Do you fancy a pasta salad with a horse called 'Fruity' galloping through it? © Ricky Yates
In a valley between wooded Moravian hills, lies the small town of Rožnov pod Radhoštem which is where we drove to after leaving Ceský Tešín. Rožnov had been recommended to us as a place to visit by several people as it is the home of the Wallachian Open-Air Museum where an amazing variety of historic wooden Moravian buildings have been preserved since the founding of the museum 85 years ago in 1925.
We arrived just before dusk and eventually found a place to stay within our price range in Penzion Becva, which didn’t appear in our guidebook, but which I fortunately spotted as we were about to leave the town to look elsewhere. Having been so well-fed at lunchtime, we then went out that evening looking only for a place to have a drink and a snack.
Not far from the hotel, we found the very pleasant Restaurace U Janíku. We ordered two beers and asked to also see the menu and the waitress gave us their ‘English version’. A few minutes later we were both killing ourselves with laughter upon seeing the description of the last item on the page photographed above. Each of us had visions of a female horse called ‘Fruity’, galloping through 420 grams of Pasta Salad!
It is yet another example of that wonderful language called Czenglish of which I have cited many examples in previous blog posts. Maybe I should actually call this example Czfrenglish. What the menu is trying to say is on offer is ‘Pasta Salad with seafood’. But the compiler of the ‘English Menu’ has instead sought to adapt the French for seafood, fruits de mer, literally ‘fruit of the sea’. He has tried to make the word ‘fruit’ plural but has done it in the Czech manner by the addition of the letter ‘y’. He has then put in the definite article, which doesn’t exist in Czech. Finally for reasons known only to himself, he has converted ‘mer’ to ‘mare’.
After breakfast the next morning, we drove the short distance to the edge of Rožnov, to the ticket office and car park for the Wallachian Open-Air Museum. There were no cars in the car park and the ticket office was shut. Then it dawned on us – like so many art galleries and museums in Prague and elsewhere in the Czech Republic, the Wallachian Open-Air Museum does not open on Mondays! So, despite all the positive recommendations, we didn’t get to make our planned visit and it must wait until we visit Moravia once again sometime in the future.
Actually, I believe what the compiler meant was “frutti di mare”, which is Italian for seafood, but he thought it was English. The result is hilarious anyway.
Great blog, by the way!
Hi Gormie,
Welcome to the blog and many thanks for commenting here. You’re a commenter I recognise from ‘Girl in Czechland’ blog which we obviously both also enjoy.
Your Italian suggestion explains a lot – whatever the explanation is, as you say, the result is absolutely hilarious. Very glad you like the blog. It is always nice to be complimented!
Ah, yes, the lovely most forgettable day of the week: Mondays! It has tripped us up many times….being the slow learners we are! Ha, ha.
Living in Greece, we also laugh and giggle a lot over menu’s….for some reason lamb (which is served here a lot) is always lamp. And zucchini (corgettes) are always pumpkin balls! And so it goes…..
It goes the other way, also. We had some Brazilian friends, new to the States, eating out for the first time and asked if they would like, “Soup OR Salad” for their first course. Their answer was: Yes! The question was asked again and being a bit embarrassed and unsure they just answered “No Thank you”. Turns out they thought they were being asked if they wanted a “Super Salad” and being young hungry men, they wanted it!
Sorry about the Museum. Let’s hope you visit Moravia again in the near future. On Tuesday!
Karin – Monday is my official ‘day off’ each week so we often fall foul of things being closed on Mondays here on Prague. This is particulary so outside of the main summer tourist season which is usually deemed to finish at the end of September. This was the case at the Wallachian Open-Air Museum – they are closed on Mondays from the beginning of October through to the end of March. When did we try to visit? Monday 4th October!!!
As for foreign menus in English, we’ve seen some priceless ones in our travels but this example was one of the best!
Oh my word, that is hilarious!! Haha!!