Italy - ordered something I thought had to to do with red pepper and turned out to be salted sardine. I'll try anything but I couldn't do that one.
Spain - ordered flaminquines (how could anything with such a lovely name be anything but good?) and got a spanish version of a corn dog.

You don't need to leave the US to run into a food problem. I love soft shell crab, preferably salted and cooked Vietnamese style with hot peppers. But years ago, in some roadside dive on Cape Hatteras, my wife and I both ordered "soft-shell crab sandwiches".

When they arrived, they proved to be made with a round "bulky" roll cut in half. The bottom of the roll was stacked with lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise, and a breaded deep-fried crab. This was then topped with the top of the roll.

I'm sorry to report that Margie just couldn't take the appearance of the sandwich, with all the little feet sticking out of the roll in every direction. I ate both of them (I thought they were great), and Margie ordered something else.

Alas, Margie later in life developed an allergy to shellfish, and now can't eat crab at all.

By the way, if anyone is looking for a French-English food dictionary, I think the best one is free. You can find it on the Patricia Wells web site, at:

http://www.patriciawells.com/glossary/atoz/glossary.htm

I carry the "Word" version on my PDA.

- Larry

Our first trip to France, our first night in Paris. Arrived at our hotel about 9 p.m. Thought we would go out and have an appetizer and glass of wine before going to bed. We went to a small local bistro, and ordered pate avec trois fromage. Thought we would get some pate with three different cheeses.Perfect. The waitress looked at us a little odd, but took the order. She then brought out the macaroni and cheese. We looked at it and pretended that it was exactly what we wanted.
And then there is andouillette.(sp)

In a very small town in northern Japan, we ordered the "local specialties" menu. Inago = Grasshopper. Crunchy.

I never experienced or saw this when I lived in Norway, but I had plenty of friends who did:

Knowing that Europeans don't put much ice in their drinks, Americans visiting or moving to Norway would learn the phrase "med is" (may ees) - with ice.

What they didn't know, however, was that "is" is also shorthand for "iskrem" (ice cream). Imagine their surprise when they ordered Cokes "med is" and received Coke floats (made with soft serve) rather than sodas with lots of ice cubes!

<i>Americans visiting or moving to Norway would learn the phrase "med is" (may ees) - with ice</i>

Their attempt to speak the language is laudable, but in our recent travels in Norway we never met anyone who did not speak at least passable English, and most of the people spoke excellent English.

Michael,

This was 20 years ago - although admittedly even then much of the population spoke at least some English.

But obviously the Americans were understood, because they got what they ordered. It just wasn't what they expected! (They should have used "isbiter" = ice cubes instead of "is" = ice.)

Incidentally, I still remember enough of the Norwegian I learned to carry on a conversation, and when I meet people from Norway they are always pleased at the effort I make to speak to them in their native tongue - not to mention a bit surprised, given how few Norwegian speakers (on a realtive basis, at least) there are in the world.

This is funny but not gross. Last fall in Montignac in the Dordogne, we stopped at a little cafe on the river for lunch. They had a sandwich americano listed on the menu- so we ordered two expecting a sandwich with lettuce and tomatoes. What we got was a sandwich (ham, I think) with french fries on the sandwich! We laughed the whole time we were eating - never had the fries on the sandwich before!

I've found that the ability of people to speak foreign languages is more or less inversely proportional to the usefulness of their own language outside their country.

Hence the general weakness of Americans in foreign languages. English is so widely spoken that Americans don't need to learn other languages. This also explains the weakness of the French in foreign languages. Historically, French was also widely spoken world-wide. As English has risen and French has declined as an international language, the French are catching on, and starting to learn more English.

In general, the Scandinavians are great with foreign languages, since their own languages are relatively useless once they set foot outside their own countries. It seems to me that the Finns are the champs - their English is often so perfect that they sound British.

OK, I'd better include something on-topic. Here's an old trilingual joke (I don't think this ever really happened):

Two Germans sat down at a café in Paris shortly after the end of World War II. One of them spoke French very well, so he decided to order, in the hopes that the waiter wouldn't recognize that they were German. When the waiter arrived, he asked for "<i>deux Martini</i>." You may recall that "Martini" in France is the name of a vermouth (as in "Martini & Rossi").

But languages being as tricky as they are, the waiter detected in those two words the hint of an accent. Eyeing his customers, he decided that they were probably Americans! But that meant, the savvy waiter decided, that they might really not want two glasses of vermouth. Perhaps they wanted an <i>American</i> martini, made with gin and just a small amount of vermouth - often called a "dry martini". And so the waiter asked, "dry?"

To which the second German, without thinking, replied, "<i>Nicht drei, zwei!</i>"

By the way, I have actually seen an American order a "martini" in France, and be surprised when he got a glass of vermouth.

