Lost in translation

[chattius 2,522]

I plan this thread as a help in translation. Just to be sure that the translation given by a dictionary is correct. So if you want to know a german word for a food I may help and hopefully we find other people doing the same for other languages.

 

First an example:

Corn- An american or australian will use it for maize, an english speaker from europe as grain from wheat, rye, oats, ...

german Korn- In towns it has the same meaning as in europe english, while on countryside Korn depends where in germany you live. In area where mainly wheat is harvested farmers and country people use Korn for wheat, in areas with mainly rye Korn is used for rye.

 

So translation often needs some knowledge how a word may have changed in meaning in another language. What I wanted to translate was:

 

Rübstiel

 

Let's start with wikipedia:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rübstiel Now click on english and we are at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapini

But Rapini is what we call http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stängelkohl (Stängel is another word for plant stem and Kohl = cabbage/brassica)

 

There is an easy difference: Rübstiel is among the first vegetables which can be harvested in a year, while rapini is sowed when Rübstiel is already harvested.

 

Other ways to find the correct meaning:

Rübe would be german for the underground part of root vegetables. Stiel would be german for a plant stem.

Even in german Rübstiel can have too meanings: 1) for recipes the top/green part of any root vegetable: mainly turnip green, turnip tops.

2) the plant which is most often used for the 1) Rübstiel here in my area.

 

So I do a picture and someone can come up with its english name:

 

 

The picture in the german Rübstiel entry is dutch naming it Raapstelen (dutch for Rübstiel) Brassica_campestris

 

One of the variants I sow in january close to a sunny wall covered with an old window are named: Brassica rapa ssp. silvestris „Namenia“ and Wiki shows the same picture. So are they only looking the same or are they the same.

 

Closest I can get is to name it a mid german variant of field turnip, field mustard. But that would not be good enough for a recipe.

 

Two latin family names for same plant? The plant isn't building out an onion/carrot like root.

 

I found an english online shop who is selling something like Rübstiel. From the description on the seed package it seems to come very close to it.

 

http://www.eseeds.com/p-11627-brassica-rapa-namenia.aspx

Edited March 21, 2011 by chattius

[masteff 64]

I think "turnip top" and "turnip greens" are your best translation for cooking. http://www.mariobatali.com/ingredients_turnip.cfm

 

I've also come up the terms "colza" and "turnip rape" but those seem to be more agricultural terms.

 

Rapini (broccoli rabe) is a different type/species/whatever of Brassica rapa.

[chattius 2,522]

Rübstiel:

The main difference to turnip tops seems to be: It is sowed with way less space between the plants, so no beets/onions are developing and the local variant is more frost robust and isn't developing beet/onion roots. Also it is harvested when its size is just 4-6 inches. We normally cut away most of the leaves (animal food) and go for the tasty and crunchy stems with just a bit of leaf remaining on them.

 

I was trying to add something to gogo's thread on larding a steak. We sometimes use something we call a:

 

Schweinsnetz

 

Schwein is german for pig, netz is net. A Schweinenetz would be a net to catch pigs, while a Schweinsnetz (local slang Saunetz) would be a net made from pigs. I got a translation as caul fat, but it reads that caul fat is not limited to just pigs. So caul fat from a pig would be an okay translation?

 

 

Image take from the worldwide gourmet page.

[masteff 64]

I learn something new every day.

 

Pork caul fat

http://www.mysteak.com/MyCart/ProductListing/65/Pork_Caul_Fat_Freezer-Ready_.aspx

 

In some places it may be called "lace fat".

[gogoblender 3,069]

I actually find the netting very beautiful to look at. A delicate filigree, akin to settings for precious stones.

 

gogo

[chattius 2,522]

Thanks, so pork caul fat is it. It is really a nice way to add some fat to a roast, or hold stuff together. Normally meat rolls or butterfly-steaks are filled with a mix of vegetables, cheese , Mett and then netted with it. The fat melds, the meat stay juicy, and the time the fat is away the rolls are normally hardened enough to stay in form even there is no net anymore.

 

Less fat normally as with larding or barding and you need no tieing cord or using tooth-sticks.

 

I came in contact with caul fat as a little boy at the farm of my grandparents when we did house slaughterings. So I kinda was always used to it.

 

Best tasting Frikadellen (at least in my opinion) use it too:

 

Edit from wikipedia:

Frikadeller are flat, pan-fried dumplings of minced meat, often likened to the Danish version of meatballs. They are a popular dish in Germany, Denmark, Poland and the Netherlands. In Sweden, poached quenelles are called frikadeller and are usually served in soup.

