Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Sam.
And I'm Rob. The British are not famous
for their food or rather they are famous,
but for bad food.
While French and Italian cooking is admired around the world,
the UK has a reputation for overboiled vegetables,
mushy peas and black pudding, a dish made from pig's blood.
Oh, that doesn't sound very tasty,
does it? But
I don't think our reputation for bad cooking is still true today,
Sam. The last twenty years have seen big changes as Brits have fallen
in love with international foods like Indian curry and Asian rice dishes
and with non-traditional cooking like vegetarian and vegan food.
Some of the most popular food in Britain comes from other countries
and includes the recipes, flavours and tastes of those faraway places.
But how do recipes and cooking ideas from all over the world make their way
onto the British dining table? In this programme,
we'll be finding out.
We'll be meeting the recipe translators.
These chefs translate recipes -
the instructions, explaining how to combine the different items -
the ingredients they will cook, from their own language
into English, and of course
we'll be learning some new vocabulary as well.
Sounds good Rob, but first,
I have a question for you.
It may be true that British cooking is better than it used to be,
but there's still some pretty bad food out there.
So, according to a 2019 YouGov survey,
which UK Food was voted the worst?
Was it a) steak and kidney pies.
b) Scotch eggs, or c) haggis?
Oh, I've got to say, Scotch eggs.
I've never liked them that much.
OK, all right Rob,
I will reveal the answer later in the programme.
Now, as anyone who speaks more than one language knows, translating involves more
than getting the dictionary out. Recipe translators need
to know the vocabulary for different ingredients and cooking techniques,
while also preserving the heart of the recipe.
Listen as BBC
World Service programme, The Food Chain, talks with recipe translator,
Rosa Llopis.
Long story short,
I began to work as an interpreter for Le Cordon Bleu,
the French cuisine school, and I realised that there was no,
I mean, no such specialisation in Spain.
at least, like in gastronomy or cooking translation.
Recipe translation is closely connected to gastronomy,
the art and knowledge involved in preparing and eating good food.
This is contained in a country's traditional recipes, written in
its own language, not English, hence Rosa's decision to specialise in recipe
translation. If you specialise in a subject, you focus on studying
and learning all about it.
When Rosa is asked
how she became a recipe translator.
She begins by saying 'to cut a long story short'.
This phrase can be used when you are explaining what happened in a few words
without giving all the details.
Like most recipe translators, Rosa's goal is to produce a cookbook
in English, containing the best recipes from her own country, Spain.
But doing this is not so easy as she explained to BBC
World Service programme, The Food Chain.
If my readers
can’t replicate those recipes, they won’t buy the book,
so what I mean is,
I don't only have to find, for instance, the translation of the name
of an ingredient.
If it's an ingredient that we don't use or we don't have in Spain,
I always try to offer an alternative, so they can mimic the flavour or the results
Rosa's cookbook allows readers to replicate her dishes - to make them again
in exactly the same way.
But this isn't easy when the recipe includes ingredients
which are difficult to find - something like lemon grass, which is used
in some Spanish cooking,
but can be hard to find in the shops.
For this reason, Rosa gives an alternative - a substitute ingredient -
which mimics or copies
the flavour of a certain food. To mimic the flavour of lemon grass for example,
she recommends using lemon juice.
It's not easy work,
but thanks to recipe translators
like Rosa, people here in the UK can cook something a little tastier
than meat and boiled vegetables.
Speaking of which, it's time to reveal the answer to my question, Rob.
Yes, you asked which food was voted the worst by a recent UK YouGov survey,
and I said it was Scotch eggs - that's boiled eggs wrapped in sausage meat
and breadcrumbs. Yuck!
In fact, the correct answer was c) haggis - which doesn't sound much nicer
because the Scottish dish,
haggis, is made using a sheep's stomach.
Oh yuck. OK, let's quickly move on to recap the vocabulary
we have learnt from this programme, starting with 'ingredient',
an item of food
that is combined with other food to prepare a particular dish.
'Gastronomy' is the art and knowledge involved in preparing
and eating good food. If you 'specialise'
in something, you have spent time studying and learning all about
it, becoming an expert in that subject.
The phrase 'to cut a long story short' is used in British English,
when you want to explain what happened in a few words
without giving all the details. To 'replicate' something means to make
or do it again in exactly the same way.
And finally to 'mimic' something means to copy the way in which it is done,
sometimes in a funny way.
Well, once again our six minutes are up. Bye for now.
Bye bye.