Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Peruvian Slang: Lesson One

Peruvians are obsessed with food. Not only do they brag about the wonderful ceviche, the thousand varieties of potatoes, and the pisco (well, actually it is a drink), but Peruvians slip food references constantly into their slang (jerga). Most of these refer are a sly way of insinuating sex, discretely; non-native Spanish speakers such as myself frequently fall into traps when inquiring innocently about eggs, or yams, or potatoes, or bananas, or pick-a-produce. As a matter of fact, every day at my internship I somehow managed to make a faux pas about food and sex. Perhaps it is better to say that I am set up to do a fool of myself. At times I am afraid to open my mouth at the lunch table, knowing that whatever I say in regards to food will likely be misconstrued. Today, for example, I had the entire table roaring after I asked Vladimir, who was recovering from stomach troubles, why he wasn't eating his soup. "Don't you like soup? It is the best thing to make you feel better, especially soup with potatoes. " After the meal, Olgita approached me about the source of their amusement. Apparently, eating soup (caldo) is a slang term for having sex, and potatoes (papas) a term for female genitalia. How was I supposed to know that???

Other food related slang:

tener un camote por alguien (to have a sweet potato for someone) : to be attracted to someone
un melon- a beautiful person
pina (pineapple) bad luck
churro (a type of pastry)-an attractive person
coco (coconut)-US dollar
cau cau ( a stew of cow intestines)- problem

My personal favorite:
chaufa (Peruvian Chinese for fried rice) -slang for "good-bye'