Some raped carrots with your stranger wine, Monsieur?

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By Kaya Burgess - Paris

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Would you like some raped carrots? No? Thought not. Doesn’t sound very appetising, really, does it? Not what one would typically associate with the crème de la crème of French cuisine, certainly.

And yet you will nonetheless find ‘raped carrots’ (and ‘raped cheese’ for that matter) on many a Parisian menu in the heart of the busy, tourist-lined streets of St. Michel on the rive gauche.

Of course, none of the carrots in the restaurants of the Latin Quarter have really been violated. No cheese has been treated inhumanely. In fact, the only abuse going on in the haute cuisines of the left bank is linguistic. It is only the English language that is being mistreated.

Never has the term ‘lost in translation’ been so amusingly poignant as when ‘carottes râpées’ – the French for ‘grated carrots’ – is translated as ‘raped carrots’ on the menus handed out to unsuspecting tourists as they sit down to an evening meal in a Parisian bistro.

Other misleading crackers to be found on French menus include:

Such gastro-linguistic abominations have led French lawyer and gastronome, Pierrette Feloux, to publish a guide with a range of English translations of French dishes, to help bemused tourists identify what they are about to eat.

Even Madame Feloux is not immune, however, from the odd pronominal slip-up, when she talks of the difficulties travellers encounter “when confronted to unfamiliar cooking traditions and terms”. Her press release adds, arcanely, that she “hopes to make her contribution to valorize the products of French terroir”, while asking that all enquiries to her e-mail address be made “only in French”, which does not inspire beaucoup de confidence.

Still, Joël Robuchon (like a French Gordon Ramsey but without the expletives) thinks the guide is a “très bonne idée”, no less. High praise indeed.

The translation of menus is fraught with pitfalls, even for someone who considers themselves proficient in both the languages in question. Capturing the subtleties of a dish can be difficult in translation.

One needs to appreciate, for example, that coq au vin is probably best left as coq au vin, because ‘cock in wine’ is likely to have the customers heading for the exit in rather a hurry. Liberal translations are often better than literal translations. One food critic noted that “epazote-infused catfish au vapor” sounds rather more appetising than “catfish steamed with stinkweed”, albeit a little more pretentious.

For many high-end, cordon-bleu restaurants, refusing to print translations is akin to the sartorial snobbery of haute-couture fashion shops who refuse to display price tags. If you cannot understand the menu, you clearly are not classy enough to be eating there. Away with you, common tourist.

For those keener to avoid language barriers than vault them, fast food outlets like McDonalds are probably the safest bet, where you can order any dish by simply saying it in English with a slightly corny French accent. You should have relatively little trouble asking for un Happy Meal avec neuf McNuggets…

It is not only in translating from French that problems arise. I once, briefly, tried to learn Mandarin Chinese, in classes taught by a French woman. So, to recall what embarrassingly little Chinese I can still remember, I have to go through French to get at it, which is tricky. Eating in Chinese restaurants in Paris is far, far beyond my linguistic capabilities, however.

Having struggled with the French translations of the Chinese dishes in a restaurant in the 13th arrondissement, I put it down to my own linguistic shortfalls, and asked for an English version of the menu. The translations were quite mind-boggling. The most remarkable was undoubtedly the English translation of the following:

which read, “Big bowl fresh immerse miscellaneous germ”. What on earth is it meant to be?! Answers on a postcard, please.

French, you see, is a language practically designed to fox the English. A librairie is a bookshop, not a library. Je suis chaud means ‘I am aroused’, not ‘I am hot’. The French don’t even say cul-de-sac.

Of course, the English too have their wily linguistic fun at the French’s expense. That the Eurostar terminated at Waterloo for so many years was humiliating for the French not only because of their army’s famous defeat at the battle of Waterloo, but also because Waterloo is virtually unpronounceable for the French tongue, producing a mélange of ‘ouaterleau’ and ‘vaterloo’.

Nevertheless, it just always seems surprising that a restaurant would take the time and trouble to translate its menu, but would not have the foresight to consult a fluent English-speaker first. Or maybe they did, but it was Jade Goody. Or maybe it was an Englishman with a wicked sense of humour.

Or perhaps - and I like this theory best - it’s French restaurateurs getting their own back.

We’ve all heard Brits or Americans abroad, stubbornly refusing to speak the local lingo and instead shouting for “burger and fries” in loud, obnoxious English. So having a smug New Yorker or cock-sure Londoner bellowing for their raped carrots and flat eggs could be a sort of subtle revenge, while the garçons and chefs de cuisine snigger from behind the kitchen door.

So, pour un healthy dose de nonsense à la carte, and a petit peu of franglais exceptionnel, just check out les menus de Paris. And, s’il vous plaît, be careful not to râper the carrots.

Disclaimer: I would like to make it clear that no carrots were harmed in the preparation of this article.