Edited March 22, 2011 by chattius

[chattius 2,522]

Rübstiel II

Found some pictures which may perhaps describe the difference between turnip green and Rübstiel better:

 

 

As you see in the second picture: most of the green leaf part is removed, the goal are the tasty cross young stems.

[chattius 2,522]

Schichtsalat

Our oldest is invited to a party this weekend and she was asked to bring something to eat or to drink to the party. So knowing teenagers and their organisation from my own youth (everyone appeared with alcohol, and we had to order pizza) I told her that I would prepare a Schichtsalat for the party if she would help. Schicht is german for a layer. So the idea of a Schichtsalat is to have several layers of diffrent stuff in a bowl, all covered with a layer of cream. So the salade is fresh for hours and looks nice in a glass bowl. Before eating it is mixed.

 

I think a picture explains it best.

For better mixing the bowl shouldn't be this full You can even do some ornaments on the cream, like doing a big 18 with powdered ret beet. Since the party is saturday evening our daughter could add some leafs of fresh sour dough bread from the village owned baking oven.

 

So the big question is: will the party people like it and how is it named in english? And should I do a variant with herings to fight alcohol better

[masteff 64]

The direct translation works great: layer (or layered) salad. http://www.google.com/images?q=layer+salad

 

First an example:

Corn- An american or australian will use it for maize, an english speaker from europe as grain from wheat, rye, oats, ...

german Korn- In towns it has the same meaning as in europe english, while on countryside Korn depends where in germany you live. In area where mainly wheat is harvested farmers and country people use Korn for wheat, in areas with mainly rye Korn is used for rye.

And of course, the yellow stuff in that salad I'd call corn.

[gogoblender 3,069]

Schichtsalat

Our oldest is invited to a party this weekend and she was asked to bring something to eat or to drink to the party. So knowing teenagers and their organisation from my own youth (everyone appeared with alcohol, and we had to order pizza) I told her that I would prepare a Schichtsalat for the party if she would help. Schicht is german for a layer. So the idea of a Schichtsalat is to have several layers of diffrent stuff in a bowl, all covered with a layer of cream. So the salade is fresh for hours and looks nice in a glass bowl. Before eating it is mixed.

 

I think a picture explains it best.

For better mixing the bowl shouldn't be this full You can even do some ornaments on the cream, like doing a big 18 with powdered ret beet. Since the party is saturday evening our daughter could add some leafs of fresh sour dough bread from the village owned baking oven.

 

So the big question is: will the party people like it and how is it named in english? And should I do a variant with herings to fight alcohol better

 

heh, and just like that, a huge bowl of Schichtsalat to go.

 

Let me borrow some of your super powers Chattius ^^

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,522]

Salzmantel, Salzkruste

 

I would translate it as salt coat(ing), salt crust. Normally low fat fish and meat is done this way, prepared without oil in its own juice. My main question is: Is there a difference between salt coating and salt-crusted? In my area the thickness of the salt is different. Salzmantel would be like dough plates wrapped around and have to be opened with brute force with a hammer at the kitchen, while Salzkruste is thinner and opened on the plate on table.

 

Rote Beete in Salzkruste

 

I found an english recipe and a picture which is close to what my family did for generations:

Salt-Crusted Beets with Horseradish Crème Fraîche

 

 

Our century old version of the recipe:

This saturday the local baking house is heated and all citizens are free to use it. I wanted to show to my kids how their grandgrandfather was fighting the german tax system. There was a high tax on salt. However there was no tax on salt which was used for cows and other animals licking it. But this salt was painted red and a bitter taste of fresh gras was added. If you know the people in our area: never throw anything away, all can be re-used in unplaned ways....

 

Take red beets with the outer scale unharmed. Do a mix of salt, thyme, the white from eggs and water, coat the beats with this mix, and lay it in the baking house while the people bake their bread. After more than 2 hours the beets are really soft, juicy and tasty inside the crust. The crust however is hard as concrete. So these salt coated red beets were used as a food, eaten when doing forest works. Using the broad side of the axe to open it, and throwing the salt to the Salzlecke (Salt licking, a place where the forest cows and pigs moved to lick salt from the ground). The outer scale of the beets normally stuck to the crust, the red paint and taste of the animal salt were not reaching the beets, and the salt was really cheap and its final usage was that as it was taxed: animal salt. My grandgrandfather died aged 91, so the strange usage of animal salt was not doing any harm. He also did salt crusted fish, boar, doe, ...at sundays.

