Hey,

do you know any internet links where I'll be able to find some translations of the french food descriptions?? I'm just scared that I accidentally order e.g. frog legs or things like that

Best regards,
linchen

Sorry I don't have an answer but I bought a wonderful small book called "The Berlitz European Menu Reader". It's pocket sized and has sections for each country. Not only food names, but also restaurant phrases and terms.

But my best bet is spending some time in markets and focusing on the signs. It's one thing to see "veau" on a menu and know it's veal, but quite another to recognize that the word next to it means brains or something even worse!

Hi Linchen,

I love frog's legs.

You ought to try "ris de veau".

See http://www.ddc.com/cheferic/gloss.htm

I have a French Food Glossary in Word that's very comprehensive. It was put together by a group of AOL France board folks a few years ago. If you use MS Word and have a printer, I'd be happy to send it to you. My e-mail address is [email protected]

I learned one lesson on our last trip to France. <i>Andouillette</i> translates as chitterlings, which is further translated as good ol' Southern chittlins.

Dr. Seuss put it best: &quot;I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere.&quot;

Here you go:
http://www.intimatefrance.com/glossary.pdf

There's a food glossary at http://www.beyond.fr/food/dictionary.html. If you're interested in Provence, the site http://www.beyond.fr/ is interesting in general (&quot;Provence Beyond the French Riviera&quot.

I also have a couple of paper books that I carry: The <i>Marling Menu-Master for France</i> and <i>Eating and Drinking in France</i>, from the &quot;What kind of food am I?&quot; series. I prefer the latter, because it just lists foods alphabetically, so you can look up anything quickly. The problem with it is that it's out of print - I found a used copy on Amazon, but they come and go.

<i>Marling</i> is in print, I think, but it lists foods by category (&quot;potages, oeufs, poissons&quot;, etc.), so if you are trying to look something up, but guess the category wrong, you don't find it.

mebanese, the first time I was exposed to <i>andouillettes</i>, I ate a vast quantity and enjoyed them, but then somehow, thinking back on them later, I found them disgusting, and have never been able to have them again. Until your post, I was ignorant of what &quot;chittlins&quot; are.

- Larry

And another:

http://www.beyond.fr/food/dictfoodfr.html

Yummy! Can someone help me with a name for a food I had. It was served as an appetizer and was a cold meat with a pastry crust served sliced. A pate? Liver? Whatever it was, I must have more.

There's another one at http://www.patriciawells.com/glossary/atoz/atoz.htm

I have a wonderful book &quot;Rendez-vous with France&quot; by Jill Butler, it has cute pictures. It is a Point and Prononuce guide to traveling, shopping and eating,

Thanks, Fodorites, for all these great links! Beachbum, I particularly like the Patricia Wells site.

But I do have a bone to pick with ALL of these food dictionaries, including my two printed ones. My wife Margie pointed out that none of them give the gender of the French words.

I suppose that they figure that all you want to know is what you're eating. But when I find something I like, I then want to ORDER it, in a complete sentence. So do I say, &quot;je prends le coulis&quot;, or &quot;je prends la coulis&quot;? I can't look it up in my small travelling dictionary, because it isn't there - that's why I needed the specialized culinary dictionary in the first place! OK, it's in my big fat Petit Larousse at home (it's LE coulis), but I can't carry that one. And many specialized culinary terms can't be found even there.

Oops.

- Larry

I guess it's true a lot of those food/menu dictionaries don't list gender. However, a real French-English dictionary will, so maybe you should carry one of them instead of a travelers dictionary. I have a small Larousse French-English (mini version, just about 1-1/2 inches thick and maybe three inches tall) and it has coulis in it. That's a pretty common word.

FYI I personally wouldn't say &quot;je prends&quot; whatever to order something--wrong tense. I use other words, anyway, to order, je voudrais ... or j'aimerais ... Sometimes I don't use complete sentences, though, just as I don't at home ... (eg, un cafe, s'il vous plait or &quot;le faux filet, SVP&quot

Christina, thanks for your reply. Yes, the simple word I picked, &quot;coulis&quot;, is rather common, but there are plenty of words in these gastronomic lists, and on menus, that you simply won't find in a regular dictionary - even a large one. They are too specialized.

And a really large dictionary is just too much to carry. My Petit Robert weighs 4.5 pounds. I'd rather carry a small dictionary and a specialized food listing (both of which I keep on my PDA, not in paper form). I can stumble along and guess at the gender.

I would ordinarily have been with you on &quot;je voudrais&quot; - the conditional is more polite, usually. But the present tense &quot;je prends&quot; (literally &quot;I take&quot;, but in context, &quot;prendre&quot; can also mean &quot;eat&quot was suggested as common usage by my wife's French teacher. I'll ask people about it on our upcoming trip, see how they react, and report back.

- Larry

A dictionary will not &quot;cut it&quot; with menu items. Take St.Cirq up on her offer. That is a TERRIFIC glossary. Marling is near useless.

Larry/Christina
I'd say that &quot;je prends&quot; is fine (tense included) when ordering at a restaurant. Or perhaps &quot;je vais prendre&quot;. It feels quite natural to me (French is the language I speak most often these days...)

I might say &quot;je voudrais&quot; or &quot;j'aimerais&quot; too, but perhaps I'd use that more when buying food over a counter, less when ordering from a menu at a restaurant. It depends!

Kansan - what you had would be something or other 'en cro&ucirc;te' (i.e, in a crust). But that doesn't help too much with identifying the something or other. It could have been called 'p&acirc;t&eacute; en cro&ucirc;te', if the texture was a paste, and if it were it could have included liver; but it could just as easily have been minced ham or pork, like an English pork pie.