20041211

the universal language of blog



i have to give a big thank you to all the food bloggers whose primary language is not english but who choose to blog in english anyway. i have learned more about various cuisines and food habits from your personal experience and recipes provided to me than any book or television program has taught me. i have to say, though, i have found a few blogs out there that are written in other languages and i'm completely intrigued.

most of the blogs i find are in japanese. dagnabbit. i could've started studying japanese in elementary school, but no. where was i? in señora matthews spanish/sex ed class. it just seemed so much more interesting than writing out the same kanji characters over and over. i have to say, sra. matthews' spanish classes were very helpful in a difficult situation involving a drunken but charming bullfighter in a disco in barcelona, but has it helped me in my food blog pursuits? pah! hasn't helped me in the least bit in translating vinrouge or ichizen, for example. luckily, the visual clues are helpful, and chika from she who eats provides an english translation for most of ichizen.

and CLEARLY school admin wasn't thinking ahead by not offering turkish nor german as second languages. teatime, a blog about all things teatime, is seriously taxing my self-taught german skills, riddling my brain with unfamiliar umlauts and completely. sexing. me. up over napkin folding instructions. napkin folding instructions. part of me longs for english translation, part of me enjoys the struggle and the universal language of photos and recipe formats. portakal ağacı, another turkish site, has an english-text page, but the turkish language site visually just seems more vibrant and appealing.

do you know of any food blogs written in other languages? let me know!

5 comments:

Hey Santos,

sorry to give you another nihongo headache, but うちの食卓 Non solo italiano is definitely one of my most favorite Japanese food blogs (although it is mostly about Italian cuisine as the blogger lives in Italy). Her writing is witty and funny, but above all it is a visually gorgeous (and appetizing) blog!

I make up words and have atrocious editing skills, does that count?

Otherwise, Storie di me, absolutely no idea what it's about but it's got the vibe.

chika

ohhhhhh. niiiice! dang. i'm hungry again.

anthony

i was going to add "i know spiceblog writes in english, but i have no idea what he's saying half the time"....did i ever tell you the first time i checked out your blog, i thought you were a japanese man living in germany?

ah, you just like the purdy girlies on that site.

Hi, I'm Storie di me (in Italian stands for "Stories of me"). Well, my blog is about everything and nothing. Sometimes I blog about food, because I definitively LOVE food (and food blogs). Bye ! Thank you for your comment !

"did i ever tell you the first time i checked out your blog, i thought you were a japanese man living in germany?"

: ) I could live with that.