Translation report: Recipe language

Résumé du document

It is true that England is not reputed for its cuisine. Perhaps it is significant that there is no real equivalent for the expression bon appétit in English (waiters only say “enjoy your meal”). However, there are different specialties in England such as the famous English breakfast (with baked beans, sausages and bacon), the puddings (served with custard) and cheese cake.

I have been an au pair for 8 months, and I had to cook every day either with cookbooks or recipes that my mother made up herself. Most of the time, I had to use Jamie Oliver's cookbooks or Annabel Karmel's new Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner, since there was 6 month old baby and a 2 year old girl in the family, I noticed that most the English families own several cookbooks written by famous chefs like Deliah Smith and cooking was really important to them.

The reason why I have chosen this subject is mainly based on the fact that when I cooked dessert with the family, using my own French cookbooks, I could not always find the exact English translation for the ingredients or the verbs used in recipes. What's more, I could not understand what “oz” meant. I thought it could be interesting for me to discover English recipes since British cooking has a dreadful reputation in France, some dishes are quite good and you finally get used to the typical lunchtime sandwich.

Extraits

[...] Beat well at medium speed of an electric mixer. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition Sift flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa and cinnamon together. Add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Mix just until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla and almond extracts In a clean bowl, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold carefully into cake batter, mixing only until no streaks remain. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10 inch tube pan Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. [...]

[...] At first sight, these cups might look like toy tea set[5], they are really useful since you do not need any scale to measure your ingredients. A pinch is a very small amount of an ingredient, typically salt or spice. The French translation for pinch is pincée. II. Name of dishes and food 1. Name of the ingredients a. French word used in English The sauces Vinaigrette is an emulsion of vinegar and vegetable oil, often flavored with herbs, spices, mustard and other ingredients. [...]

[...] This is very similar to the French hachis parmentier which is a traditional French dish that permit to use the left-overs. This dish has been invented bu Antoine Augustin Parmentier who was military chemist. Marmite[10] is a popular British savoury spread, made from yeast extract, a by-product of the beer brewing process. It is a sticky, dark brown substance, with a distinctive and powerful taste which polarises consumer opinion. It is similar to Australia and New Zealand's Vegemite and Promite. [...]

[...] A cake recipe may call for a moule à manqué (literally, mold for a failed cake). This actually is a simple cake pan The measurements Different ways of measuring ingredients are used in France and in England. The most important difference you may encounter is whether dry ingredients are measured by weight (e.g. ounces, pounds, grams, kilograms) or by volume (e.g. tablespoons, cups, millilitres, litters). For small volumetric quantities, the French equivalents of the teaspoon and tablespoon are commonly used in French recipes. [...]

[...] What's more, I could not understand what meant. I thought it could be interesting for me to discover English recipes since even if British cooking has a dreadful reputation in France, some dishes are quite good and you finally get used to the typical lunchtime sandwich. I watched television a lot in England, and while tuning in, I discovered several cooking channels on Sky TV and at lunchtime, many TV cookery programmes were broadcast. There was also a really popular series: Jamie's school dinners, in which Jamie Oliver has set himself a big challenge: to take charge of 20,000 school lunches a day across one of London's most demanding areas as he campaigns to ban junk foods in schools and stop students from eating a quarter of a ton of French fries a week. [...]