Just as we received the keys for our rental car in Rome, my mother remembered that she forgot to take her pills. This was important, so we rushed across the street to a bar. Since she must (in her mind) take her pills with cold milk we struggled to make our order and promptly went outside to wait at a table in the hot sun. The waiter came out with a perfect espresso, a glass of milk and a very strange look on his face. We realized why when my mother took her first pill and almost choked on her milk. To this day I'm sure the waiter is still wondering why those crazy ladies wanted steamed milk in a glass. It was a priceless moment!

<i>This also explains the weakness of the French in foreign languages. Historically, French was also widely spoken world-wide. As English has risen and French has declined as an international language, the French are catching on, and starting to learn more English.</i>

Possibly, but I would say that people from Latin countries are generally less likely to be speaking English, the French just had an excuse.

justretired--That same "martini" exists in Italy, and gets the same reaction from Americans.

ellenem, I think that same "martini" exists in Italy because in fact it <i>is</i> Italian, even when it's served in France.

For a while, I thought, the French resisted learning English because they resented the fact that English was supplanting French as a the international <i>lingua-franca</i>.

I wonder how we'll do when English gets supplanted by Mandarin Chinese, or whatever comes next. It really would help if we could reform our *%&#&%^ spelling.

The first time I was in France (OK, folks, I have to admit it was in 1960), the family I stayed with had helpfully bought me some American-style cereal for breakfast. When I told them that it was usually served with milk, they gave me a glass of boiled milk.

When I said that the milk was usually served cold, the next day they tried a glass of boiled milk that had been cooled to room temperature. That was as cold as they could get it, since, it turned out, they didn't have a refrigerator or even an ice box. They just shopped for fresh food every day, buying only the amount that they planned to eat.

And the milk needed to be boiled, because it wasn't Pasteurized. Wasn't Pasteur French?

That was the trip that made me fascinated with travel.

- Larry

justretired,

your story is really truthful.

We are Germans, and when we visited New Orleans and waited for our table in a restaurant (Commanders Palace), DW wanted a straight Martini - a vermouth made by Martini. The barkeeper kept on asking with vodka or with gin, and I tried to explain "just straight Martini2 and I pointed to a bottle of Martini but the barkeeper did not understand. Finally I succeeded to get DW a glass of straight Martini, but it was a very hard job.

For us Europeans, it is very hard when Americans misinterpret European words like "Martini". Another problem is "entree". "Entree" is a French word and means "starter", but Americans think it means "main course" (in French "plat") which causes a lot of confusion, both for Americans and in Europe and for Europeans in America.

<i>Martini & Rossi</i> is just one brand of sweet vermouth, and it also produces dry vermouth and Bianca (white sweet vermouth). So one could argue that one should not expect just sweet vermouth when saying Martini.

The classic Italian martini is with Martini Bianca and a wedge of lemon. A bottle costs only about $8 in NYC, so I can go on vacation anytime with my favorite aperitivo.

In Segovia just a couple weeks ago ... my husband, who speaks no Spanish at all, ordered what he thought was going to be a pork chop (I told him it wasn't that, but he didn't listen).

When the plate arrived, whatever the dark brown mass was, it jiggled. My husband said it was basically a huge glob of fat covered with gravy.

He asked the waiter for a translation into English, and he brought us a menu, identifying the food as "chin-strap."

Yikes!

Traveller1959, I've always been intrigued by the word "entrée". In French, it clearly means "entrance", and hence is used for the first course of a meal.

The current Wikipedia entry ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrée )says:

An <b>entrée</b> (pronounced <b>on-tray</b>)(French, literally meaning <i>entry</i> or <i>entrance</i>) is one of several savoury courses in a Western-style formal meal service, specifically a smaller course that precedes the main course. Usage may differ in North America where the disappearance in the early 20th century of a large communal main course such as a roast as a standard part of the meal has led to the term being used to describe the main course itself. In that case what would otherwise be called the entrée is called the <b>first course</b>, <b>appetizer</b> or a <b>starter</b>.

There's a bit more discussion as to how the evolution of the word proceeded. But it certainly has been the cause of a great deal of confusion.

- Larry

In Novigrad, Istria (Croatia) a couple of months ago, I thought I was ordering grilled Abalone. The waiter reminded me of "Manuel" from Fawlty Towers. I took a couple of bites of some breaded thing that came to my table, and then I went and found a young waitress, because everybody under 35 in Croatia speaks pretty good English. I asked her to come identify what was on my plate. It was Weiner Schnitzel...... LOL.

A very hot lunchtime in Parma, and we are happy to find a table in an obviously popular trattoria. The menu is full of unfamiliar words but we are always willing to give new foods a try. We order, relax with our drinks, and watch food delivered to another table, at which point my then rudimentary Italian kicks in, and I realise that I have ordered a local speciality of horsemeat tartar.