 

So the main difference to the recipe on the link is:

Outer scale undamaged -> more juicy but the spices from the coating do hard to reach the inside, but same is for the salt: less risc to have too salty beets.

Outer scale damaged/removed: some juice is sucked up by the salt, but spices reach the inside. If the beets are too small: too much salt may reach the inside.

 

I prefer our variant, because I am used to it and it is hard to add juice, but you can add spices when you serve the red beets dis-mantled. Also if the beets are too little and damaged: you get a dry and salty beet.

 

Now the salt tax has gone, but I still do one of these salt crust recipes (with big crystal butchering salt nowadays) whenever the salt licking place has to be refilled (I hate to throw food away).

 

It is kinda funny that nowadays even restaurants serve red beets this way.

Edited March 31, 2011 by chattius

[chattius 2,522]

Doppelgriffiges Mehl

 

Doppelgriffiges Mehl, hart to translate, flour(mehl) is normally milled very fine so that you can't feel single particles if moving it between your fingers. Griffig means that you have/feel grip(Griff), means you can feel single particles. It is sized somewhere between flour(below 0.1 millimetres particle size) and semolina (0.2 millimetres too 0.5 millimetres particle size).

[podgie_bear 184]

Although this may be slightly off topic, I have to admit I am very wary of dictionaries and their stupid literalness. I trusted a dictionary once too often and nearly lost a good friend because of it.

 

I thought that at Christmas it would be nice to send a Merry Christmas to my Serbian friend in Serbian. I carefully researched what I wanted to say and sent him "Merry Christmas to my best mate" in Serbian. What I didn't realise is the nuances the dictionary put on my words. It has taken a lot of bridge building and apologies to make up for the dictionary translation of "Merry Christmas to my favourite sexual partner"!

Edited May 4, 2011 by podgie_bear

[wolfie2kX 528]

Although this may be slightly off topic, I have to admit I am very wary of dictionaries and their stupid literalness. I trusted a dictionary once too often and nearly lost a good friend because of it.

 

I thought that at Christmas it would be nice to send a Merry Christmas to my Serbian friend in Serbian. I carefully researched what I wanted to say and sent him "Merry Christmas to my best mate" in Serbian. What I didn't realise is the nuances the dictionary put on my words. It has taken a lot of bridge building and apologies to make up for the dictionary translation of "Merry Christmas to my favourite sexual partner"!

 

Ack.. Yeah.. That one's pretty bad. Tho, I've found Google's online translator to be seriously lacking as well. It was during the Windows 7 Beta phase. I was advising a guy in China to "wait a couple of weeks for the Release Candidate"... Somehow Google mangled that into "wait a couple of weeks for the Reinforced Concrete"...

 

I hate it when someone/thing goes outta their way to make me look stupid...

[chattius 2,522]

My younger brother visited Birmingham/UK when he was 16 with his schoolclass. The local german bus company had a big BENDER on its side after its owners name. A bender is an old german profession: bending wood to make barrels.

 

When arriving at the english school which hosted my brothers class all of the kids started to laugh asking if they all would be gays.

[masteff 64]

Doppelgriffiges Mehl

 

Doppelgriffiges Mehl, hart to translate, flour(mehl) is normally milled very fine so that you can't feel single particles if moving it between your fingers. Griffig means that you have/feel grip(Griff), means you can feel single particles. It is sized somewhere between flour(below 0.1 millimetres particle size) and semolina (0.2 millimetres too 0.5 millimetres particle size).

Off the top of my head, I'd say "coarse flour" or "stone ground flour"

[chattius 2,522]

Thanks Masteff

 

Mittelhessischer Kochkäse

In Hessen, the german state I grew up and live, we do a lot of recipes with Handkäse. For example we use it to make our variant of Kochkäse (boiled cheese). Hessen is normally splitted in 3 areas: north, mid and south. We are mid. The differences in cooking are caused by the limes, a fortificated defense line done by the romans 2000 years back. South of it the cooking has some roman tranditions kept to nowadays, mid was a mixed area with a lot of celtic traditions, and north more germanic. But even after 2000 years the cooking styles kept some old traditions.

Mittelhessen (mid Hessen) had a Inheritance Law different to other states where the oldest son got the whole farm and had to pay his siblings. Here it was all splitted up, resulting in very small farm sizes, so no real farmers, more Feierabendbauern= afterwork farmers. They did farm work when they came home from their normal job.

