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proofreading menu -- anyone got enough French to make this call?

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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 12:02 PM
Original message
proofreading menu -- anyone got enough French to make this call?
I'm proofreading the new menus before they go to print, for my family member who is exec chef of a restored inn in New England.

What say you about capitalizing "au" in au gratin on a menu? The item is Four French Onion Soup, and the description (with caps) reads as follows:

"Red & Yellow Onion, Garlic & Leeks, Croutons & Gruyere Cheese Au Gratin"

First, it's redundant to say Gruyere Cheese Au Gratin.

But the real question is this: should "au" be lower case, considering that it means "with"? Should it be au Gratin?
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supernova Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 12:16 PM
Response to Original message
1. "au" is smallcase
Edited on Tue May-20-08 12:17 PM by supernova
since it's a preposition. :-)

I did remember that much of my High School and college French.

Gruyere Cheese au Gratin. :rofl:

Like a little cheese with your cheese?

IIRC, the proper form is Red and YEllow Onion, Garlic, Leeks, and Croutons au Gratin de (le or la?) Gruyere.

edit: if it's le Gruyere, then it would be "du Gruyere."
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 12:52 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. I'm allowing him the ampersands...
...because it's not a fine dining restaurant but an American resort and it's a seasonal menu. But he's not getting away with the cheese cheese!

Thanks. I realized that his "du Jour" was a parallel for style.
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supernova Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #2
8. Just tell him
you want to make sure none of the French nor French Canadian tourists point and laugh at the menu.

;-)

I think the ampersands are fine.
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 01:03 PM
Response to Original message
3. anyone know if the brand is Absolut or Absolute?
I always thought it was Absolut, but I'm seeing it both ways.
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Tab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 02:42 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Absolut
Never seen it any other way.

However, their ads will say something like "Absolutely Perfect", but the brand is Absolut
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Tab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 01:07 PM
Response to Original message
4. I always was cautious of places that said

"with Au Jus"
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 01:28 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. ha!
As an editor, I'm a stickler for detail, but a menu requires a whole other awareness. The chef's personality has a lot to do with how much leeway the menu style is allowed. But "with au Jus" is just wrong on too many levels.
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Tab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 02:46 PM
Response to Original message
7. I allow a lot of leeway with punctuation and capitalization on menus
If they wanted to say Gruyere Cheese Au Gratin, I'd go with it, as long as everthing else is similarly capitalized. I wouldn't submit a book to an editor that way, but on a menu you can get away with it (aside from the noted redundance). Some do it all lowercase.

As for this particular example, I'd move the "au Gratin" up to the dish name, as in:


Four French Onion Soup au Gratin
Red & Yellow Onion, Garlic & Leeks, Croutons & Gruyere Cheese


That would seem to be the more proper way to do it.
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 04:30 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. don't you think "Gruyere cheese" is redundant?
I do, on this fairly terse menu. He doesn't explain much of anything, assuming that people know most terms. I advised him to drop "cheese" and "au Gratin" both.
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Tab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 04:53 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Not necessarily. It explains the kind of cheese.
For instance, we say "Romano cheese" or "Bleu cheese" or "Swiss cheese" or "American cheese" or "Parmigiano cheese" so I don't think it's unreasonable to say "Gruyere cheese".

If the clientele is sophisticated, you could make it Gruyere, but I don't think it's wrong, necessarily.

"Gruyere cheese au gratin", however, is an abomination.
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 05:08 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. ah yes, but.........
....throughout the menu (which you don't have for purposes of comparison) he uses just "parmesan" or "cheddar" regularly. God, I love word-y detail.
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Tab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 05:50 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. Well, in that case...
It should be consistent with the rest. If one item says "with parmesan shavings" and then another says "topped with Gruyere" that's fine. But you either use the word cheese or you don't. I think you're on the right track.
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NashVegas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 05:22 PM
Response to Reply #10
13. Very Redundant
Are there other cheeses coming into it? If not, I'd lose it.
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Stinky The Clown Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 03:59 PM
Response to Original message
9. That reads like "Shrimp Scampi"
Most people, even here in The Stupid States Of America know is redundant.

I suspect many will also know Gruyere au gratin is similarly so.

