What s on the Menu? The English Versions of Menus of Some Top Restaurants in Vilnius

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1 Acta humanitarica universitatis Saulensis. T. 15 (2012) ISSN What s on the Menu? The English Versions of Menus of Some Top Restaurants in Vilnius L a i m u t ė K A S P A R Ė The General Jonas Žemaitis Military Academy of Lithuania Keywords: restaurant and café menus, menu translations into English, spelling and grammar mistakes. Introduction It is said that the theatre starts with a cloakroom, so it can probably be rephrased that the restaurant starts with a menu. Before people can enjoy food, they are presented with a written text, describing what they are likely to get. Thus the menu is first of all an informative text providing details about the dishes and their ingredients. However, a menu not only presents information, but also represents the restaurant by shaping the customers impressions about the place. By the menu they can judge not only about the dishes offered by the restaurant, but also about the level of the establishment: the menu in fact is a business card of the restaurant. More than that, the menu represents the country and its culture, its culinary tradition. Finally, the menu can be viewed as a form of advertising, inciting the customer to buy a product. All this makes the menu a socio-cultural as well as linguistic phenomenon, whether it is produced in a native or (especially) a foreign language. Translations of menus into foreign languages perform all the above-mentioned functions of menus, however, they are specific in the sense that their addressee is a foreigner who may not be well-acquainted with the local (culinary) culture; in fact, target readers can be representatives of very different and distant cultures, thus no culture norms are to be decisive in menu translation; the translation has to be oriented to any possible culture and made almost universally applicable (R u z a i t ė 2006, 260). Besides, the language into which the menu has been translated may not be the native language of the reader and again, as is rightly pointed out by Jūratė Ruzaitė, it has to be clear and precise, because the receiver of the foreign text may not always be able to communicate in that foreign language in order to find out the details of the dish. Thus menu translations have to be especially receiver-oriented in order to avoid intercultural miscommunication. 143

2 Laimutė Kasparė 144 Research data and methods Translations of restaurant menus have not been given a lot of attention in Lithuania; to our knowledge, it was only Ruzaitė (2006) who has analysed the menus of Kaunas restaurants in relation to the text typology in translation. In her paper, she focused on such aspects as the degree of specificity in SL and TL, the choice of lexis, the construction of the noun phrase and spelling. In the present paper, however, the focus is on the representational function of the menu: translation equivalence is not going to be considered here. The English language and the impression it gives to the recipient of the text, the addressee, in our case a foreign visitor to Lithuania, is going to be in the centre of our attention. The addressee has always been one of the central figures in various modern translation theories and models starting with Eugene Nida s dynamic equivalence theory (N i d a 1964), through Douglas Robinson (1991, 1997), Peter Newmark (1988), Mona Baker (1992), etc. It is for the recipient of the target text that in fact any translation exercise is performed, and since the menu is produced to inform the reader of the content of the dishes and also to make him/her buy/eat the food (i.e. serving ideational and interpersonal functions), any misconception, misunderstanding or simple negligence can have an influence not only on the prestige of the restaurant but also on its account balance. What does a foreign visitor to Lithuania see on our restaurant English menus today, more than 20 years since Lithuania has become independent and open to the visitors from all over the world? What impression do they give the visitors about the culture of the country? Will they ever advise their friends and acquaintances to visit one or another restaurant? Are they likely to come upon such expressions as airborne salmon, sweetness (meaning dessert), the soup of a day, etc. found by the author of this paper in some foreign restaurants? In order to answer these questions, we analysed the English translations of the menus of some 25 Vilnius restaurants and cafés (Lokys, Neringa, Balzac, Graf Zeppelin, La Provence, Stikliai, Amatininkai, Bistro 18, Zoe s Bar & Grill, Belmonto kriokliai (Vila Gloria), Aula, St Germain, Vapiano, Da Antonio, Medininkai, Narutis, Brasserie de Verres en Vers (Radisson), Markus ir Ko, Zola vyninė, California Gourmet, Esse, Tores, Fiorentino, Steakhouse Hazienda, Debut Cafe). The aim of our paper was to discuss the quality of the English language in the translations of the menus and the impression it gives to the foreign visitor. The restaurants and cafés are mostly in the old town, where most tourists and foreign visitors come to eat (Lokys, Neringa, Balzac, Graf Zeppelin, La Provence, Stikliai, Amatininkai, Bistro 18, etc.), also in the so-called new town, around Gedimino Avenue (Debut Café, Zoe s Bar & Grill, Esse, Tores, etc.). Still others are out of town but popular among foreign tourists (Belmonto kriokliai (Vila Gloria). Some of them are well-established and prestigious, like Neringa, others are new but already known to the public as quality ones (La Provence, Balzac, Saint Germain, etc.). The object of our research was the language of the menus of these restaurants in English. The menus were taken from the internet, as other options proved to be too time consuming and expensive.

