Translation of Menus: Labour of Sisyphos, Squaring the Circle or Marrying Water and Fire?
Translation of Menus: Labour of Sisyphos, Squaring the Circle or Marrying Water and Fire?

Summary/Abstract: As a regular customer of restaurants both in my native Poland and in other countries (particularly in the United States), I have always wondered why restaurant menus are so difficult to comprehend for a cultural outsider. In fact, this tendency is systematic and has to do with what Venuti (1995) has described as a necessary foreignization of texts in translation and what other translation scholars have referred to as inherent untranslatability of certain cultural texts. Still, subjective factors, such as lack of skills or experience on the part of the translator, should not be underestimated either. The question mark in the title thus results from my initial inability to determine whether translating menus is bound to fail, at least to some degree, due to objective problems or whether an expert and experienced translator should always be able to overcome the cultural barrier and generate an acceptable translation. The article concludes by stressing the lack of appreciation of translation as a skill in Polish society as well as the international nature and diversity of Polish food tradition and its apparent class divide.

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