Dictionary review: Cartes et Menus de Restaurant Ц Dictionnaire franчais Ц anglais

Cartes et Menus de Restaurant Ц Dictionnaire franчais Ц anglais Ц Geneviève de Temmerman & Didier Chedorge
Reviewed by Françoise Herrmann

Publisher: Editions Scribo in Paris (France)
Publication date: June 2007 Ц Third Edition
ISBN 2-9503317-3-4 (France)
Available from: www.scribo.fr
55 € (approx. $85.00)

Scribo's Cartes et Menus de Restaurant - Dictionnaire franчais-anglais (compiled by Geneviève de Temmerman and Didier Chedorge) was primarily designed as a reference and translation dictionary for professionals of the restaurant industry. By extension, this is a tool that dovetails perfectly with the needs of professional translators, summoned to translate for the restaurant industry from French to English. Researched with the collaboration of French restaurants and the faculty at renowned culinary art schools such as l'École LeNôtre, this prize-winning 475-page dictionary, with more than 11,000 entries, has become a premium reference for restaurants and professional training schools throughout France and Europe. Thus, when you have exhausted all your general-purpose-institutional-giant dictionary resources, and you need a specialized dictionary to translate (and to understand) French menu items such as à la Nantaise (Nantes-style), à la Navarraise (Navarre-style),à la Parisienne (Paris-style) or à la Nantua (Nantua-style), Scribo's Cartes et Menus de Restaurant not only supplies translations, it also offers definitions (termed explanations) of chefspeak!

Depth - Varieties and concordant preparations
Most headwords in ScriboТs Cartes et Menus de Restaurant explode with varieties and concordant preparations designed to supply inspiration for restaurant professionals and a treasure trove for translators. For example, a headword such as saumon (salmon) lists 11 different varieties of salmon and 62 different types of concordant preparations, to which are cross-referenced another 125 concordant methods of preparing fish (under the headword poisson [fish])! The result, beyond varieties such as saumon dТÉcosse (Scottish salmon) and saumon du gave (mountain stream salmon), is an in-depth list of salmon preparations such as cervelas de saumon (salmon sausage), pavé de saumon (thick salmon steak) and saumon р l'unilatéral (salmon cooked on one side only), further cross-referenced with an extensive list of concordant generic-fish preparations, among which you will find the following examples:

[Е] à lТaigre-doux: [Е] in a sweet and sour sauce
[Е] à lТaigelette: [...] in a lightly tart sauce
[Е] à l'aneth: [Е] with dill
[Е] à lТembeurée de poireaux : [Е] with buttered leeks
[Е] à lТoseille: [Е] with sorrel
[Е] à la diable: devilled [Е] (with piquant sauce)
[Е] à la fleur de sel: [Е] with pure sea salt
[Е] à la nage: [Е] in aromatic broth
[Е] à la vapeur: steamed [Е]
[Е] à la vapeur de basilique: [Е] steamed with basil
[Е] au barbecue: barbecued [Е]
[Е] au beurre blanc: [Е] in white butter sauce
[Е] au beurre de ciboulette : [Е] in chive butter
[Е] au beurre de nage:[Е] in a light white butter sauce
[Е] au beurre sur un lit dТépinards crèmes: [Е] with butter sauce on a bed of creamed spinach
[Е] au beurre vert: [Е] with herb butter
[Е] au champagne: [Е] cooked with champagne
[Е] au cidre: [Е] cooked with cider
[Е] au coulis de langoustines: [Е] with a Dublin Bay prawn sauce
[Е] au court-bouillon: [Е] poached in an aromatic stock
Е.
This generous mapping of culinary varieties and preparations will surprise you as it is applied throughout the dictionary, with consistent attention to detail, for headwords as unexpected as vapeur (steam) or côte (chop, cutlet [1. lamb [Е], 2. beef rib, 3. venison [Е], 4. mutton [Е], 5. porc [Е], 6. veal [Е]), including listing of all the sumptuous preparations for each type of УchopФ.