At these small single cows farms small cheese was formed with hand made from sour milk. This cheese is called Handkäse (hand cheese).

 

You can melt a pound of Handkäse, 100gramm butter and 2 egg yolks in a double-boiler (we call it Wasserbad= water bathing).

 

The result is a cheese which is creamy even after cooling down. The german Kochkäse wiki redirects to Cancoillotte. But I know both it is really not the same. Made from Handkäse it has a way stronger aroma.

 

Handkäse

 

Kochkäse

Careful melting and mixing 500gramm Handkäse(I like one with caramay), 100 gramm butter and 2 yolks from eggs. The result will be creamy even after cooling.

 

 

Smeared on a sour dough bread with roasted onions

 

On a Schnitzel

 

Onion cake: yeast dough, onions, apple piece and Kochkäse

...

 

So many recipes, but how would Kochkäse be translated. Handkäse gets really aromatic (and smelly) when it ripes, thats the main difference to Cancoillotte, where the added herbs make the difference. At Kochkäse it is if any then only caramay, and the difference is in how old the used Handkäse is.

 

We use up like one pound of Handkäse in 2 weeks, so I must say it is by far our most often eaten cheese. Handkäse is among the cheeses with the lowest amount of fat. Making Kochkäse adds some fat, but you don't need to smear butter on your bread.

[masteff 64]

It appears that cheese names don't always have a translation... I blame the French and their insisting on international trade protection for stuff like wine and cheese.

 

I looked at the store last night but nothing close to handkase. I might try to go to a deli or specialty store over the weekend.

[chattius 2,522]

It is probably because Handkäse can't be kept for more than 6 weeks. I continues riping and after 6 weeks it is overdone: smelly.

Harzer, Mainzer Käse, ... are close to Handkäse. People outside the traditional 'Hand-cheese-areas' often call all the variants hand-chesse.

200gramm at 7.50 Dollar? Outch. But it is probably because it has to be refridgerated at shipping or even flying.

http://search.germandeli.com/search?query=handk%E4se&x=0&y=0&vwcatalog=gdcom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sour_milk_cheese

 

---

 

The oldest daughter of my sister studies medicine, focused on allergies, and makes own sour-milk-cheeses using cheese-mites: "mite cheese". A clay cellar room in our field barn is filled with her experiments. She is researching if you can fight severe house dust mite allergies with the milder allergy from cheese mites.

 

---

 

Making your own hand cheese

1. 
    
   
2. Milk a cow.
   
3. Place the bucket with the milk at a not to hot and not to cold place, till the milk gets sour and hardens.
   
4. If you think that the hardening process stopped, sieve the milk through a uncoloured piece of cotton fabric
   
5. Add a bit salt and if you like caraway seeds to the hardened remains
   
6. Form small balls with your hands (like meatballs)
   
7. Place them on a wooden board and cover with a uncoloured piece of cotton fabric
   
8. Place at a warm place for some days
   
9. Press a cheese-ball with your finger and if no fingerprint remains proceed with next step, else try again the next day
   
10. Depending on the taste you want: wet the cheese balls in whey (milk plasma) and/or (fruit-) wine which just turns into vinegar and has bacteria
    
11. Put the balls into a earthenware pot
    
12. Wet a uncoloured piece of cotton fabric with vinegar (but shouldn't loose drops) and lay it on the balls
    
13. Close the pot with pergament paper and a rubber band
    
14. Repeat step 11+12 till the cheese is ripe
    

 

Don't be overly clean in your works, certain bacterias are needed to make the cheese ripe A litre milk results in around 4 cheese balls.

 

If you don't put it in a eathen ware pot, you can create red cheese with a certain type of bacteria. But the carotin (red colour) is only build if light can reach the cheese. To make the red cheese in step 9 you use instead whey/vinegar you use Rotschmiere (red grease?). You can use pieces of the red skin of certain red cheeses like Roumadour. Make tiny pieces, add water, and the next day to use this liquid in step 9. You will have to repeat step 9 till the cheese is ripe. Not putting in a pot (because it needs light) will make the cheese to dry out, so the whetting has to be repeated from time too time. (took me 3 years to learn it, so red cheese is nothing for starters).

[masteff 64]

Your two vocabulary words today are:

cheesecloth and pergament = parchment

 

 

At first that sounds a bit gross since you let the milk sour, but I am a fan of sourdough bread which has a similar fermenting process. As for your cheese recipe, I read somewhere that it can only be done with fresh/raw milk because pasteurizing kills certain necessary bacteria.

