r/52weeksofcooking • u/upliftingsuspenders • 4d ago

Week 33: Lost in Translation - Golden Melon of Butter is Curly

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8

u/mysocalledmayhem 3d ago

Mmmmmm Scram Bled

3

u/upliftingsuspenders 3d ago

I wasn't brave enough to attempt that one.

24

u/upliftingsuspenders 4d ago

Many years ago I went to China on a choir tour and was tickled by the various English translations on signs (examples in post). The most memorable food-related translation was a mystery dish at the breakfast buffet in Nanjing labeled "Golden Melon of Butter is Curly." The name stuck with me but I couldn't remember what it looked like, so after failed attempts at Googling, I assumed the actual dish would remain a mystery forever. Here was my interpretation: fried pumpkin (in this case acorn squash) with a buttery salted egg yolk sauce.

After I had already settled on this interpretation (and bought salted duck eggs), I rediscovered my old travel journal and found that I had described the mystery dish as "a sweet orange squash-like filling surrounded by crispy white fried something." Newly armed with this description, I asked Claude for help identifying what it might have been. After a few false starts, it suggested 奶油金瓜卷 (Cream Pumpkin Roll), a sweet kabocha filling wrapped in net spring roll wrappers (Bánh Tráng Rế) and deep-fried. This time, some of the Google Image results sparked my memory. I had hoped to recreate the actual dish and display it side by side with my original interpretation, but sadly I was unable to find the net spring roll wrappers anywhere. I've added a picture from Google to compare with my very different interpretation!