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The English language can be a dangerous weapon when it gets into the wrong hands! This is nowhere more evident than in the world of catering, where restaurant menus that make perfect sense in their native language are translated for the benefit of their English-speaking customers.
Many years ago a work colleague told me that she had been alarmed at being offered “Cheese threatened by ham”.
I have been on the lookout for similar mistranslations ever since, and here are a few that seem to be in a similar vein (although not seen by me personally):
Fried chicken babies, fungus cream and grill cattle bowels
Chicken Gordon blue, pork shops, eggs scrambling
Buttered saucepans and fried hormones
Fried milk, children sandwiches, roast cattle and boiled sheep
Steamed fillet of new zeal and orange roughy
Chopped cow with a wire through it
Dreaded veal cutlet with potatoes in dream
Pork with fresh garbage
Just a few days ago I drove past a Chinese takeaway in Worcestershire that declared that it offered China Meals to Take Away – you could see what they meant, but it just didn’t sound quite right!
