SC - Mus, Brei, confusion and translation

[Thomas Gloning]

Allison and others:

Luther reported that when he did his translation of the German bible,
they sometimes sat around (Luther, Melanchthon and the other guys)
working three or four days on a single line. Clearly, one cannot really
compare our culinary translation projects to Luther's project, but
sometimes the feeling is the same ...

_Mus_ and _brei_ are very similar in meaning: they are used for dishes
that are not liquid and not solid but sort of "zähflüssig" (viscous,
thickly liquid, sticky??). Both words have quite similar conditions of
use as to the properties of the dish. Sure, there are borderline cases,
where you can't say whether you have a VERY thick soup or a mus/brei,
but, clearly, a normal sauce or a soup (both liquid) would not count as
a Brei or a Mus. The Deutsches Wörterbuch says, that originally _brei_
was used more in respect to flour, _mus_ more in respect to fruits and
other things. But later, there are clear examples for a Mus made from
some kind of flour and the other way round. There are even examples,
where _Mus_ and _Brei_ are used interchangeable in some sources. My
dictionary offers the following translations for this kind of use, but
of course you know better than I if any or which of these words would do
the job in English or American:
_mus_: pap, mash
_brei_: pap, porridge, mash, mush, pulp(!), squash

There is another peculiarity of the older German language, _Mus_ also
has a more general sense 'Speise, Zukost' (dish; something that is eaten
in addition to something else). Thus, in case there is nothing 'mashy'
or 'mushy' around in an old recipe, I translated it with "Gericht"
(dish) in modern German, and perhaps _dish_ would be a word to use in an
English/American translation.

<< I'm getting the idea, from reading the words a lot in context, that a
'Mus' is thicker than a 'Brei'. >>

I think both have thicker or thinner varieties.

<< The Mus is like our cooked oatmeal--a thick mushy food--if you took a
spoonful and held the spoon upside down, the oatmeal wouldn't fall
off--and the Brei is a thinner porridge or a thick sauce. >>

You could say the spoon-upside-down-example for a thick Brei too. The
experiment would work with Kartoffelbrei.

<< Would a pea soup be a Brei? >>

I don't think so. If you have a soup in a plate and you lift the plate
on one side, the soup will flow in the opposite direction, a Brei will
not or if so only very, very slowly.

<< Would pate' be an acceptable word for Mus, and porridge for Brei? ...
>>

As you said, both have their special meanings and I don't think they can
be used to translate Mus or Brei generally.

Would _mash_, _mush_ or _pulp_ (for both Mus and Brei) do the job?

In case, you do not love one of the candidates, you could use sort of
Flower/Rosenbaum strategy and give a list of "untranslated terms" at the
beginning, together with links to the places where these terms are
explained (_defrutum_: must reduced by boiling, see Introduction p.
xxx).

To modify Bertrand Russell (logic 's hell): translation is hell.

Best,
Thomas