I Say Tomato...

Sometimes things get lost in translation. For some reason this used to happen to me quite a lot when I lived in London. I'd be at the market asking for a pound of beans, then when I got home I'd find that I had a pound of potatoes, or peas instead of the Borlotti's I'd asked for.

Now, given I'm in a foreign country, the propensity to be misunderstood is even greater. Just over lunch I went to the carvery station at the supermarket, and pointed at what was clearly a hock of roast pork. In my best German, I asked for 3 slices, with my Swiss German colleague next to me giving an encouraging nod.

I get back to the office, looking forward to assembling a roast pork sandwich. On the label it reads 'Fleischkäse' which roughly translates as 'flesh-cheese'. I'm confused: only last week I had roast pork and the label had read 'Schweinebraten'. Suddenly I've lost my appetite.

Much later, I'm hungry and decide to brave the fake roast pork. Turns out, its a bit like meatloaf gone through a blender, centrifuge and cement mixer and re-set in a baking tin. Its the consistency of frankfurter.

It's not so bad with liberal dashings of Tabasco, especially once you've stripped the layer of tastebuds off your tongue.