Nueve Cuisine:is that what it's called?

[Cusina]

To the best of my knowledge, cusina isn't a word at all. I mixed cuisine, cucina and casa to come up with my eGullet nickname. I'm just dorky and like to play with the way words overlap.

Edited November 30, 2003 by Cusina (log)

[Jason Perlow]

Its Nueva Cusina.

What language is "cusina"?

Yeah, its italian. My bad. Fuck it.

Actually, it's neither. It's cucina (koo-CHEE-nah, not koo-SEE-nah), meaning "kitchen," "cooking" and "food."

Cocina is no good either because it means "cooking" not cuisine. Thus Alta Cocina would be "high cooking".

Cocina does indeed mean "cooking," "cookery" and "cuisine" (as well as "kitchen" and "stove"). I would also say that it is the appropriate Spanish equivalent of the French word cuisine, which also means "kitchen," "cookery," "cooking" and "food."

The Spanish translation of "nouvelle cuisine" is indeed "nueva cocina." That said, I think FG's use of "avant-garde" makes a lot more sense.

Yeah, I know that. My foreign language skills must have taken a nose dive today after all that codeine syrup. Two or three swigs of that and 20 years of international travel and fluency in Spanish and some Italian doesn't mean dick

Remind me not to enter these language referendum threads in the future, thanks.

[slkinsey]

Dude... no matter what, your Spanish skills are bound to be 100 times better than mine. The only thing I know how to say in Spanish is: ¿Dónde están los bacalaitos de Pepe? Needless to say, this really comes in handy whenever I need to locate Pepe's salt cod fritters.

[Jason Perlow]

That phrase would do me no good as I hate salt cod. In every language.

[Jason Perlow]

By the way, a casual search of Yahoo of the word "cusina" yeilds results in various Italian web sites:

http://www.valenzapo.com/pascoli/migrazioni/veneto.htm

Might be a piedmontese dialect, I dunno.

LA CUSINETA

Ghe xe in cusina ancora el bon odore

del disnareto apena terminà,

e su la tola, meza sparecià,

el sole ride. Sento batar l 'ore

e sento un gropo che me vien su streto

in gola e 'l core me sento tremare

perché , cusina , ormai te lasso. ..Andare

bisogna, andar tanto lontani, seto.

Te vardo e no son bon de dirte adio,

te vardo, fermo, con el cor strucà

[Cusina]

Wow, I might be a legitimate child after all. Break out the Champagne and salt cod!(?) ew...

[Pan]

For a speaker of Toscano, that poem is difficult to understand. "Ghe xe"? I get the gist but don't understand all the words - kind of like reading Provencal or Old French.

[sandra]

Something us English speakers forget is how much more limited Latin-based languages really are. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I've heard a lot of people complain about learning English because it's such a mish-mash of Germanic and Latin and Greek words, plus the kitchen sink thrown in for good measure. We have 20 words for any one idea and few rules of grammar that don't have a hundred exceptions.

As a native Spanish speaker, I can tell you English is a bitch to learn, especially when you are already in your teens... too, two, to - bear, bare - its, it's... it's a minefield! And as for borrowing words - everyone does it in every language - looking at this thread alone I see French words used in English context, cuisine, avant garde...

Back on topic, I have been trying to think how you would say "Alta Cocina" in English and all I can come up with is High Cuisine - anyone else have any ideas?

If I were talking about El Bulli, for example, I would say, La Nueva Cocina Española .

[Fat Guy]

I have been trying to think how you would say "Alta Cocina" in English and all I can come up with is High Cuisine - anyone else have any ideas?

You'd say "haute cuisine." You'll find the phrase in most English-language dictionaries. Literally, it means "high cooking" just as "alta cocina" does, but English speakers don't say "high cooking," they say "haute cuisine."

However, "haute cuisine" does not refer to the culinary avant-garde. I'd argue that "alta cocina" shouldn't either.

Likewise, "nouvelle cuisine" -- also a French designation that is now firmly entrenched in English -- doesn't refer to the culinary avant-garde in France or America. It refers to a movement that started decades ago. Whether the Spanish equivalent, "Nueva Cocina," refers to the culinary avant-garde, I don't know. I also don't know if there's a Spanish synonym for "avant-garde" or if "avant-garde" is the preferred term in Spanish.

