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Last updated on August 5th, 2017 at 08:10 am
From our Chicago pal Fred Butzen:
My wife was paging through a bound edition of “Punch” from the beginning of the last century, and ran across a cartoon that looks like it should have been published yesterday, despite having appeared in the October 28, 1908, issue. I thought you’d enjoy it.
Readers will enjoy it, too. In other pictorial developments, Andrew R. sends the menu from Guangzhou’s curiously-named Milan Restaurant: chow down, people, on Onion Cigarette Pulp Draws Cuttlefish Juice Face.
- Damn it, that makes me want to watch the Hornblower series again, but I only finished it and the books last month.Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 06 25 at 10:57 AM • permalink
- I sure hope there’s a Chinese speaker here who can chime in and explain that menu translation, otherwise I am going to go nuts trying to puzzle it out.
I’ll start with a wild guess: “pulp’’ refers to squid or octopus, and “cigarette’’ means cut in long thin matchstick-like pieces. As for “draws’’ – it doesn’t appear to be a verb, but it doesn’t appear to be anything else, either. Anyone?
Posted by Sonetka’s Mom on 2007 06 25 at 11:09 AM • permalink
- I hazard “mashed/pounded spring onion infused/marinated with/in cuttlefish head sauce”.Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 06 25 at 11:27 AM • permalink
- #5 I don’t know about 1908, but thirty years later, Britain narrowly escaped having Chamberlain as Prime Minister in World War II. I wonder how that would have worked out? Most likely we wouldn’t be referring to it as “World War II,” more like “the day Britain got stomped by Germany.”Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 25 at 01:33 PM • permalink
- #8 It’s people’s narrow-minded ideas about what “food” is that is the problem. Yes, food is meat, vegetables, dairy and so on (I think there are two others in the five groups), but these categories are just artificial boundaries created by our culture.
Food could be so much more! Cigarette pulp (mentioned here), as well as chopped shoelace, sauteed tennis balls, as well as fluffy car dice in chocolate sauce.
If only people would be more open-minded.Posted by daddy dave on 2007 06 25 at 06:44 PM • permalink
- Sounds like she goes to the same dentist as me.Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 06 25 at 07:01 PM • permalink
- I suspect that 1908 cartoon was unmoderated: someone alert Media Watch!
Still, the cartoonist got it right. Embarrassed by all the nationalist triumphalism on display in Trafalgar Square, the Brits erected a statue of a disabled woman. Coming soon: Churchill in a zimmer frame.
- > Embarrassed by all the nationalist triumphalism on display in Trafalgar Square, the Brits erected a statue of a disabled woman
And ignored the one armed, half blind man being honoured at the top of the statue.
A statue of someone that has done nothing at all, except be a sponge for taxpayers money. What better record of the UKs decline is there?
- The Chinese menu from Guangzhou is great.
Anthony_r’s translator is correct; though literally it’s fried onion and bacon (洋葱咸肉 [yangcong xianrou]).
The second part is cuttlefish sauce noodles (墨鱼汁面 [moyuzhi mian]).
The reason for the strange English is because they’ve done a literal translation. Thus “cuttlefish sauce noodles” comes out as “cuttlefish juice face” because of this:
墨鱼 [moyu] = cuttlefish
汁 [zhi] = juice, but it’s probably better to translate it in English as sauce
面 [mian] = face and noodles.It’s the kind of translation you get from people (or translation machines online) who translate character by character.
- Hey, that’s a great cartoon! I love it!
Certainly “A Regrettable Incident” can be applied to so many things these days, and I for one intend to do so!Posted by carpefraise on 2007 06 26 at 07:36 AM • permalink
- Hanyu and Anthony, thanks for clearing up that menu translation. BTW I’ve encountered squid ink in Spanish cooking as well.
Rob Read: “And ignored the one armed, half blind man being honoured at the top of the statue.’’ – Good catch.
Posted by Sonetka’s Mom on 2007 06 26 at 08:44 AM • permalink
- Sorry I meant cigarette. Smoked – yeah…..Posted by ThinAndBritish on 2007 06 26 at 01:15 PM • permalink
