British vs. American Food (and related translation challenges)

This humorous article that seeks to "explain" British food for an American audience can serve as an interesting point of departure for thinking about other challenges in translating reference to culturally distinctive items in one culture into the vocabulary of another language/culture which has its own culturally distinctive ways of categorizing things: British Food Explained for Americans.

Of course, the situation is complicated by the fact that British folks and Americans use the very same terms to refer to quite different kinds of food (pudding/pie, chips, etc.). But similar problems would exist even if the same words weren't used in two different versions of the language.

Over lunch lunch today (in Misano, Italy) one of the participants in this year's Nida School of Bible Translation (and the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Doctor of Ministry track in Bible translation) mentioned that in some part of India the word used for "food" (or perhaps "bread" as in the Lord's Prayer") has a morpheme that refers to rice, raising the expectation on the part of readers that Jesus and his colleague must have eaten rice. The problems that arise in referring to one culture's food via another culture's/language's vocabulary for food is just a special case of the challenges faced when translating anything from one culture into the language of another. The linked article may be enjoyed just for the sake of the British humor. It can also be enjoyed as a fun illustration of broader translation challenges.

Extracted text from https://www.buzzfeed.com:

TRENDING 1,105,330 VIEWS British Food, Explained For Americans Make the American understanding of British food great again.

Posted on April 27, 2017, at 10:24 a.m.

Luke Bailey BuzzFeed Staff, UK OK, first up, all of these are puddings.

Margoeedwards / Getty Images, Lily_rochha / Getty Images Share Pin All desserts are pudding, but what you think of as pudding is not pudding, but just a part of some puddings. It's custard, basically. Which we generally put on puddings.

Vikif / Getty Images Share Pin For clarity, what you generally consider pies are a type of pudding that we might put what you consider pudding on. However, what we generally consider pies are not puddings, but are savoury and involve meat.

Mphillips007 / Getty Images, Stitchik / Getty Images Share Pin Unless it's a pie that is a pudding, like a mince pie, which doesn't involve mince, which is meat that's been minced, but does involve mincemeat, which doesn't involve meat. You could put what you think of as pudding on this type of pie, which is a pudding.

Clubfoto / Getty Images Share Pin Some puddings are also specifically called pudding, like this sticky toffee pudding, which is a cake and a type of pudding, and another thing that you might put what you call pudding on.

Clubfoto / Getty Images Share Pin But not all puddings are desserts. This is a black pudding, which is made of blood and delicious, but it is not generally a dessert. There are also white puddings, which are also not desserts.

Paul_brighton / Getty Images Share Pin This is a Yorkshire pudding, also not a dessert.

Budgetstockphoto / Getty Images Share Pin Yorkshire puddings, incidentally, are the most important food you will ever eat. They are truly superb.

Monkeybusinessimages / Getty Images Share Pin They come on a Sunday roast, the most important meal of the week.

Igordutina / Getty Images Share Pin However, despite being such an important meal, there's no single right way to do it. It needs some sort of roast meat, unless you're a vegetarian, and roast potatoes with gravy, but beyond that, it's kind of wild.

Igordutina / Getty Images Share Pin Peas, carrots, leeks, cauliflower, and more or less any other vegetables under the sun are used. Most people maintain there is a right answer, but no one agrees on what it is.

Joegough / Getty Images Share Pin Similarly, the full English breakfast isn't so much a particular meal but a complete taxonomy of different foods. Eggs are important, as are bacon and sausages, but everything else is debatable.

Bhofack2 / Getty Images Share Pin There are no rules on how the eggs should be cooked, though people with good taste all accept that fried eggs are the only true way, and there should be no beans.

Joegough / Getty Images Share Pin Ah, yes, beans. Baked beans are a great food, and are perfect on toast. They need nothing else beans on toast is a natural, fulfilling, and balanced meal.

Robynmac / Getty Images Share Pin Actually, everything is good on toast. Eggs on toast, sardines on toast, and of course cheese on toast.

Joegough / Getty Images Share Pin See, cheese on toast is just like grilled cheese, but better because it has a much better cheese-to-toast ratio.

Olgamiltsova / Getty Images Share Pin Also because it is made under this, which is a grill, making it a much more accurate thing to call grilled cheese. This is not a broiler, because broil is not a word.

colorspray.blogspot.co.uk Share Pin It's also made with real cheese, which is a product made from milk, unlike American cheese, which appears to have been made from melted-down condoms dyed yellow.

Rusn / Getty Images Share Pin Please stop doing things with cheese like this. This is not OK, and also not cheese.

jeepersmedia / Flickr: jeepersmedia Share Pin Cheese should also not be used to make pizza like this, which is more of a casserole. (Yes, pizza is not British, but y'know, while we're here.)

Bhofack2 / Getty Images Share Pin Actually, much of the best food in Britain is not British. Indian food is probably the best British food.