3 What s on the Menu? The English Versions of Menus of Some Top Restaurants in Vilnius The objectives were as follows: 1. To analyse the English versions of the menus form the point of view of information presentation, grammar and spelling and their general appeal to the foreign visitor. 2. To establish some general tendencies in the English versions of the menus of Lithuanian restaurants in Vilnius. Research outcomes In general, one cannot but agree with Paulius Jurkevičius who in his book Staltiesės ritmu (In the Rhythm of a Tablecloth) states that a lot of changes have occurred in Lithuanian restaurant menus during the last two decades. However, he rightly notices: One has a look at a menu somewhere in a modern restaurant in Vilnius or Palanga and wonder: so much Italy, Spain, Asia in it, so much ornateness and meaningless exotica (J u r k e v i č i u s 2010, 114) (our translation). Just five years ago the word carpaccio was the top of sophistication, accessible exclusively to cuisine experts. Today carpaccio, espresso, cappuccino or mozzarella, wine and olive oil are usual ingredients of Lithuanian ration (Ibid., 122). This notwithstanding, the general impression of the menus of the analysed restaurants is satisfactory. They are informative and often take more than 4 lines to describe a dish. It is a far cry from the early times of independence when the dish was given a fancy name (e.g. Žara ) and the visitor had to guess its content. However, some more information as to whether the dish was made of fresh/frozen products, the countries of origin of certain products (e.g. oysters, chanterelles, fish, etc.) could have been included. Instead, some restaurants assume that their guests need some warning or an encouragement as to what to eat or drink. Consider the following examples: (1) French onion soup. A real classic! (Balzac) (2) Roasted garlic soup. Be brave, you ll enjoy this delicious garlic soup! (Balzac) (3) Capers and vodka (sic!) Have fun with making your own perfect combination (Balzac) (4) Just like Honore himself: simple, yet complex, rustic, yet sophisticated (Balzac) (5) Zum Wohl! Prost! (Mix of smoked bacon, ham, sausages which is recommended to strong drinks) (Graf Zeppelin) (6) Lithuanian cold beetroot soup don t use it with beer (Aula) (7) Quail, beloved by charming Lithuanian ladies, served with sweet potatoes (sic!)(lokys) (8) Game sausages, praised by noblemen (Lokys) Although meant to be funny, as some of them are intentionally (examples 1-5) or unintentionally (7) (ladies, served with sweet potatoes), next to being unnecessary or superfluous (8) sausages, praised by noblemen (one may ask who are the noblemen in present-day Lithuania), some of these comments might be 145

