Parlez vous Franglais?

[Duck59]

Sometimes it's easy enough. You can merely point at the item on a menu and it gets the job done. There are, however, times when we need to dust off our language skills and ask for something.

Mishaps? Thankfully, not too many. The best happened to someone else, a VSO volunteer colleague of mine who requested a lightbulb rather than the bill in a Tigrigna language slip up in Eritrea. As for me, nothing too serious. I was once a little embarrassed at Asmara airport (same VSO mission) when I got searched at security. I was carrying a bag of celery, a rarely-seen item in that country. Certainly, the young woman searching my bag had no idea what it was. I couldn't for the life of me remember what the Italian word was for celery (most vegetables are called by Italian names there) and pondered for a while before saying, "Salata." Well, it's a salad vegetable. It seemed to do the trick though.

Has anyone had a food-related language struggle?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Yep - quite a few on my travels. I remember one of them where my OH wanted some more chocolate spread or similar for our sandwiches at lunchtime. He always did the shopping and I stayed outside with the bikes (he thought he took less time than me, and it resolved a few issues)... he came out with a tin of something, shrugged his shoulders when I expressed surprise and pointed out that it could not be resealed (not a huge issue because jars of jam always got decanted into a plastic container we had with a very secure lid)... rather than chocolate spread or peanut butter, he had purchased a toffee spread with caramel lumps in it designed to go inside cake as a filling!

Another was in Sweden (when I could have dairy but only in very small doses) and we had run out of butter. He came out with something called Halv smör (smör being butter)... He thought Halv was half... what we actually ended up with was seasalt butter. This is butter with lumps of seasalt in it. I hate salt. It didn't last very long for our sandwiches. Even he could not stomach it and bought something else. We did find a use for it eventually, and that was in cooking. We didn't need to add any seasoning to anything cooked in it

 

[Morning Glory]

A classic one. Many moons ago In Egypt, a party of 6 of us stopped at an oasis in the Sahara desert where there was an old hotel (stunning location). We sat outside overlooking the water and ordered beers and some chips, the waiter taking our orders in English. After quite a long while, the waiter came out across the sand carrying a large tray with 6 bowls of potato crisps, evidently made from scratch in their kitchen. They were quite delicious but we kind of felt guilty for putting them to all that trouble!

 

[Duck59]

Of course, the English language can go awry at times. I recall having a meal in a restaurant in Killarney with a couple of friends. One of our number (not me, honest guv) was a little the worse for a few jars of the black stuff. We got to the end of the meal and the waiter asked if we wanted anything else. My pal looked at him through bleary eyes and slurred, "I'll have a garlic coffee."

 

[winterybella]

In France more than two decades ago. I ordered what I thought was chicken or something close. After a long wait, an unfriendly waited returned with some other creature covered in white sauce with hair sticking out of it. I paid for it and left. I still regret paying.
I actually thought my French was decent enough at the time.

 

[purplepen88]

We were once in Quebec City with friends and my husband wanted to have veal and so did my friend's husband. Our French we thought was passable but something was lost in translation. The entire menu was in French and the waiters only spoke French. As we looked at the menu we thought it was veal or translated into baby cow. My husband and our friend ordered it, half way through the meal my husband thought the texture was wrong for veal. It turned out to be baby calves liver! My friend's husband immediately stopped eating and almost spat out what was in his mouth.

 

[Morning Glory]

In France more than two decades ago. I ordered what I thought was chicken or something close. After a long wait, an unfriendly waited returned with some other creature covered in white sauce with hair sticking out of it. I paid for it and left. I still regret paying.
I actually thought my French was decent enough at the time.

Hair sticking out? I can't imagine what that might have been...

 

[Morning Glory]

We were once in Quebec City with friends and my husband wanted to have veal and so did my friend's husband. Our French we thought was passable but something was lost in translation. The entire menu was in French and the waiters only spoke French. As we looked at the menu we thought it was veal or translated into baby cow. My husband and our friend ordered it, half way through the meal my husband thought the texture was wrong for veal. It turned out to be baby calves liver! My friend's husband immediately stopped eating and almost spat out what was in his mouth.

But calve's liver is delicious (and rather expensive here)!

 

[Berties]

I try to avoid speaking French as though I can blag a sentence and a conversation I find it hard to understand different French accents especially when they talk fast ,my favourite mistake I heard was my wife's cousin moved to France 15 years ago and while going to the bank another Brit spoke to her in French and her reply was ,the wether is changing but if it rains I have a hammer in the car ,the return state was of misbelief ,but she did mean umberellla ,
While with the family in France we use their youngest who speaks fluent French and English with a Wiltshire tang ,as our secret weapon ........

 

[Duck59]

We nearly caused a riot in Bruges (really, one should say Brugge) once. We were sitting in a restaurant and my other half, who speaks French fluently, absent-mindedly asked a waiter for something in French. Now, of course, the city is Flemish-speaking and the use of French is not encouraged. With considerable haste, she switched to English before the plates started flying.

 

[winterybella]

'Je parle un petit Francais' ( did not use Bing translator so I might have spelled something incorrectly) is what I tell everyone I meet who is French, then their eyes light up and then they are disappointed when I can't get much further. Then when it is getting tricky and I am making a mess I say, 'J'ai mal a la tete' wrong or right.
I can still see the hair in the dish Morning Glory. I had no clue back then and still wonder what it was. I wanted to swear in multiple languages.

 

[Shadow]

Vegetarians or those of a delicate disposition or those having a meal may want to skip this post.

I have a bad habit at glancing over a menu without reading it with more care. About 10 years ago, 6 of us split from our classic car tour group of 30+ to have dinner at a local restaurant at my behest. Partly because I thought it would be fun to be away from the 'others' for an evening and partly because the food and wine at our hotel was so very average. Edible but not interesting let alone exciting. As usual, I was in charge of ordering wine, so was looking at the wine list and not paying enough attention to the menu. Saw the word 'veau' and thought excellent, I'll have the veal. I adore good veal mostly because it is so hard to find in the uk and have it almost every opportunity. (inspite of what many people think, most calves in france for the table are not treated poorly; it is not unusual for calves to be exported from the uk to france). If I had read the whole line on the menu I would have seen 'riz de veau'. This translates as calves brains. I only managed to eat about 2/5 of it. Never again for me. It came with an excellent sauce though. And the wine was very good too.

Another example to fool people is 'boudin blanc'. Boudin noir is common throughout europe and known as blood sausage/blood pudding/black pudding in english. Most euorpeans are familiar with what it is. Boudin blanc is however something very different and quite possible very tasty but I have not tried it. Sheep testicle.