Subject: Cuban Shredded Beef (Ropa Vieja)
From: Unicorn (unicorn@indenial.com)
Date: Thu May 29 2003 - 10:41:48 EDT
__________________________________________________
FOOD FUNNY
__________________________________________________
Thanks to my friend and fellow Atlanta Ring member Debbie Gallogly for
the following:
Actual Marketing Flops
Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing
corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big
multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural
differences. For example...
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la.
Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands
of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole"
or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke
then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic
equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as
"happiness in the mouth."
In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the
Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back
from the dead."
Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin'
good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish
market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw
the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."
Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a
tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation.
A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all
over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make
a chicken aroused."
Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros
Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts."
In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable
effect on sales.
In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name
into Schweppes Toilet Water.
__________________________________________________
TODAY'S RECIPE
__________________________________________________
"Ropa vieja" translates as "old clothes" and refers to the stringy,
shredded appearance of the meat in this Latin American classic.
Cuban Shredded Beef (Ropa Vieja)
1 lb (450 g) flank steak
8 cups (2 L) water
4-6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper (capsicum), seeded and chopped
1 recipe sofrito (recipe below)
1/2 cup (125 ml) broth reserved from boiling the meat
1/2 cup (125 ml) frozen peas
1 2-ounce (56 g) jar chopped pimientos with their liquid
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Combine the flank steak, water, garlic, carrot, onion, and bell pepper
in a large pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat
and simmer covered for 2 hours. Remove the meat and allow to cool,
reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid. Pound the meat with a mallet
or back of a large knife to separate it onto stringy fibers. Combine
with the sofrito, reserved broth, peas, pimientos, salt, and pepper in
a large skillet and cook over high heat for 5 minutes, stirring
frequently. Serve with white rice. Serves 4 to 6.
Sofrito
1/4 cup (60 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
2-3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper (capsicum), seeded and finely chopped
1 cup (250 ml) tomato sauce
1 Tbs (15 ml) red wine vinegar
1/4 tsp (1 ml) ground oregano
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
Heat the oil in a skillet over moderate heat and saute the garlic,
onion, and bell pepper until tender bit not brown, about 10 minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients and cook 5 minutes, stirring frequently.
Makes about 1 1/2 cup (375 ml).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b28 : Sun Jun 01 2003 - 00:00:02 EDT