4 Laimutė Kasparė 146 slightly insulting to a foreign visitor, who is ordered to do/not to do something in the Imperative Mood (don t use it with beer), etc. The visitors could probably be left to decide themselves whether the dish is a real classic or not, whether to eat roasted garlic soup or abstain from it, etc. The next most obvious thing on the analysed English menus was spelling mistakes. They were found in almost all the menus (with the exception of Zoe s Bar & Grill and Radisson hotel restaurant), and to our surprise even the most prestigious ones, such as Stikliai and La Provence, had them, especially La Provence (e.g. *wit (with), *blendei whisky (blended whisky), *clery (celery), *pistchio (pistachio), *brad (bread), *potaties, *potates (potatoes), *beear (beer), *egglant (eggplant), *zuchini (zucchini), *picled onions (pickled), *caulflower (cauliflower), *pumkin (pumpkin), *mozarela (mozzarella), *puding (pudding), *cabage (cabbage), *brocoli (broccoli), *chery tomatoes (cherry), *permesan cheese (parmesan), *layer pastry (layered), *liqeur (liqueuer), *deserts (dessert), *filet (fillet), *serve in it s own shell (served in its own shell), *emulsijon (emulsion), *filet serve in terracotta (fillet served ), *experience the mediterian (Mediterranean), *meniu a la carte (menu), *apperitive (aperitif), *gourment (gourmet), *greipfruit (grapefruit), for your *choise (choice), *pan fryed carrots (pan-fried), *souse (sauce), seabus (sea bass), *chokolade (chocolate), *hazel nuts (hazelnuts). Our favourites were marinated *olivers (Graf Zeppelin) and a selection of 3 *nobel cheeses (Balzac). Some of these are obviously technical mistakes, others demonstrate poor knowledge of English spelling; however, all of them show negligence on the part of the restaurant owners and/or translation bureaus regarding the quality of translations. The differences in spelling of some names of foreign dishes are also obvious: kus kus/cous cous/couscous, créme brûlée/creme brulee, carpachio/carpaccio/carpaccio/ Carpaccio, Caesar salad/caesarian salad/caesar s salad/cesar salad, parmesan cheese/parmesan cheese, etc. Another group of mistakes is of grammatical nature: especially varied are suggestions to get information from the waiter, e.g. Ask *to your waiter (La Provence); Ask *for your waiter, please (Graf Zeppelin)(ask your waiter). Also consider the following examples: (9) Herring snack named *for (after) Keiser Wilhelm honour (Graf Zeppelin) (10) Herring served with jacket potato *in (no preposition is necessary) country style (Stikliai) (11) Olives *like we likes (olives the way we like them) (Debut Café) (12) Lithuanian *cold soup with beetroot (cold beetroot soup), *contains with (with) baked potatoes (Debut Café) (13) Italian ravioli *contains with (with) tomatoes and sage (Debut Café) (14) *Vietnam (Vietnamese) spring rolls (Debut Café) Often singular/plural and Possessive Case forms in attributive phrases are misused, e.g. chicken *livers (chicken liver), ice-cream and *almond (almonds), *frog legs (frogs ), fresh *vegetable (vegetables), *goat s cheese/*goats cheese (goats ), *duck s liver (duck liver), *meats broth (meat), *cranberries sorbet (cranberry).

5 What s on the Menu? The English Versions of Menus of Some Top Restaurants in Vilnius There are some article usage mistakes: on *a top (on top), about *restaurant (about the restaurant), beetroot in *a dought (beetroot in dough), *a pastry (pastry/ pies/ cakes), from *bar (the bar), *a main course (the main course), etc. There are also numerous word order and word usage mistakes: *fresh various vegetable salad (various fresh vegetable salad), *fried in honey chicken salad (salad with chicken fried in honey), *dark Švyturys Baltijos beer soup with beef (beer soup with beef, made of Baltijos Švyturys dark beer), *drinking water (tap water), *potatoes in their jackets (jacket potatoes) and fennel *like (as) a side dish, *in according with (in accordance with/according to), *tea in the packet (teabags), *snap beans (green beans, runner beans), *cheese with mould (blue cheese). Some names of the dishes are difficult to understand, e.g. *Tartarian beefsteak, *beef in tatar way (Steak tartare/tartar), *last day ciabatta (day old ciabatta), *brown-headed boletus salad (boletus salad), etc. Potato chips (meaning potato crisps) will most likely be understood as French fries by the British visitors. Some explanations and additions to the menus are difficult to understand or explain: (15) Meals would be prepared just after your order (Amatininkai) Also consider the following: (16) From the sea: Starting every Tuesday and Thursday dinner Balzac restaurant offers you Special Fresh Seafood Menu available seven days a week subject to availability, until next delivery of fresh products coming straight from France. Therefore we do apologise in case we might occasionally be out of some fresh seafood when it s completely sold out. Then you will be asked to come and taste it starting from next Tuesday or Thursday dinner once we get it fresh again, alive and kicking. This is Restaurant policy and we will do our best to stick to that! (Balzac) Not only is it wordy but also completely confusing to the visitor. As has been mentioned before, English menus are not only the reflection of a concrete restaurant culture but of the gastronomic or eating culture of the country. It is no wonder that half a century of Soviet obschepit (public catering) has damaged this culture a lot. Together with Paulius Jurkevičius we may pose the following questions: How long will it take for the Lithuanian restaurants to start picking Michelin stars? How many decades will pass before we create a cuisine to attract crowds of gourmets from abroad? When will the best Lithuanian chefs start creating a national gastronomy school, and not be happy with interpreting Italian, Spanish, Japanese or mixed cuisines? These are the questions that do not have an answer at present. Maybe we will never get them (J u r k e v i č i u s 2010, 106). Conclusions 1. The general impression of the menus in English in most top Vilnius restaurants (Brasserie de Verres en Vers, Radisson; Lokys, Stikliai, Zoe s Bar & Grill, Vapiano, Da Antonio, Steakhouse Hazienda) is satisfactory: the dishes are described in detail and in good English. 147

