S05.E09: Semi-Final - Patisserie

[goodbyeglittergirl]

The technical gave me the heebie-jeebies, as I had to make a Schichttorte during high school German and it was a pain in the butt to make and then dry and yucky to eat! So sad to see Chetna go as she is so lovely and kind - but then, almost everyone on this show is just a gem. I think I will go into withdrawals after the finale!

[meep.meep]

With the number of Brits who go to Barcelona, I'd have expected Gah - thee- a 

 

Half of the people on the show call Luis Loo-ees and the other half Loo-ee

[Meredith Quill]

But do you emphasize the first syllable? If they'd said gahSEEar, I would've gotten that they were mangling Garcia. The emphasis on the GAH made it a complete stumper.

 

I think we probably do yes, sorry!

 

As my madly exotic HS French teacher Madame Stacey used to say, if you want to make a Frenchman cry say  Boise, à la mode and parmesan like an American. The closest she got to Paris was smoking Gauloise but hey.

 

My wince is when they call  crème pâtissière - cremm pa' (with a glottalized t). Julia wouldn't have done that.

 

Game of Thrones  has upped my accent recognition skills. Northern Nancy is like some crone extra wandering about Winterfell. I'm so fired up for her to say 'Winter is comin' while stirring some pot menacingly.

 

I find 'cremm pat' annoying and I'm English :O

 

I can't tell you how crazy it makes me when people mispronounce it as ah-kye. How do they not notice the accent on the c? What do they think that is, American English?

 

This whole pronunciation conversation makes me laugh because a couple of weeks ago we had the same thing on the Elementary forum when Sherlock kept pronouncing the word zebra as zeb-ra as opposed to the American zee-bra. 

 

Zeb-ra is how everyone says it here ;) We also say 'Zed' not 'Zee'.  

 

It's all good fun - Vive la difference!

[Lovecat]

This all explains why most Brits I've known have pronounced my name RE-née.  Uh, the accent mark's right there in the name, folks:  Re-NÉE !! :)

 

On topic:  I was hoping the lovely Martha would make the finals, and this week I was sad to see Chetna go.  For some (probably completely irrational) reason, I dislike Nancy.  Builder Bob FTW!!  Not only does he turn out impeccable work, but those dimples are just adorable.

[DHDancer]

want to know more about entremet?  Check out the Bocous d'Or competition.  www.bocusedor.com/en  

That's where you'll learn everything about "mousse cakes".  Talk about amazing technical challenges!!

 

And please don't get me started on pronunciations.  I'm a 6th gen Australian, educated in British schools, lived 14 years in the UK, and now have been in the US 30 years....  American persistent weight on the second syllable can make me crazy.... it's Sir Derek Jacobi, not JaCOBI .. be respectful of how things are pronounced in their native language.  Pronouncing Filet as Filet is fine, but if they pronounce it fillet and spell it fillet, don't look down on them.  Even after 30 years I cringe over some words (like Bob pronounced Barb in the US) but for the most part  when in Rome...  

Edited February 25, 2015 by DHDancer

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The British habit of adding an R to the end of words always cracks me up. It takes the already ludicrous ba-KLA-vah to the even funnier ba-KLA-ver (and hey, that's the Brits stressing the second syllable while the Americans stress the first syllable like the Greeks!).

 

This all explains why most Brits I've known have pronounced my name RE-née.  Uh, the accent mark's right there in the name, folks:  Re-NÉE !! :)

My thing with names is the same as words in a foreign language - I just imitate what the person tells me. I had one coworker who kept putting the accent on the first syllable of my name, despite the fact that I pronounced it with the accent on the second syllable when I met him and EVERYONE ELSE in our office put the accent on the second syllable. He was American (as am I) and it's a well enough known name that it wasn't some exotic name he'd never heard of before. I kept wondering if he was just screwing with me.

