Tortilla de Patata Recipes

When I went to Spain, I noticed a lot of differences in the way people cook and eat there from the way we do in the United States, and I think a lot of the differences reflect larger differences in our cultures. One of the most common dishes I ate there was Tortilla de Patata, which is like a frittata with potatoes and onions, so I decided to compare a Spanish recipe for this dish to an English recipes designed for Americans. Both of these recipes follow the same general format, with a list of ingredients in bullet points and then a paragraph about how to combine them, but there are differences in the wording of the instructions and in the expectation of knowledge of the person preparing the food.

Starting with the ingredients list, the American recipe is already a lot more specific, indicating the amount of olive oil to be used and that the onion should be yellow and chopped. The Spanish recipe just says 'aceite' and 'cebolla', with no reference to what kind or how it should be prepared for cooking. In the instructional paragraph for how to make the tortilla, the American recipe is still a lot more specific. It includes instructions to put the potatoes in 'carefully' and tells the cook what to do if the accidentally stick together. However, the Spanish recipe is a lot more vague in its directions, telling the reader to remove the pan from the heat 'de vez en cuando', or once in a while. The American recipe also gives more explicit instructions for how to get the tortilla from the pan onto the serving platter, while the Spanish recipe assumers the reader will know how to do that. 

I think a lot of the differences between these two recipes make sense based on the cultures they come from. In Spain, the attitude towards most things, cooking included, is very laid-back, so there is no need for troubleshooting advice in the recipe. In American cooking culture, people making the dish are more likely busier and will have less patience to try and figure out when the eggs are cooked enough or start over if something goes wrong. Although these two recipes have similar ingredients and similar results, the way the methods are portrayed to the audience can tell us a lot about the culture they come from.

Menu Language

One of the things that stood out the most for me in the readings was the point in the study about the menu register that some restaurants purposely word their menus in ways that people will probably not understand what everything means. I thought the restaurant in Ohio that put the menu entirely in French was especially surprising. I have been to a lot of restaurants where the waiters encourage you to ask them questions about the menu if there is some ingredient or preparation method that you do not understand. For example, a lot of restaurants use an unusual name for some type of green that has a more common name that people are more likely to recognize. I think two reasons that they do this might be to make the food seem more rare and specialized than other restaurants and also to let the waiter describe a menu item in a way that is more descriptive and appealing than a menu would have room to print. Also, if the customer feels that they have a personal relationship with the waiter, they might be more likely to remember the restaurant and come back or tell their friends about it. 

Another thing I haven notices about menus is that some kinds of restaurants have much longer and more extensive menus than others. For example, French menus tend to have only a few appetizers and entrees while Chinese restaurants usually have so many options that I wonder if it's even possible to make that many dishes. Also, Chinese menus and menus in restaurants with other types of Asian food usually divide items by what type of meat they are made with or if they are vegetarian while in French and Italian menus all of the entrees are put in one category. I am not sure whether this only applies for these kinds of restaurants in America or if these traditions are from the actual countries. Also, in France, what we think of as appetizers are called entrees and what we think of as entrees are called plats. 

Introduction

Hi! My name is Amelia and I am taking this course because I love both language and food. I like studying foreign languages, like Spanish, and I also like studying language itself. I took an Introduction to Linguistics seminar last year in high school and it was really fun and made me want to learn more about many of the topics we studied, such as the brain's role in language and sociolinguistics.

 Of course, I also love food. I have always loved eating, but recently I have started cooking a lot and really enjoying that aspect of food as well. I especially like cooking Italian food, but I also love eating food from many other countries, like Indian food, Thai food, and Mexican food. I love all of the different types of food that are available in the Bay Area, and I have learned to love a lot of kinds of food that I did not like at all when I was younger. I also love going to farmers markets and getting fresh produce that's grown locally, and going to the various food stands they have, whether it's tamales or naan.

My native language is English, and that is what I speak at home with my family. Although I wish I had learned another language fluently when I was younger, I am only fluent in English. I am able to converse and get by with Spanish as well, however, because I took Spanish classes throughout high school and studied for a month in Spain two summers ago.