Translating Food

For my independent reading, I read a Russian book, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. Obviously, this book is pertinent to a literature class; otherwise, I wouldn't be allowed to read it for my independent reading. But its not English literature! It, as well as many other books studied in Literature class, like the short story by Gabriela Garcia Marquez, has to be translated first into English before it can be used to study literature.

Translating can be difficult. Sure, some languages like Spanish are distant cousins of English which that has whose separate branches are united by marriage. But some languages, like Ancient Greek and Hebrew, are of estranged branches or completely different families.

(http://www.jantoo.com/cartoons/lowres/740/74030624_low.jpg)

English does not get along with Ancient Greek and Hebrew. This means that there are frequent phrases where we really don't know what the phrase says in English, even though we know for sure what the phrase is in the original language. Consider, for example, the sentence:

I have a bit of an obsession with cookies. They are just too good - the sugar, the chocolate, the mix of crispy and soft that cannot be found in any other food. Cookies are just plain amazing.

Ancient Greek and Hebrew lacked novel concepts like punctuation, capitalization, and even spaces. So this becomes:

IHAVEABITOFANOBSESSIONWITHCOOKIESTHEYAREJUSTTOOGOODTHESUGARTHECHOCOLATETHEMIXOFCRISPYANDSOFTTHATCANNOTBEFOUNDINANYOTHERFOODCOOKIESAREJUSTPLAINAMAZING

However, they are also in a foreign language:

TENGOUNAPEQUEÑAOBSESIÓNCONLASGALLETASELLOSSONSIMPLEMENTEDEMASIADOBUENOELAZÚCARELCHOCOLATELAMEZCLADECRUJIENTEYSUAVEQUENOSEPUEDEENCONTRARENOTROCOMIDALASGALLETASSONSIMPLEMENTEINCREÍBLE

But Ancient Greek and Hebrew don't use the same alphabet as English or even a similar one. I couldn't figure out how to get Windings in this font, but if you can't imagine the terror copy and paste the phrase into Word and change the font to Windings. It is scary.

All of this seems like mere inconveniences, but it gets even worse. Syntax is all mixed up, and words do not have easy equivalents. There are two Greek words in the Bible that translate to love; the words for servant and slave are the same, some Hebrew words have unknown meaning. Without quotation marks, it is often difficult to tell when quotes end (e.g. Galatians 2:14-?). This often leads to it being basically impossible to translate without needing to make an interpretation and to confusion when the best word to translate a word as isn't perfect. For example, the "so" in John 3:16 ("For God so loved the world that he sent His one and only son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life") is often understood as "so much," but it really is just a connecting word that could be less succinctly translated as "in this way." Basically, Bible translation is very difficult and scholars often don't agree on how to translate a phrase.

(http://www.rsquaredcomicz.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/WM-bible-translations.jpg)

While brooding on this the other day, it got me wondering, "What does this have to do with food?" Because everything, ultimately, boils down to food.

Well, do we get food from another country that has been adapted to work better with our platelets here?

(http://goodlogo.com/images/logos/taco_bell_logo_2934.gif)

Yes. American food is little more than [insert nationality here] flavored fat. Of course, there are many ways to flavor fat of the same nationality. So Mexican food gets its translation all confundled too; you have versions as widespread as Taco Bell and Hacienda. They are all equivalent to what you would eat in Mexico, but some are more Americanized further than others such that they the ingredients do not match well with real, native ingredients, its just that the overall product gives the general gist in a more "American" way. Just like Bible translations, you different versions of Mexican food are favored by different people - most people prefer Qdoba or Chipotle over Moes, but Moes still has a few fans, just like there are the rare people who prefer the NRSV over the NIV or ESV.

This comparison holds to other Americanized foods as well - Italian, Chinese, French, you name it. Picture the great diversity of just one kind of Americanized food - the varying degrees and depth of Americanization is incredible! There is one key difference where this comparison falls apart: food translators genererally don't care if the "meaning" of the food changes; if it separates competely from the gist of the original food, most people don't care. Literature translators, however, have to take extreme care to preserve the meaning of a text as they translate it - if they don't then the output will not really be a representation of the original and nobody would want to read it. So next time you set down and read a translated book, think of this - take a moment of silence in honor of the poor translator, and be grateful for time and energy they spent to bring a great piece literature to you.