That Translator Can Cook: Kousa Mahshi

Hollowed out zucchinis stuffed with spiced ground meat and rice and stewed in a rich tomato sauce

Image Source: Mawdoo3

 I looove kousa mahshi (and batinjan mahshi). My favorite is when you mix some jameed (dried tart yogurt) into the tomato sauce: it creates this tangy, creamy tomato sauce. Man, I shouldn’t have written this when I was hungry; I’m almost drooling.



I don’t really make this dish much in the US because the zucchinis and eggplants are not the right size for this dish. The ones used in the Middle East are much smaller, so they’re easier to core and the stuffing to vegetable ratio in each bite is much better, at least it is in my opinion. Apparently, there are 14 different types of zucchini and 8 types of eggplants; if I had to guess, the magda zucchini and the Italian eggplant are used for mahashi (stuffed vegetables). I have never seen Magda zucchini in the Maryland area, but friends say they are around in the other parts of the United States. I don’t make this dish anymore without Magda zucchini because it’s just not the same.

Mahashi are a staple in the Levant (Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria) and other neighboring regions like the Eastern Mediterranean. ‘Kousa mahshi’ means ‘stuffed zucchini’, but I don’t like using English for this dish because it give the same feeling as ‘kousa mahshi.’ I like to use the Arabic transliteration because Americans always clarify the origin of the dish (“Middle Eastern stuffed zucchini”); stuffing zucchinis (and eggplants) isn’t a common practice here; and some people consider kousa as a vegetable in its own right, not zucchini or squash. What name would you prefer?

The struggle of how to translate foreign dish names has been discussed many times. A fascinating study on the food culture and translation of the novel Hong Lou Meng describes how Chinese-English translators approach this issue. Comparing two translations of Hong Lou Meng (Since A Dream of Red Mansions and The Story of the Stone), the author identifies the approaches the translators used:

1. Ingredient-oriented translation: translating the dish name by describing the main and secondary ingredients

2. Cuisine-oriented translation: translating the dish name by describing the cooking methods

3. Function-oriented translation: translating the dish name by describing why the dishes are eaten

You should really check out this study because it also compares domestication and foreignization strategies that the authors used when translating the dish names; as someone who doesn’t know Chinese, the author of the paper does a good job of explaining the cultural and linguistic background of the dishes. How do you translate dish names?

I’ve added some videos on how to core the zucchinis for kousa mahshi, but unfortunately, they don’t have English subtitles.

Here is how to make this delicious dish (recipe and pictures belong to Umm Hamada [أم حمادة])!

Ingredients

• 2 kilos of zucchini

• 2 cups of Egyptian rice (medium-grain rice)

• 2 medium tomatoes, petite diced

• 2 cloves of garlic, minced

• Parsley, minced

• Bell pepper, minced

• A dash of black pepper

• A dash of seven-spice blend

• 1 teaspoon of dried mint

• ½ tablespoon of citric acid

• 1 tablespoon of salt

• 4 tablespoons of vegetable shortening

• 3 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses

• 500g of ground [red] meat

Steps

1. Hollow out the zucchinis.

2. Wash the rice and soak it for an hour.

3. Drain the rice and add the spices, tomatoes, bell peppers, garlic, parsley, salt, oil, and meat. Mix well.

4. Fill the zucchinis with the stuffing, and plug them with the cored-out pieces.

5. Place the zucchinis in a pot and add water [and tomatoes /tomato sauce] until they’re covered completely or slightly submerged. Next, add pomegranate molasses to the water.

6. Let them cook for an hour, then turn off the burner and pour.

Translators’ Discussion

1. In step 4, the author used “اثم الكوسا” and one of my colleagues advised me that the sentence meant you were to use pieces of the zucchini that you cored out. Is this phrasing a dialect thing, an obscure MSA reference, or a typo?

2. As I mentioned before, I was advised that I should not use “zucchini” but “kousa” or “Magda squash” instead. However, I pushed back because most people who write about this recipe, including Arabic speakers, use “zucchini” and “squash” and specifically state that “kousa” is Arabic for “zucchini.” While I think it’s important to specify the variety used (Magda), I don’t know if that makes it a different vegetable entirely: a Magda zucchini is still a zucchini; a Japanese eggplant is still an eggplant. Food translators and other culinary professionals: what’s your take on this?