6 Laimutė Kasparė 2. However, in the English menus of all remaining restaurants under analysis there were quite a few technical and spelling mistakes, also numerous variations in spelling, mostly of the words of French/Italian origin. This usually doesn t interfere with the understanding of the menu but gives an impression of negligence and slovenliness. These shortcomings could be easily eliminated if the restaurant administration paid some attention to the menu translations. 3. There are also numerous word usage, word order and other grammatical mistakes; they often interfere with the understanding of the text. These are sometimes the result of word-for-word translation and interference of interlingual analogues (false friends), the English is not idiomatic. Sometimes the meaning of the text is completely lost in translation. This may not only give a bad impression of the restaurant but make its guests choose another place to eat. 4. To improve the quality of the translations of restaurant and café menus, it would be useful to have a menu translation guide (to start with translations into English, but also into other foreign languages German, French, etc.), either in electronic or paper form, to help translators to deal with numerous difficulties encountered while translating menus. Such guides do exist in some countries, where tourism is popular, and it is definitely on the increase in Lithuania. The guide would help to avoid variations in translating well-known international dishes, decrease the mentioned inadequacies in menu translations and improve the general presentability of Lithuanian restaurants. Thus if Lithuania wants to join the European club of cultured eating, it will have to work hard and probably start with its best restaurants menus in English. References and sources B a k e r 1992 Mona Baker, In Other Words: A Course book on Translation, London and New York: Routledge. J u r k e v i č i u s 2010 Paulius Jurkevičius, Staltiesės ritmu, Vilnius: Tyto alba. N e w m a r k 1988 Peter Newmark, A Textbook of Translation, Prentice Hall Europe. N i d a 1964 Eugene Nida, Toward a Science of Translating, Brill Academic Publishers. R o b i n s o n 1991 Douglas Robinson, The Translator s Turn, Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. R o b i n s o n 1997 Douglas Robinson, Becoming a Translator, London and New York: Routledge. R u z a i t ė 2006 Jūratė Ruzaitė, Text Typology in Translation. A case study of menu translations, Darbai ir Dienos, Kaunas: VDU, t. 45,