 

Sourdough bread begins with "starter". It's simply a water and flour mix which is allowed to gather wild yeast (some yeast may occur in the flour but much comes from the air). Sourdough from San Francisco is famous because of unique wild yeasts in the air there which give a strong tangy flavor to the bread.

[chattius 2,522]

We have a village owned baking house. After each baking day 2 people are choosen who have to care for the sour dough starter. Some sour dough is kept for the next baking, and people rotate who have to care for the starter.

 

---

 

Schichtkäse

Schichtkäse translates layered cheese, better would be layered Quark):

Quark is whirled to make it homegene and creamy when put into the selling containers.

Schichtkäse is not whirled. Something like a ladle is used to put pieces of quark with different fat contents into the selling container. Normally bottom and top are low fat quark, while 'high-fat'-quark is placed in the mid. So you get layers of different quarks, low-fat more white, high-fat more yellow. High-fat is a bit misleading since the average fat containing of the whole mix is just 10%.

 

 

Quark and its variants are often translated curde cheese. But Quark isn't a cheese using rennet. So I am not sure how to translate Schichtkäse- if quark (not the nuclear physics thing) would found its way into english dictionaries already, I would translated Schichtkäse as layered quark.

[chattius 2,522]

Ochsenbacken

 

The pure muscle and tendons beef cut from the cheek of an ox. Ruminants are chewing all day, so the cheek muscle is no fat but with many fine tendons. It is very cheap beef, hard to chew. But if you marinate it for several days it turns into a delicatess. I read several translations as beef cheek, ox cheek, ... But it seems the english recipes are not doing the week long marinating we use to do? Is beef cheek only from calves, or are not only the big tendons removed?

 

You can use deer cheeks, moose cheeks, roe cheeks, ... too

 

http://www.bbr.com/wine-club/recipes-ox-mushroom

 

Only marinating over night here.... but english site also mentions cheap price and great for slow cooking.

[chattius 2,522]

Milchsauer eingelegt

When doing our own cheese a liquid named Molke (whey) is left. We use the liquid to conserve vegs and fruits.

What I do currently:

Removing stones from Reineclaudes (sort of green plums) cutting them in four parts and putting them in a glass. Pour whey in the glas till all is covered. Close the glass and let the milk acid bacteria do their job.

It is close to using salt water (brine?) or vinegar but the taste is softer and less salty. Does it have a special name in english?

Milch = milk, sauer = sour, eingelegt = pickled

 

Summer breaks start tomorrow so we did some preparations for a family party at weekend.

Made own cheese. Leftover whey is used for conserving fruits.

Cheese is cold smoked. While the smoking oven is still warm trouts are smoked (we did some fishing yesterday evening when it was too warm to sleep).

[chattius 2,522]

Today it is something only indirect related to food:

Kids were making circular Kraterbeete some weeks ago. It is really Kraterbeete (crater beds/patches) and not Kräuterbeete (herb beds/patches). Krater = crater, Kräuter = herbs. You dig a hole and use the dug out earth to make the surroundings higher. Now you place plants which need lot of water (tomato) in the hole, plants which hate water like thymian on the 'wall', sun hungry ones on the descending part to the north, shadow liking on the shadow of the south wall, ...

So what is a Kraterbeet in English?

 

I showed them how to make other shapes than a disc, like an ellipse for a Kräuterbeet. The method is called Gärtnerkonstruktion in German, direct translation would be gardener construction. It is a method to draw an ellipse with two poles. a stick and and a rope.

Adding more poles or tying the rope to the 'pencil', or laying sloops you can also draw ovals and other geometric figures. An egg shape you can do with 3 poles, a 'pencil' and a rope ends tied together.

Funnily ellipses are in math lessons for our third next month. So all teaching already done (for the generation which will come and read this: written in the time of corona and close schools).

So what is a Gärtnerkonstruktion in Engllish.

 

 

[chattius 2,522]

What is Blaukochen?

pons dictionary says: to cook a fish blue (poach an unscaled fish in vinegar until it turns blue)

In the pons entry vinegar should be replaced by Chattius' special mix or a special court-bouillon. Depending on the fish type, size and how long since it was caught the mix is different. I prefer self made fruit wine which is just about to turn into fruit vinegar with some vegs.

The fresh(!!!) slime of some fish reacts to acid's and turns blue. It must be really fresh. Ordering a Forelle Blau, you are asked by the cook which trout should be taken out of the aquarium and killed. The skin should be undamaged.

Best fish in my taste is an Elsässer Saibling, A breed from two different charrs.