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A Menu Lost in Translation

67 bytes added, 02:13, 23 February 2022
== Buckwheat with Cocks Sauce ==
[[File:Cocks's Reading Sauce.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Cocks's Reading Sauce advertisement]]
This one sounds intriguing, doesn't it? Some older folks in England might remember Cocks's Reading Sauce. And no, it wasn't used to make reading about cocks more enjoyable. It was a brand of fish sauce produced in the Berkshire town of Reading by a fishmonger whose name was James Cocks (and his heirs after him). First marketed in 1802, it was made from fermented anchovies, walnut ketchup, mushroom ketchup, soy sauce, salt, garlic and chilli peppers<ref>{{Cyt
| nazwisko r = Corley
Back to square one then. You won't be surprised, though, to learn that the "cocks sauce" is the result of mistranslation. The English word "cocks" has multiple meanings and so do the Polish terms ''"kury"'' and ''"kurki"''. The primary meaning of "cocks" is "male domestic fowl", also known as "cockerels" or "roosters". In modern Polish, ''"kury"'' refers to hens, but a few centuries ago it meant "roosters" instead. So was the sauce made from the meat of cockerels? Well, no.
[[File:Kurki.jpg|thumb|left|upright|''Kurki:'' which could they mean?]]
Among the many different meanings of the English "cock", the vulgar term for the male member is particularly well known. The rooster has been a symbol of male virility in many cultures. Among Slavic languages, Bulgarian makes the same association, with ''"kur"'' referring to both the cocky bird and a man's cock (''"patka"'' is another vulgar Bulgarian word for the latter, which makes Bulgarians laugh every time they hear ''"kuropatka''" – which means "partridge" in Russian and "cock-dick" in Bulgarian; gotta love these Slavic false friends). ''"Kur"'' also gave rise to the vulgar word for a prostitute (a woman whose job involves handling penes) in all Slavic languages, including Polish. But I digress; the sauce definitely wasn't made from phalli!

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