Alleko / Getty Images Share Pin Though as good as curry in Britain is, our Mexican food is rubbish. Sorry. From the list of British food at least nominally originally from Britain, fish and chips is one of the best.

John-kelly / Getty Images Share Pin Chips, naturally, are chipped potatoes that are then fried, unlike fries, which are chipped potatoes that are then fried. A very clear difference.

Fatmanphotouk / Getty Images Share Pin In fact, though, fries and chips do now mean a somewhat different thing you can buy both frozen chips and frozen fries in a supermarket. Chips are thick, fries are thin. In fast-food places or fried chicken shops, you'll typically find things listed as fries. In a fish and chip shop, they're chips so much thicker.

Drong / Getty Images Share Pin Meanwhile, what you call chips are actually crisps, chipped potatoes that have been crisped, unlike chips, which are chipped potatoes that have been crisped. Again, all a much simpler solution.

Yevtony / Getty Images Share Pin Chips can, and will, come with anything and everything.

Sjenner13 / Getty Images Share Pin Incidentally, chip shop chips are a truly perfect food they should be as thick as possible, and have crispy bits in the bottom, but be broadly fairly soft.

Cjtang / Getty Images Share Pin In some parts of Britain you can add scraps on top of the chips. In other parts you can add bits. These are the same thing. You can also get a chip butty, which is a bread roll containing only chips, and once again, this is a balanced and reasonable meal.

Stargatechris / Getty Images Share Pin However, the bread roll can also be referred to as a bun, dinner roll, bap, cob, barm, kaiser roll, bread cake, barm cake, batch, muffin, softie, or buttery, depending on where you are. This is a perfectly reasonable state of affairs.

Hyrma / Getty Images Share Pin You see, different areas of Britain have fierce rivalries over exact descriptions and origins of food. Cornwall and Devon, two counties right next to each other, have firm disagreements over who invented the pasty and in which order you put cream and jam on a cream tea.

Travellinglight / Getty Images Share Pin Jam encompasses everything you think of as jelly, because we think of jelly as something we eat with ice cream.

Edith64 / Getty Images Share Pin Meanwhile, a cream tea is what you might think a biscuit is, which in the UK is a sweet food. Do not put gravy on it. Also what you think of as gravy is in fact some sort of sausage jizz, and what you call cookies are actually biscuits.

Robynmac / Getty Images Share Pin You would also not put cream on waffles, because waffles are made of potato and look like this. Unless they're Belgian waffles, of course.

Flickr: tim_ellis Share Pin Much like this, British pancakes are a cake made in a pan, and are therefore called pancakes. American pancakes aren't pancakes because they aren't made in a pan, so we call them Scotch pancakes in the UK.

Alexpro9500 / Getty Images Share Pin Unless we call them just pancakes, because at this point it's getting less confusing. Meanwhile, these are flapjacks.

Scholes1 / Getty Images Share Pin Another Scotch food is Scotch eggs, which are eggs wrapped in meat and deep-fried, which honestly sounds like the most American thing America never created.

Snopik / Getty Images Share Pin With the possible exception of the deep-fried Mars bar, which is exactly what it sounds like, delicious, and also Scotch. Well, Scottish, which is what Scottish things are usually called unless they're called Scotch, or are literally Scotch whisky, which is just called Scotch, unless it's from Ireland, which is partly in the UK, and where it's called whiskey, which is different from whisky.

Twitter: @CraigGTelfer Share Pin Haggis is Scottish and real, but it's not an animal, it's just a stomach filled with animal. Totally normal.

Paulcowan / Getty Images Share Pin However, it's not a very common food, it's more of a speciality it's not something you would find a pub, for instance. You will find food at a pub, you see, you just won't eat food at a pub, that would be weird.

Bonchan / Getty Images Share Pin Except at the weekend. Pubs are great for food at the weekend. The British midweek tradition is to go for "a quick drink," which means much more than a single drink, but absolutely no food. Maybe some crisps. Or chips.

Instants / Getty Images Share Pin At the pub, you'll need to drink in a round, where everyone has to buy everyone else in the group a drink until everyone has bought a round, and it's definitely not OK if you leave before your round is up, meaning you're locked into having multiple drinks. This is to speed things up.

William87 / Getty Images Share Pin Also, there are no tabs. Well, there are, but it's a bit weird to get one. But that's OK, because the beer is great. It's not warm, though well, some of it is. Lager is chilled, ale is served at cellar temperature.

Okorokovanatalya / Getty Images Share Pin There's also cider, which is essentially always alcoholic, and what teens learn to drink in parks, as part of an ancient tradition.

Flickr: federhirn Share Pin Finally, HP sauce is better than barbecue sauce, sausages are a food group, and Marmite is either great or terrible, and no one knows which, but it's important that you have an opinion.

Twitter: @rob_clowes Share Pin Hope that cleared everything up! View Comments BuzzFeed Home 2017 BuzzFeed, Inc. Share Pin