 

The funny thing about the Loo-ees vs. Loo-ee pronunciation of Luis' name is that instead of using the Spanish pronunciation (which is what I'm assuming is correct since it's spelled the Spanish way), some of them are going with the French pronunciation (which would be spelled Louis). I wish someone would just ask Luis how he says it. Funny related story - a friend of mine said that she had a student whose name was spelled Marcus on his registration sheet so when he came in, she greeted him as Marcus. His mother had a fit and said that his name was pronounced D'Marcus but the D was invisible. I kid you not. Kind of makes all these other pronunciation differences seem sane!

 

 

 

Oh, let's pick on them!  What I love is how when confronted with a foreign place name, they changed it to something more English.  My parents lived near the town of Livorno in Italy, the Brits call it Leghorn.  That's just not trying.

Ha, this gave me a much needed laugh! I shall now refer to Livorno as Foghorn Leghorn City!

 

 

 

My very favorite example of weird British pronunciation was from one of the Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes episodes. They kept referring to a character names GAH-see-er. Imagine my suprise at reading the credits and finding out the character's name was Garcia.

There is an Armenian news anchor in the Bay Area named Gasia pronounced GAH-see-ah so maybe her parents heard the British pronunciation of Garcia and loved it so much that they decided to spell her name phonetically! (I kid - Gasia is an Armenian name meaning cinnamon)

Edited February 25, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[DHDancer]

Excuse me, but as I stated above, I've been in the US for 30 years and I've only ever heard Garcia pronounced GAH-see-ah.  How else is it pronounced??  I've heard the same pronunciation from people whose name is Garcia so I'm puzzled...

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The native Spanish speakers (by which I mean people from Spain and Mexico whose first language is Spanish) I have known pronounce Garcia as gar-SEE-ah.

 

ETA: I also have a Filipino friend whose last name is Garcia (Spanish surnames are common in the Philippines) and he pronounces it the same way too.

Edited February 25, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Pallida]

I like Luis just fine, but there's a reason you don't see many green cakes. 

 

I was recently on a "pistachio sweets are the best thing EVER" kick, and even though I made a slightly green cake with slightly green icing, I completely agree.  It just looks off.

[ABay]

What ElectricBoogaloo said. Emphasis on the second syllable. I did try to be clear on that in previous posts.

 

DTDancer...Barb for Bob, GAHseeah for Garcia...are you sure you're in the U.S.?

Edited February 25, 2015 by ABay

[stillshimpy]

Oh, let's pick on them!  What I love is how when confronted with a foreign place name, they changed it to something more English.  My parents lived near the town of Livorno in Italy, the Brits call it Leghorn.  That's just not trying.

Let's not tar a whole country with the same brush, let alone 4; I've never heard of Livorno but I can assure you I would never pronounce it Leghorn! My attempt would be li-voor-no :)

 

Hey, I'm from a family where a woman from Edinburgh married a man from Glasgow.  I spent part of my childhood translating my grandparents speech to people in PA  for the two years they lived in the U.S.  so I always think of myself as being sort of bullet-proof on the "wow, that sounds so weird" .  That said, what the UK does to the word pasta always freaks me the hell out.   

 

But that said, I think what the OP was referring to was the Colonial British habit of saying "Well it is simply too much to ask that we call this place Mumbai, sounds peculiar.  Looks peculiar.  Therefore Bombay it is.  Trust us, you'll adjust.  Look, we brought Cricket.   Kolkata you say?  Now really that seems an excess of Ks for one word.  Who's for Calcutta? Yes, that's right.  All of you.  We insist."  

 

That sort of thing and lest all the Brits 'round these here parts get ready to kick my ass (arse) , let me tell you, I can make a friend of mine from France almost weep with the U.S. pronunciation of the word genre.  I took French, by the way, long, long ago, but as a courtesy to the entire country I rarely use any French.  

 

All nations have our pronunciation sins and language faux pas but at least we can all be united in knowing we likely really offend the French without even trying ;-)  

[ABay]

As my friend from Tennessee always says: Y'all talk funny.

[chaserider]

The Brits can pronounce things however they want.  I find listening to their various accents - and pronunciations - part of the fun of watching this show. 

 

I'm sorry for those on Squirrel Watch, but my ALSATIAN (see what I did there?) is enjoying the Bleating Lamb!

