#16 - Food, Alimentation, & Cuisine

FOOD.  This one is so ridiculous, I can't believe I haven't covered it already.  Honestly, the reason I haven't is because there are several one-word definitions for "food" in the French dictionary but, let's face it, none of them are used the same way as the gloriously simple, primeval English word, "food."


Let's go through the WordReference translations one by one:

#1 (in this and most dictionaries) la nourriture
The problem with nourriture is that it really just means "food" in a strictly nutritional, dietetic sense.  It's not much of an everyday word.  You can talk about nourriture pour chien, chat, or oiseau ("dog, cat, or bird food"), but it's rare to use it for people unless you're having a conversation about diet or health with your doctor.  I'd say it's more akin to the English word "nourishment."

#2 - à manger (literally "to eat")
Yes, that really is the second definition for "food" in the dictionary.  You can even use it just like "food" in a sentence: J'apporte à manger si tu apportes à boire.  ("I'll bring to eat if you bring to drink"--which sounds very weird in English, but it works in French).

#3 - la bouffe
I love this word.  In sound, feeling, and use, it is very, very much like the English "food."  The catch?  It's a slang term and is not appropriate in certain settings--which is not to say that it's dirty or negative.  It's just very informal.

#4 - les aliments
This French word is usually plural and refers primarily to raw ingredients or "foodstuffs."*
*(French people beware: this is the only situation I know of where "stuff" can be pluralized with an "s"!)  :-D 
However, aliments definitely does not include any kind of prepared or cooked foods!

A variation of it, alimentation, is used as a catch-all word for anything food and drink-related.  You often see "Alimentation" posted in large letters over corner stores that sell fresh produce; it can be used to refer to the diet of a person, species, group, or country; also, most anything connected to the food industry relies on this word in some form or other: the "agro-food industry" is called the industrie agroalimentaire), and the "food pyramid" is the pyramide alimentaire.

Honestly, the idea of alimentation is untranslatable in its own right.  This word covers a lot of ground, but it also remains oddly specific.  It's still more on the technical side.  Saying, "J'aime l'alimentation!" would be more like saying, "I love foodstuffs(?!)" than saying, "I love FOOD!"

That's what disappoints me, really.  There's no way in French to say something as basic as "I love FOOD!"  "J'aime la bouffe!" comes pretty close, but since it's a not central, mainstream word, hearkening back to the origins of the language, I don't think it has the same resonance--the simple, blunt, but harmless quality of "food."

That's all for WordReference definitions--but since French is the language of love and food, here are some honorable mentions. 

Cuisine: This is a a great and unique word for talking about different types of food culture and preparation: la cuisine mexicaine, la cuisine française, etc.  Above all, it refers to the art of cooking.  In the French dub of Ratatouille, Anton Ego's deliciously contemptuous line--"I don't like food.  I LOVE it!"--is translated as:

"Je n'aime pas la cuisine.  Je l'ADORE!"

I think we can safely list cuisine as untranslatable #3 in this post.  The emphasis on cooking as art only carries its full weight in the French language--there are a lot of cultural connotations that didn't carry over into the English appropriation of the word "cuisine."

Lastly, just for fun: what do you call a "food critic" in French?
A critique gastronomique.  :-D