Even if there is a Spanish term for the culinary avant-garde, I'd suggest that from an international standpoint the umbrella term is still "avant-garde" because it's an international, borderless movement. Ferran Adria is seen as the preeminent representative of the movement, and his avant-gardism reflects Spanish cuisine, but the culinary avant-garde exists all over the world and is not specifically Spanish.

[Jason Perlow]

I'm quite sure Avant-Garde is an accepted term used in Spanish. It's been used since Picasso and then Dali later became effectively the center of it.

[slkinsey]

Likewise, "nouvelle cuisine" -- also a French designation that is now firmly entrenched in English -- doesn't refer to the culinary avant-garde in France or America. It refers to a movement that started decades ago.

Exactly. In this way it is kind of like "modern" or "modernist" art, which refer to works produced over a half century ago.

[Pan]

Likewise, "nouvelle cuisine" -- also a French designation that is now firmly entrenched in English -- doesn't refer to the culinary avant-garde in France or America. It refers to a movement that started decades ago.

Exactly. In this way it is kind of like "modern" or "modernist" art, which refer to works produced over a half century ago.

And Ars Nova, which refers to a style of music notation and music written in the 14th century.

[Fat Guy]

Ars Nova

Literally, "New Ass."

[ExtraMSG]

I'm amazed a linguistic thread is getting so much play. Maybe some of those college classes will actually come in handy, if I didn't have the memory of a salad spinner (ie, it expells its contents and is rather useless anyway)....

QUOTE (Fat Guy @ Dec 1 2003, 06:29 AM)

Likewise, "nouvelle cuisine" -- also a French designation that is now firmly entrenched in English -- doesn't refer to the culinary avant-garde in France or America. It refers to a movement that started decades ago. 

Exactly. In this way it is kind of like "modern" or "modernist" art, which refer to works produced over a half century ago.

Of course, the term 'avant-garde" technically refers to a specific artistic movement. So complaining about the term "nouvelle cuisine" as such puts you in the same boat as using "avant-garde".

But words are really just empty shells that gain meaning as we use them. "Avant-garde" has been used for decades as more than just a technical term just as Kleenex means more than a specific brand.

However, "haute cuisine" does not refer to the culinary avant-garde. I'd argue that "alta cocina" shouldn't either.

This seems like an odd thing to say -- imposing English implications, connotions, and nuance on Spanish. Really what we need are a couple native Spanish speaking gastronomes to tell us how people already refer to such things. Looking through google.es, it seems that either a long description is used, suggesting there is no proper phrase, in which case a French import is probably in order, or phrases using a combination of "alta" and/or "nueva" and "cocina" are used, suggesting that "new high cooking" may have more meaning than it would here. Like I said, I think Spanish tends to just impose new meaning on already existing words and phrases whereas we as English speakers like to have a unique, plus about 20 extra, signifier for everything signified so we borrow and invent words constantly. Not that Spanish doesn't borrow words, too, or invent words, it just seems like they're much less likely to. So we shouldn't impose our predilection on their language.

"Avant-garde", eg, is a word you would hear in very general contexts among any somewhat educated middle-class American. Or at least they would recognize it when they read it in a magazine. I don't know, though, that it's such a word in Spanish. Would it have specific meaning referring to the art movement? Would it feel archaic? Would it be clumsy and create blank stares?

I don't know what the original purpose of the question was. Obviously, in English "avant-garde" is as good as anything to refer to places like El Bulli. But are we questioning what it should be called when we're speaking Spanish, eg, if we were in Spain and wanted to ask where to find avante-garde food like that cooked at El Bulli? "Conoce usted un buen restaurante que sirve 'avant-garde' comida o alta nueva cocina?" (Sorry to fluent speakers for the crappy high school level Spanish.)

[sandra]

But are we questioning what it should be called when we're speaking Spanish, eg, if we were in Spain and wanted to ask where to find avante-garde food like that cooked at El Bulli? "Conoce usted un buen restaurante que sirve 'avant-garde' comida o alta nueva cocina?" (Sorry to fluent speakers for the crappy high school level Spanish.)

In that case I would just say:

Donde puedo comer una comida tipo El Bulli?

or

Donde se come como en El Bulli?

If you were to ask in Spain where to go for Alta Cocina Española, I doubt very many people would send you to El Bulli, more likely they would send you to a classical Spanish restaurant...