chinese names. It is important to understand that Chinese cuisine consists of a variety of regional dishes that have its own local dialects and cultures.

Many early Chinese dishes that were exported by migration to foreign countries were localized and romanized depending on the region, similar to a game of the "broken phone", depending on which group of Chinese immigrants first introduced the court.

This explanation illuminates the pronunciation of some famous American-Chinese dishes such as Chop Suey (that would be pronounced in Mandarin as Zasui or in Cantonese as Zap Sui) and Chow my (Chao Mian in Mandarin or Caau Meen in Kantonesian). These two popular dishes were most likely romanized from a Taishanese dialect, from which many early American Chinese immigrants came.

yue leads to the standardization of the names: "There was this movement to rename the capital of Beijing to Beijing, and that worked, but pecing duck remains.

With more and more Chinese traveling abroad, translation errors can go into both directions. A mandarin speaking CNN employee remembers that he had seen an amusing miscarriages for "truthahn breast" in the airport lounge-in Chinese the court was labeled as Tuerqi Rufang (Turkish breasts).

yue emphasizes that the purpose of a translated menu is to address potential guests and make a dish understandable. "Translation is important for the culture, but we shouldn't have a limited perspective on what culture is. Malefactions can be just as enriching - if not - more than a correct translation."