With globalisation and world-wide travel, most of us are now accustomed to eating food from a variety of countries and cultures. And with that comes a knowledge of the names of these foods, many of which have become part of our English parlance, requiring no explanation as to what they are – croissants, lasagne, couscous, chapatis etc
On occasion though we all come across words for foodstuffs and dishes that we don’t recognise which need ‘translating’ – not that there will be an exact English translation, but rather a description or approximation of it (and what else is translation but approximation of one language in another). And this description will often relate it to another food item that we are more likely to be familiar with. So when I looked up some foodstuffs online I found:
Simit (Turkish) – a traditional Turkish sesame-covered bread roll
Churros (Spanish) – a type of fried doughnut
Harira (Arabic) – a classic Moroccan lentil and chickpea soup
This difficulty in translating not just names for food, but language generally, is woven through Charlotte Bronte’s first novel, The Professor.
Written in 1846-7, though not published until 1857, after Bronte’s death, The Professor tells of the orphaned William Crimsworth who, after a difficult short period of employment as a clerk at his elder brother’s mill in the North of England, leaves to pursue a new life on the continent.
Encouraged in his decision by a local entrepreneur, Yorke Hunsden, who points out that he could ‘get to Brussels … for five or six pounds’, to Brussels William goes.
In so doing he traces the journey that Charlotte Bronte herself made in the early 1840s. In early 1842, around the age of 26, Charlotte went to Brussels with her younger sister Emily, to work at a girls’ boarding school, teaching English (Charlotte) and music (Emily), in return for board and lodging. The sisters returned to England in the autumn of 1842, following the death of their aunt, but in January 1843 Charlotte returned alone to Brussels to take up a post at the same school. Whilst she enjoyed the experience the first time, this time it was less positive: she was homesick and experienced unrequited love for Monsieur Heger, who ran the school with his wife (whom Charlotte vehemently disliked). In early 1844 she returned home for good. However, her Belgian experiences informed both The Professor and her later novel Villette (published 1853).
Like Charlotte, William in The Professor finds employment as an English teacher, though he begins by teaching at a boys’ school in Brussels, run by Monsieur Pelet, a bachelor. And like Charlotte, he also suffers the pangs of unrequited love, falling for Mademoiselle Reuter, the headteacher of the neighbouring girls’ school.
Unlike Charlotte, though, William settles quickly into life in Belgium. There is no yearning for home (perhaps because he does not seem to have ever felt at home in England), and he has no disorientating experiences as an Englishman in a new and unfamiliar country.
In fact, as soon as Wiliam arrives in Belgium he feels a new and never before experienced sense of freedom: ‘Liberty I clasped in my arms for the first time and the influence of her smile and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind’.
And where other visitors voice complaints about Belgian accommodation, William experiences nothing but pleasure: ‘Travellers talk of the apartments in foreign dwellings being bare and uncomfortable, I thought my chamber looked stately and cheerful.’
William’s ease and enjoyment are also aided by the fact that he can speak French well: when working for his brother, he had responsibility for the French and German correspondence coming to the mill, though he modestly claims to Hunsden that he can speak French ‘intelligibly though not fluently’. But even when on his first morning in Belgium he greets a Flemish housemaid in French and ‘she answered [him] in Flemish, with an air the reverse of civil’ he is not unsettled or annoyed, but just reflects on how ‘picturesque’ she is and the fact she reminds him ‘of the female figures in certain Dutch paintings [he] had seen’.
And William’s ease with French is illustrated by the amount of French that appears in the novel, which for the most part is not translated into English (with the assumption that the reader will understand it – luckily I do). But the lack of translation also reflects the difficulty of faithfully translating one language into another. On his first meeting with Monsieur Pelet, William describes him as ‘fine et spirituelle’ followed by ‘I use two French words because they define better than any English terms the species of intelligence with which his features were embued’.
But the French continues – with no apology. Monsieur Pelet shows William his room, with a boarded-up window, and explains: ‘La fenetre fermee donne sur un jardin appartenant a un pensionnat de demoiselles… et les convenances exigent…’ Whilst the following sentences describe William’s failed attempt to find a chink in the boards through which he might be able to see into the garden of the girls’ school, no exact translation of Pelet’s words are provided.
Similarly in his first lesson with the boys, when they are obliged to read aloud from a classic English novel, William stops them in their tracks, telling them ‘Comme c’est affreux’. The reader doesn’t need to know French to understand the gist of William’s reprimand, when he subsequently describes how the boys ‘looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels; they were not pleased’.
So with a combination of conversational French and English commentary, Bronte moves the narrative along without any need for accurate translation.
And when it comes to describing Belgian food, Bronte again has to approximate – just as I described at the beginning of this post.
There isn’t much food of consequence in The Professor. However, mention is made on two occasions of ‘pistolets’, which are eaten for ‘gouter’ (tea). Pistolets don’t have an equivalent translation in English, but are basically little bread rolls with a crispy crust.
William clearly does not think much of pistolets as they are served at the boys’ school – he is out one Sunday having gone to church, and is feeling hungry, but does not wish to ‘go back and take [his] share of the ‘gouter’ now on the refectory-table at Pelet’s, to wit, pistolets and water’ In need of refreshment he thus looks elsewhere:
‘ I stepped into a baker’s and refreshed myself on a couc? (it is a Flemish word – I don’t know how to spell it) a Corinthe – anglice – a currant bun – and a cup of coffee, and then I strolled on towards the porte de Louvain’.
Whilst I know what a currant bun is, I wasn’t sure whether a standard English currant bun would fit the bill – I doubted it would – so decided to investigate further. We are familiar with Belgian buns in England –a sweet iced bun, containing dried fruit and topped with a cherry. However, these are not actually from Belgium (why they are called Belgian buns I have no idea).
My internet researches suggested rather that what William is describing is more commonly referred to as a ‘cramique’, a rich Belgian brioche-style bread, containing either raisins, pearl sugar or chocolate chips. To be true to the book, instead of making a loaf I made individual buns and I used currants (instead of raisins). Cramique is commonly eaten for either breakfast or tea, and I can attest that it is extremely delicious, particularly when warm and slathered with more butter.
UNTRANSLATABLE BELGIAN BRIOCHE CURRANT BUNS
Ingredients (makes 12-14)
500g strong white bread flour
300ml milk, heated to lukewarm
2 teaspoons active dried yeast
100g unsalted softened butter
60g caster sugar
1 large egg, beaten
1 teaspoon salt
250g currants, soaked in warm water for about 30 minutes and then dried
For the egg wash: 1 egg + 1 tablespoon milk beaten together
Method:
Sprinkle the yeast into the lukewarm milk and leave for about 10 minutes until frothy on top.
Place the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl and mix.
Add the milk and yeast mixture, and the beaten egg, and mix to combine. Then knead, either by hand or with a stand mixer, for about 10 minutes until the dough is smooth and coming away from the sides of the bowl.
Gradually add the softened butter, kneading well after each addition until fully incorporated.
Cover the bowl and set the dough to rise in a warm place for up to 2 hours, until it has doubled in size.
Gently knead the soaked and dried currants into the dough.
Divide the dough into 12-14 more or less evenly sized pieces and shape into individual buns. Place on a greased baking sheet, cover and leave to rise in a warm place for another hour or so until doubled in size.
Preheat the oven to 180C /160C fan / Gas mark 4. Brush the tops of the buns with the egg wash and bake for 15-20 minutes until golden-brown on top.