To answer your question, au is lower case, but in your example, with everything else capitalized, it may not matter all that much.
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Warpy Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue May-20-08 08:10 PM
Response to Original message
15. Maybe "croutons au gratin with Gruyere cheese."
In any case, the "au" is lower case.
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TygrBright Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-21-08 12:57 AM
Response to Original message
16. Actually, "cheese au gratin", though a little odd to the American eye...
...is perfectly correct, culinarily. Technically, the "gratin" refers to the CRUST that forms atop baked dishes, most often from breadcrumbs or cracker crumbs. Less frequently, it refers to the crusty bits that form atop melted cheese itself when baked.

The fact that we almost always refer to it in relation to baked dishes that feature cheese, such as nouilles et fromage en casserole (mac & cheese) and the aforementioned consomme a l'oignon, leads us to equate "gratin" with "cheese." However, technically, "gratin" and any form of "fromage" are not duplicative.

pedantically,
Bright
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Tab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-21-08 06:48 AM
Response to Reply #16
18. You are technically correct

but as you note, the American eye has been trained to interpret "au gratin" as "with baked cheese covering". Less sophisticated than the French in such matters, if the audience is American, they'll invariable interpret (if they know how to do so at all) "au gratin" as "with cheese" (or "with baked cheese covering"). A pure French audience would be different, but we wouldn't be trying to edit this menu in this fashion for such an audience anyway.

With avec le respect,

- Tab
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Phoebe Loosinhouse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-21-08 06:44 AM
Response to Original message
17. French Four Onion Soup not Four French Onion Soup
Edited on Wed May-21-08 06:45 AM by Phoebe Loosinhouse
Four describes onions (red,yellow, garlic & leeks)not French

French Quatre Onion Soup? Soupe au quatre l'oignons?



Ou est le biblioteque? La plume de ma tant est sur la table. That's all I remember from 4 years of high school French.
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-21-08 06:27 PM
Response to Reply #17
21. you raise an interesting point
However, I believe that Americans think of "french onion soup" as a noun in itself. To them, it would be even more odd to put the "four" in the middle.

I don't even really like the title. I know what he's conveying, and I know that his style is spare. But I think it's awkward. He could say: "Four Onion Soup, au Gratin."
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fudge stripe cookays Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-25-08 08:29 PM
Response to Reply #17
23. Here... let me add my two main remembrances...
"Guy et Suzanne vont a la plage,"

and "Quel Sale Type!"

The last one was a tape recording we had to listen to then translate. A man stepped on a woman's foot on the bus, and she was calling him a jerk (in polite language, not the colloquial kind!)

:D
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Tab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-21-08 06:50 AM
Response to Original message
19. Actually, would you mind posting the damned menu?
So all us anal editors/publishers/writers can dissect it to bits?
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grasswire Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-21-08 06:30 PM
Response to Reply #19
22. I would if I could...
...but it's in pdf file and I don't know how to copy pdf. Lots of pages. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and tavern. Five menus.

I learned some good tidbits while fact checking. McIntosh, not MacIntosh -- named after John McIntosh.
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fudge stripe cookays Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun May-25-08 08:31 PM
Response to Reply #22
24. Look for the little "T" in your toolbar when you open the PDF.
It is a text capturing tool, so you can copy the text from something and paste it elsewhere.

fsc <-- technical writer/ex French student. I'm with Tab. Let's get with the ripping!

:D
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Tab Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-21-08 02:50 PM
Response to Original message
20. As far as the "du jour"

I'm reminded of a cartoon (probably the New Yorker)

A patron asks "What is the soup du jour?"

The haughty waiter answers, "That, Sir, is the Soup of the Day"
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davidwparker Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon May-26-08 06:54 PM
Response to Original message
25. Drop the 'au' entirely - Four Onion French Soup Gratinée
Edited on Mon May-26-08 06:55 PM by davidwparker
Note the rewording too.

I prefer the following myself: soupe gratinée à l'oignon.
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Rhiannon12866 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed May-28-08 04:03 PM
Response to Original message
26. Au should be lower case, meaning "with..., " as in "au Gratin."
And I don't think the cheese is redundant, since it means melted over stuff. Sounds like a very good soup. Bonne chance...;)
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