Coffee Pasta?

Admittedly, I can speak French well. This isn't my first rodeo in France, and I've been dabbling (if you can call a degree in French dabbling) in the language my whole life. The problem is that, well, there aren't too many people wandering around Dallas speaking French. So, I have to be in the heartland and surrounded by Frenchies in order to keep up my skills.

Problem is that after 5 months of culinary school, I lost my English and my French just barely improved.  I was speaking a scary version of Frenglish.  Therefore, you can understand my hesitation going into a stage at a restaurant where no one spoke English. Sure, they could say things like, "Oh, from Texas? Cowboys, Bush, Yee-haw!" But that is about the extent of it (unless you count them singing - for some inexplicable reason - Cotton Eyed Joe).

Needless to say, the first couple of weeks were brutal. Not only was I learning new food/kitchen vocabulary and all new recipes, but I was also trying to understand a foreign language spoken by young French people (think ultra fast with lots of slang) while pots and pans were clanging and the radio was bolting out yet another Michael Jackson song.  If I'm going to be honest, I winged it a lot at first - did some nodding and just figured things out as I went along.

I'm proud to say, though, that in the past three months my comprehension and speaking abilities have improved drastically.  You might wonder why it took me so long to get there.  Well, you see, I was taught classic French. Correct grammar and pronunciation were emphasized.  For years I was somewhat paralyzed by this because in my head I was trying to figure out whether something was masculine or feminine and what verb tense I needed to be using. This does not make for a quick translation between brain and mouth.  In the kitchen, I had to move much more quickly in order to get my point across and if that meant throwing the damn subjunctive verb tense out the window, then so be it. (Note to my high school French teacher: Don't worry Madame, I've pulled everything together so that I have speed and correct grammar all at once).

So, what is one of my favorite misunderstandings between myself, a classically trained French student, and the young, super fast/slang using chefs in the restaurant?

One day early on in my stage, during a pre-service meal of pasta (and ketchup for many of my new French friends), I was quietly enjoying my food when I was hit over the head, metaphorically of course, by this interesting question: "Lee, Café les pates?"

Um what? Did she just ask me if this was coffee pasta we were eating? What kind of weird French hashish has she been smoking, I wondered.  "Um, coffee pasta?" I said.  Laughter ensued around the table, and it became blatantly obvious that I had misunderstood her.  I could have sworn she said coffee pasta, though.  Turns out, in a way she did.  When asking me who had made the pasta - qui a fait les pates - she had spoken so swiftly that all the syllables ran together.  Suddenly, 'qui a fait' became 'café'.

Awesome.  Quickly, I realized I would have to not only translate French into English, but also French slang into classical French.  I knew then it was going to be an interesting three months.