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Harmadik rész. Fordítás és nyelvhasználat • Part Three. Translation and language use
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Translating Non-Standard Varieties: Andrea Camilleri in English • Giulia Magazzù
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3. Camilleri in Translation
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3.4. Culture-Specific Items: Food

3.4. Culture-Specific Items: Food

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Culture specific items related to food occupy a relevant part of the novels on Montalbano. One of the main strategies adopted by Sartarelli when faced with food terms is borrowing. For instance, in The Scent of the Night, Sartarelli rarely translates the terms related to food, but rather borrows them from the source text. Pirciati, (48), nunnatu (83), tumazzo (94), patati cunsati (94), biscotti regina (114), pasta ‘ncasciata (179) are all left untranslated in the target text. Sartarelli very often adds extratextual glosses to explain the borrowings, such as in the case of pasta ‘ncasciata:
 

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One of the main forms of southern Italian pasta al forno, that is, a casserole of oven-baked pasta and other ingredients. Pasta ‘nscasciata generally contains small macaroni, tuma or caciocavallo cheese, ground beef, mortadella or salami, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, aubergine, grated Pecorino cheese, basil, olive oil and a splash of white wine (The Scent of the Night, 233).
 

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Even in the extratextual gloss, whose purpose is to explain the foreign term, Sartarelli draws on borrowings from Italian; this shows how the items related to food are closely connected to and rooted in the culture to which they belong.

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On many occasions, the translator decides to “Italianise” the Sicilian terms; for instance, mustazzola (L’odore della notte, 111) is turned into the more Italian mostaccioli (The Scent of the Night, 114). Sartarelli decides to bring the word phonetically closer to an Italian form, rather than maintaining the dialectal one. In other cases, when the terms are less culture-specific or denote dishes whose ingredients are widely recognisable, Sartarelli prefers translation (Table 7), though he does not always find the right English equivalent, as in the case of pasta di mandorle (L’odore della notte, 111) which becomes marzipan pastries (The Scent of the Night, 114), which stands for another kind of baked sweet pastry, different from the original one. Most likely, Sartarelli decides to translate them because otherwise the target text readers would find themselves overwhelmed by foreign words.
 

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Table 7
Original text
English translation
triglie di scoglio freschissime
very fresh striped mullet
(La forma dell’acqua, 73).
(The Shape of Water, 74).
pasta ad aglio e olio
pasta with garlic and oil
gamberetti bolliti
boiled shrimp
(La forma dell’acqua, 87).
(The Shape of Water, 90).
Salami, capocotte, sosizze
(L’odore della notte, 27).
a variety of sausages and salami
(The Scent of the Night, 22).
 

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In rare cases, Sartarelli seems to overlook the connotation related to food items; an instance is the term passuluna (Table 8), which stands for black olives soaked in salt, cooked in an oven and then dressed in olive oil, fennel, and red chili pepper. It is a culture-specific term, perhaps complex to render in translation and for the sake of a fluent text, the translator decides to render it as black olives. He opts thus for a neutral term, removing any foreign connotations of the culture-specific items of the source text; this strategy is defined as “absolute universalisation” by Aixela (1996). The extracts below also show that Sartarelli sometimes adds intratextual glosses, such as cheese after caciocavallo in order to explain the term to the foreign reader.
 

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Table 8
Original text
English translation
Raprì il frigorifero e lo trovò vacante fatta cizzione di passuluna, angiovi condite con aceto, oglio e origano, e una bella fetta di caciocavallo
He opened the fridge and found it empty, except for some black olives, fresh anchovies dressed in olive oil, vinegar and oregano, and a generous slice of caciocavallo cheese
(L’odore della notte, 172).
(The Scent of the Night, 178).
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