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"Authentic" Romanian restaurant(s)?

"Authentic" Romanian restaurant(s)?
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  • "Authentic" Romanian restaurant(s)?

    - August 20th, 2005, 7:03 am
    - August 20th, 2005, 7:03 am Post #1 - August 20th, 2005, 7:03 am
    LAZ wrote:
    Gypsy Boy wrote:We wouldn't refer to polenta served in an Italian restaurant as mamaliga


    Mamaliga, polenta, hasty pudding ... it's all just cornmeal mush.

    It's usually less confusing to refer to a dish in the language in which it's listed on the menu concerned. However, if that term isn't common enough that most people know it, it can be clearer to offer a better-known term from another language or translate into English.


    I agree, and at this point, 'polenta' is without doubt the most common name for cornmeal mush used in American English (at least amongst us Yankees), so much so that the word 'polenta' -- though still felt by all to be a borrowed word -- can now be considered an English word, just as 'spaghetti' is. Note too that "cornmeal mush" doesn't sound especially elegant and for social and (socially motivated) aesthetic reasons the term 'polenta' is preferred by restaurateurs and their audience (a 'prestige' motivated borrowing parallel to the borrowing into Middle English of the several French names for meat varieties).

    For a menu in a Romanian restaurant that expects at least the occasional non-Romanian to come in, I think it would be reasonable to say something along these lines:
    ... served with mamaliga (polenta)... or
    ... mamaliga (Romanian corn dish similar to polenta)...

    Antonius
    Alle Nerven exzitiert von dem gewürzten Wein -- Anwandlung von Todesahndungen -- Doppeltgänger --
    - aus dem Tagebuch E.T.A. Hoffmanns, 6. Januar 1804.
    ________
    Na sir is na seachain an cath.

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