It’s the classic when you go to a foreign country or just a restaurant where English is not the native language, to spot spelling mistakes in signs and menus. It keeps us in good humour, somehow, to titter over other people’s errors.
So much so that back in Oz, a friend of mine and I stopped going out for Chinese Banquet and went to Banguet instead. To this day we never use the proper word “Banquet”.
So when I came to Austria I picked up ‘Gordon Bleu’ pretty quick. Did they really think it started with G? Is it the way they say it that makes it seem like it’s a G?
But then… I did some research, and guess what, it turns out I have to take back all my inappropriate chuckles on this one. What I found out is that Cordon Bleu is like Wiener Schnitzel. Technically, you can’t offer a ‘Wiener Schnitzel’ unless it’s veal. Genuine Cordon Bleu also comes from veal. So if you’re offering a Cordon Bleu in a restaurant here, and it’s made from pork, not veal, you have to write: Cordon Bleu vom Schwein. To save on the confusion, at some point someone had the smart idea to just give it a slightly different name, and call it a Gordon Bleu if it wasn’t made with the traditional veal. It’s the same thing, with a different meat.
So I apologise, because it turns out I was simply uninformed! And in any case, Cordon or Gordon, they both taste good to me.
an aussie in austria 