7 What s on the Menu? The English Versions of Menus of Some Top Restaurants in Vilnius Laimutė Kasparė Ką siūlo meniu? Keleto geriausių Vilniaus restoranų meniu anglų kalba S a n t r a u k a Pagrindinės sąvokos: restoranų ir kavinių meniu, meniu vertimai į anglų kalbą, rašybos ir gramatikos klaidos. Straipsnyje analizuojami 25 Vilniaus restoranų ir kavinių (Lokys, Neringa, Balzac, Graf Zeppelin, La Provence, Stikliai, Amatininkai, Bistro 18, Zoe s Bar & Grill, Belmonto kriokliai (Vila Gloria), Aula, Saint Germain, Vapiano, Da Antonio, Medininkai, Narutis, Brasserie de Verres en Vers (Radisson), Markus ir Ko, Zola vyninė, California Gourmet, Esse, Tores, Fiorentino, Steakhouse Hazienda, Debut Cafe) meniu internetinės versijos anglų kalba. Straipsnio tikslas aptarti šių restoranų meniu anglų kalbą ir įspūdį, kurį meniu vertimai į anglų kalbą palieka užsienio svečiui; taigi dėmesys buvo koncentruojamas ne tiek į informacinę, kiek į reprezentacinę meniu funkciją, vertimo ekvivalentiškumas nebuvo nagrinėjamas. Anglų kalba ir įspūdis, kurį ji palieka teksto gavėjui, adresatui, šiuo atveju svečiui iš užsienio Lietuvoje, buvo šio tyrimo objektas. Straipsnio tema yra mažai nagrinėta mokslinėje literatūroje, nors jos aktualumas yra akivaizdus, didėjant užsienio turistų srautams tiek Vilniuje, tiek Lietuvoje. Tyrimas atskleidė, kad net prestižiškiausių restoranų ir kavinių meniu pasitaiko nemažai rašybos ir gramatikos klaidų (žodžių tvarkos, žodžių vartojimo, artikelio vartojimo, daiktavardžių vienaskaitos / daugiskaitos, savybinio linksnio vartojimo); dažnai sunku suprasti teksto prasmę. Siekiant pagerinti restoranų ir kavinių meniu anglų kalbos kokybę, reikėtų sudaryti meniu vertimų vadovą, kuris padėtų vertėjams išspręsti daugybę problemų, su kuriomis jie susiduria, versdami meniu. Toks vadovas padėtų išvengti gerai žinomų tarptautinių patiekalų pavadinimų variantų, padėtų pašalinti pastebėtus trūkumus ir pagerintų bendrą Lietuvos restoranų įvaizdį užsieniečių akyse. Laimutė Kasparė What s on the Menu? The English Versions of Menus of Some Top Restaurants in Vilnius S u m m a r y Keywords: restaurant and café menus, menu translations into English, spelling and grammar mistakes. The paper analyses the English translations of the internet versions of menus of some 25 Vilnius restaurants and cafés (Lokys, Neringa, Balzac, Graf Zeppelin, La Provence, Stikliai, Amatininkai, Bistro 18, Zoe s Bar & Grill, Belmonto kriokliai (Vila Gloria), Aula, St Germain, Vapiano, Da Antonio, Medininkai, Narutis, Brasserie de Verres en 149

8 Laimutė Kasparė Vers (Radisson), Markus ir Ko, Zola vyninė, California Gourmet, Esse, Tores, Fiorentino, Steakhouse Hazienda, Debut Cafe). The aim of the paper was to discuss the quality of the English language in the translations of the menus and the impression it gives to the foreign visitor; thus the focus was not so much on the informative, but on the representational function of the menu; translation equivalence was not considered. The English language and the impression it gives to the recipient of the text, the addressee, in this case a foreign visitor to Lithuania, was the object of the research. The topic of the paper has received little attention in scientific literature, while its importance is obvious with the increasing numbers of foreign tourists in Vilnius and in Lithuania. The analysis revealed that even the most prestigious restaurants and cafes have a varying number of technical/proper spelling and grammar (word order, word usage, article usage, singular/plural forms of nouns, Possessive Case forms) mistakes; often the English of the menus is not idiomatic and interferes with the understanding of the text. To improve the quality of the translations of restaurant and café menus, it would be useful to have a menu translation guide to help translators to deal with numerous difficulties encountered while translating menus. The guide would help to avoid variations in translating well-known international dishes, decrease the mentioned inadequacies in menu translations and improve the general presentability of Lithuanian restaurants. L a i m u t ė K A S P A R Ė Užsienio kalbos katedra Generolo Jono Žemaičio Lietuvos karo akademija Šilo g. 5a LT Vilnius [laimute@su.lt] 150

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