[Meredith Quill]

Hey, I'm from a family where a woman from Edinburgh married a man from Glasgow.  I spent part of my childhood translating my grandparents speech to people in PA  for the two years they lived in the U.S.  so I always think of myself as being sort of bullet-proof on the "wow, that sounds so weird" .  That said, what the UK does to the word pasta always freaks me the hell out.   

 

But that said, I think what the OP was referring to was the Colonial British habit of saying "Well it is simply too much to ask that we call this place Mumbai, sounds peculiar.  Looks peculiar.  Therefore Bombay it is.  Trust us, you'll adjust.  Look, we brought Cricket.   Kolkata you say?  Now really that seems an excess of Ks for one word.  Who's for Calcutta? Yes, that's right.  All of you.  We insist."  

 

That sort of thing and lest all the Brits 'round these here parts get ready to kick my ass (arse) , let me tell you, I can make a friend of mine from France almost weep with the U.S. pronunciation of the word genre.  I took French, by the way, long, long ago, but as a courtesy to the entire country I rarely use any French.  

 

All nations have our pronunciation sins and language faux pas but at least we can all be united in knowing we likely really offend the French without even trying ;-)  

 

I can tell the difference and do a decent (one of my few competent) mimic of an Edinburgh vs Glaswegian accent ;) As for the rest; that's British Imperialism at it's finest for you, what-ho old bean...

 

The Brits can pronounce things however they want.  I find listening to their various accents - and pronunciations - part of the fun of watching this show. 

 

I'm sorry for those on Squirrel Watch, but my ALSATIAN (see what I did there?) is enjoying the Bleating Lamb!

 

Lol, SquirrelWatch was an epic fail this season (sob). Check out The Great Comic Relief Bake Off though; last week SquirrelWatch = 1!

[Sandman]

Imperialism or just insularity? "Leghorn" isn't a different pronunciation, but an altered name into English, like "Florence" or "Cologne." Sometimes the mangling of foreign place names requires no changes in spelling ("Paris") and sometimes there's a whole different writing system, which makes the approximation of an original name even, er, more approximate: such as "Peking" or "Tokyo." Sometimes it's a whole other name. (English isn't the only language to do this, either. The Italians and the French, for example, call London "Londra" and "Londres." You should see the tongue-twister that "Montreal" or "Portugal" becomes in Japanese. Everyone is a foreigner somewhere.)

 

More on topic: have I mentioned how entertaining I found the Sheep Side-Eye included in the Great British Yiiikes Faces portion of the story?

[DHDancer]

Re Garcia.  My bad -- yes, emphasis on second syllable is what I'm used to hearing around here -- gar SEE ah, OR equal weight on first and second GAR SEE ah (this is what sounds more normal to my "English" ears).    To quote Shaw:  'England and America are two countries divided by a common language'

[shandy]

I had a spanish girl in my class earlier so asked her opinion on Luis - whether Louie or Loueees - and she said Lui was a diminutive but pronounced it more like lwee as one syllable - she's from Catalonia tho so always a Catalan first, European second, and Spanish a distant third.  I hope to have made a new GBBO/GBBS convert as she's going to report back on whether his empanadas were authentic Iberian, or whether Hollywood was right and that they were too big.

[Zahdii]

Episode 9:  patisserie
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365408812/

Episode 10:  The Final
http://video.pbs.org/video/2365408813/

[Dobian]

 

Game of Thrones  has upped my accent recognition skills. Northern Nancy is like some crone extra wandering about Winterfell. I'm so fired up for her to say 'Winter is comin' while stirring some pot menacingly.

And the new season is starting again soon!  I was sorry to see Chetna go, she was so nice and a greater baker.  She just had an off week.

[morakot]

To be fair, there are mangled names in the US too -- Canton, OH, Edinburg TX, Des Moines, Detroit, -- there are many names that are far distant from the pronunciation of the originals in their originating countries.

 

On topic, it was interesting to see the grilled layers in a cake. I can imagine it came about when someone realized it was easier to cook thin layers with a hot pan heated in an open fire than trying to maintain an even temperature in a wood-fired oven.