Breadth - Desserts included and indexing
Beyond in-depth mapping of food varieties and their exquisite preparations, Scribo's Cartes et Menus de restaurant also spans breadth of corpus. Included in this dictionary you will find:

Technical specialization and skill, uncharted in traditional general-purpose and institutional giant resources. For example: helvelle(s) (mitre d'évêque): turban-top mushrooms; cressonade: watercress sauce; croquandine de [Е]: crisply fried [Е]; parmentier de [Е]: a dish including potatoes; oursinade: sea-urchin sauce (or soup); or the prized differences between daurade (gilt-head bream) and dorade (sea bream).

Entries for all types of menu items (appetizers, entrées, side orders) including desserts, which traditionally belong to a separate domain of the culinary arts. Oenology is the only exception, covered in a separate Scribo publication, a pocket dictionary entitled: The A to Z of French wine.

Indexing of regional and international specialties. For example:

bastella: stuffed pastry pocket [Corsica]
noque: small round quenelle [Alsace]
crique: small potatoe pancake [Auvergne]
panisse: thick fried pancake of chickpea flour [Provence]
pipщrade: fondue of sweet peppers and tomatoes flavored with garlic and onions

Indexing of differences between American and British English. For example:

endive: chicory [UK], Belgian endive [US]
armoise: artemesia [UK], sagebrush [US]
conserves: tinned food [UK], canned food [US]
boudin: black pudding [UK], blood sausage [US]
myrtilles: bilberry [UK], blueberry[US]

Inclusion of certain tools of the trade e.g. mandoline (vegetable slicer), dariole (small cyclindrical mould), hâtelet/attelet (decorative skewer), caquelon (fondue dish).

Contextualization - translation tips and definitions
Scribo suggests that using Cartes et Menus de Restaurant for translating menus is as easy as playing with Legos™. The analogy holds true to the extent that translation tips are provided wherever the symbol [Е] appears for key entries, guiding you to fill-in the spaces (or to substitute) with your own choice of terms, just as easily as you would switch Lego™ bricks. Thus, for example, in the above list of fish preparations, you could have: saumon (salmon), dorade (sea bream), glane (sheatfish) or lotte (anglerfish) à lТaigre-doux (in sweet and sour sauce). Similarly, Cartes et Menus de Restaurant walks you through constructions such as: [Е] à la vapeur (steamed [Е]), and [Е] à la vapeur deЕ ([Е] steamed with Е) for anyone with hesitations regarding comparative word orders.

On a more advanced linguistic level, you will no doubt find the definitions (termed explanations) supplied with translations most useful, in addition to the bounty of examples. Thus, it is one step to find the translation for à l'oriental (Oriental-style) and another, perhaps more significant, to understand that this means Уwith semolina and chickpeasФ. Likewise, the same would hold true for a trou Normand (a Normandy-style break) referring to Уa glass of Calvados or other alcohol served between courses of a mealФ or for [Е] à la Normande (NormandyЦstyle [Е]), referring to Уa preparation with local Normandy products such as seafood, butter, fresh cream, apples, cider or CalvadosФ. The definitions, supplied with translations in Cartes et Menus de restaurant, are simply invaluable.

At the end of the day
When it comes to translating menu items such as courte-nage (aromatic broth), pithiviers (puff pastry with filling) and Ttoro (basque-style fish-soup) ; figuring out what a particular type of preparation means such as à lТщcarlate (pickled), à la dieppoise (with white wine) and à la dijonaise (Dijon-style with mustard); or discovering the evocative ways of referring to the presentation of food such as pommes de terre en robe des champs (potatoes in their skins), aumonière de caviar (caviar in a beggar's purse [a thin crêpe]) and bombe cardinal (ice-cream topped with red fruit), you will find that Scribo's Cartes et Menus de restaurant has done the research for you. This is a technical dictionary that has charted extensive territory in the domain of culinary arts (including pastry), and all of the ingredients, varieties, preparations, and creativity subsumed in writing and translating menus. Cartes et Menus de restaurant is a definite (and succulent) must-have for all translators of menus and à la carte. Get it and bon appétit!!

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