Christine Walsh Jul 27, 2010:

@Lourdes I'd like to say thanks for the information, too.

Lourdes Sanchez Jul 27, 2010:

Maybe you can talk to the editor, I have seen this mistake before. Good luck!

jules_sieg (asker) Jul 27, 2010:

I never knew that. Another bit of arcane Mexican culinary lore to add to my horde. I've always translated it as rosemary. I have to think about how to correct that. The client may not have the document yet as it went through an agency that I work with. This is why I hate doing these things on a instant deadline. In this case, I would like to have queried the chef about how the carrots are prepared and what recipe for romeritos he's using. Thanks again.

Lourdes Sanchez Jul 27, 2010:

Rosemary is Rosmarinus officinalis while romeritos are Suaeda torreyana. The name in English for romeritos is seepweed which I have never found very appetizing. Another reason for which I leave them untranslated is because eventhough rosemary has a similar taste it is many times more intense than romeritos and romeritos have a peculiar tartness. Romero (rosemary)is used as a spice or seasonig, romeritos are an ingredient with which you create dishes.

http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/romeritos

jules_sieg (asker) Jul 27, 2010:

Yes, I know that. Thanks for the details. The carrots are probably best translated as frittered, in other words minced and fried. Otherwise the chef would have used fritas, wouldn't he? Romeritos are rosemary. I translated the title of the dish as "Floating Shrimp Garden with Plum Sauce on a Mirror of the Sky." The espejo is a sauce made from ground blue tortillas. If this were a menu that I were designing, I'd use the original title with my translation as a subtitle, perhaps expanding on the meaning of chinampa a bit. This is just the recipe specification, however. In any case, it's gone.

Lourdes Sanchez Jul 27, 2010:

Chinampas are artificial islands in the Xochimilco area in Mexico City, they are artificial floating gardens. The word is nahuatl for square of soil surrounded by stakes. These "floating gardens" create channels through which visitors and sellers go by. See photograph 2nd link.

In terms of food Mexicans have a large array of "antojitos" or munchies, many of them based on corn dough and chinampas is one of them. In your case the "hammock" is a bed of romeritos (untranslated) and fried carrots, it can be lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. Then the shrimp goes on top.

Nowadays some high end restaurants are creating dishes based on "antojitos" recipes and or using antojitos names in their dishes. In the last link (from my favorito restaurant in Mexico City) you can see the tangerine sauce creating the "espejo" then the lettuce and bed pear and on top the cranberry slices.

http://www.famaac.org/unidades_agroecologicas.htm
http://www.aerialarchives.com/stock/img/AHLB2293.htm

http://www.vallartaonline.com/information/SpotLight/WheretoF...

http://www.restaurantelosgirasoles.com/SitioGirasolesNM04.ht...

Christine Walsh Jul 26, 2010:

If the 'mat' is not flat, perhaps you could use 'cradle'.

Christine Walsh Jul 26, 2010:

Espejear Is to make a sort of flat pool of sauce on the plate/platter, on which the chef puts together his 'work of art' supposedly both visual and tastewise. Quite often this kind of local term is kept untranslated, but explained in some way. 'Mat' is better than hammock, I think. Is it fried shrimp?