[Sca-cooks] C.A. translation and organization questions

JIMCHEVAL at aol.com JIMCHEVAL at aol.com
Sat Nov 2 13:14:32 PDT 2013


Personally, I'd be inclined to stick to the voice of the original, but I  
don't think it's a major violation to change it, especially if you make it 
clear  in the introduction that that is the approach you take. Half of 
translation is  how the original and new audience read, and if passive voice is 
more of an  impediment to a modern reader than it would have been to the 
original audience,  an argument can be made for changing it.
 
In my own translations (done with no input from a publisher or an editor),  
I put any interpolated words in square brackets [ ]. That way the sense is  
clarified for the reader, but the original text remains untouched.
 
There's also the question of omitted words. Every translator of Anthimus,  
for instance, omits his use of "vero" (truly) as a kind of verbal tic.  
Typically if a writer has such a convention that was less distracting at the  
time I think the best approach is to remove it and alert the reader to that in 
 the introduction.
 
I prefer myself to respect the order of any original (I even kept the order 
 for the Enseignemenz, even though one note makes it clear that that is  
erroneous). My own reasoning is that if someone is trying to compare with the  
original, this will make it clearer. If a functional order seems useful, I 
would  simply provide that as a separate key.
 
I put all redactions in a separate section on the assumption that someone  
browsing the original may be reading in a different way than someone 
actually  preparing a given dish.
 
 
Jim  Chevallier
 (http://www.chezjim.com/) www.chezjim.com

Les Leftovers: sort of a food history  blog
leslefts.blogspot.com  

 
In a message dated 11/2/2013 1:01:03 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
lilinah at earthlink.net writes:

Second,  i will need to interpolate some words into the recipes - such as, 
after a long  sequence of processes, "and" before the final one. In his 
French translation,  Stephane Yerasimos frequently move the periods - making the 
last sequence of  one sentence to become the first of the next sentence - 
he did it to make  better sense, but i prefer to leave the original order. 
However, for a modern  reader, some sentences could really use that "and". 
What do you think? [if you  don't understand, i can post some examples]

Third, should i present the  recipes in the exact order they are in the 
book or should i group them as  meat, savory, sweet, beverage, etc., as i have 
done for my personal use.  Arabic cookbooks tend to group them by cooking 
process or by certain dominant  flavors, but Shirvani's recipes are in no 
particular order.

Finally, i  will be adding a certain number of worked-out recipes. Should 
the worked out  recipes be in a separate section after the translations, or 
should each worked  out recipe follow the original? I will be checking with 
the CA editors about  this, but i wanted your  opinions.





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