Strange how similar words in different languages are not always as alike as they appear,or how the simplest direct translation from English into French is not always successful.
Take the classic example of the Irish Au Pair refusing second helpings by saying “Je suis Plein” and finding it difficult to understand the consternation ensuing from this.
Her simple “I’m full” had turned into “I’m Pregnant” in translation.

Many years ago, while swimming in Brittany, a child close to me started to call for her Father, Papa started to bound through the waves to her shouting (perfectly correctly)“J’arrive , J’arrive”
To me that sounded as if he saw himself as an aeroplane or –if human- the Queen of Sheba, the only person I know of who “Arrives” instead of coming.

Walk into any busy French restaurant and they will say “Installez Vous”.
This always makes me feel that they think I am a central heating system.

This, of course is all leading us somewhere.
Our friend Claire Corcoran, who was with us over the weekend gave me a present of a book which she had bought recently on a visit to Paris.
This is a dictionary of French cookery; “The A-Z of French Food” which is published by Scribo.
For a Chef with lexicographical tendencies it is a dream present and having just finished reading it (sad but true, I read dictionaries for pleasure) I am determined to share some of my gleanings with you.

To revert to the topic of words which although they sound alike are quite different in meanings, cookery terms are a particular minefield.
Let me give you a few examples;
Lard in French, is our bacon, our lard they call saintdoux but, should you come across some particularly lean bacon, the French word for this is… you have guessed it: Bacon.
What they call Marmelade is not our Marmalade. It is a conserve of any fruit or even vegetable, as in Marmelade De Pommes, or Des Ognions.
The French word Apron is a river fish, that which protects our clothes in the kitchen, and without which I cannot cook, is a Tablier.
My friend Jean Augier from the village of Rasteau in Provence told me that he hunted for Truffles with a Baguette. I am relieved to learn that as well as being our familiar French loaf a baguette is also a simple wand or stick, and that Jean was not wandering through the oak woods of the Vaucluse waving a loaf of bread.
When we make a particularly rich and creamy cake we tend to upgrade it by calling it a “Gateau”. In the same way when the French housewife makes a rather plainer cake, one which we would call a “Tea Bread” they, of course call it “Le Cake”.
On the same lines they have a marvellous term for an overindulgent Father, one that rings a particular bell with a chef/father of three daughters ; a Papa Gateau.
You know that a Papa Gateau would look like, he would be developing a paunch, or as the French say, prendre de la brioche , from the distinctive protuberance on top of that particular buttery loaf.
On the subject of butter, one who does “after hours” work to provide for those little extras we love so much, is, in Ireland, said to be “doing a nixer”
In France it is called to “Mettre du Beurere dans les epinards” or buttering the spinach.
This is so French, you can of course eat spinach without butter but, it is worth working longer hours not to have to!
Still on the subject of butter ,we have thousands of euphemisms for drunkenness in our culture, among them is being “ well oiled” but I do think the French “se beurrer” is more elegant.

Although not strictly a culinary word,(but what is a meal without wine?) I think their adoption of bouchon or cork for a traffic jam is particularly apt.
Many is the hot summer when, stuck in a bouchon on the auto route, I have wished for a Giant Sommelier God to arrive with his Tire Bouchon and release us.

Another French expression which relates to their great joy of eating is to be “ Entre la Poire et le Fromage”, that is; to be elated.
Having run a restaurant for many years , I have always noted that people are at their most beneficent just after a good meal, or as the French say at that moment between the dessert (la poire) and the cheese(le fromage.)
(Interestingly this is a fairly good indication that the French also originally ate their dessert before their cheese.)
Their particular euphemism for domestic strife is “Le torchon Brule”or burnt tea towel, it is hard to tell why this is , maybe it is the burning of the tea towel which causes the friction? It would in our house!
That they don’t much like the turnip in France is evident, I think in their expression for a flop (as in a bad play or book) which they call a “Navet”.
This is nothing whatever to do with the pig French phrase with which we used to translate the Dublin expression “A queer turn up for the books” as “ Un Navet bizarre pour les livres”.

The French when embarrassed don’t of course become as red as a beetroot but, “Rouge comme un homard”, they don’t , likewise, take French leave but filer a l’Anglais, and my beloved Jacques Brel uses a wonderful expression for “a sound man” when in the song, Le Moribond he describes his friend Emil as “Bon comme de pain blanc”- what after all is “sounder” than a loaf of white bread?.

My favourite French culinary term , brings me right back to my days in Snaffles when my mentor Rosie Tinne taught me how to joint my first chicken and showed me the chickens “oyster” , that succulent morsel tucked in underneath the thigh joint on its back.
That piece of the chicken, Rosie explained to me, was the only part Henry the Eighth would eat, all the rest was discarded.
An image that seemed incomparable to me.
Incomparable that is until I came across the French term for that same morsel.
They call it “Sot-l’y-laisse or, to roughly translate “(that part which only)a fool would leave”
Touche !