I had one of those moments on social media where I see something I don’t really understand and I have to go off and unravel the mystery and learn something along the way. It started with this Instagram post from Cinema São Jorge:
I guessed the origin, although I haven’t seen it for years. It’s from the pinnacle of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl movie era, 500 Days of Summer:
And I guess they’re excited because it was July the 31st, the day Quim Barreiros, accordionist and master of Música Pimba has decreed to be the best day to get married. Why? Because “depois entra agosto” (then comes August). It’s explained in this Sapo article but they’re not explaining it quite well enough for a non-native, so let me unravel the pun in all its corny glory.
“A gosto” is used in recipes in the way “to taste” is used in English recipes. Season to taste =Temperar a gosto, or you could just have “(a gosto)” in place of a specific quantity after the name of the ingredient (see this absolutely disgusting recipe, for example), meaning as much or as little as you like. So when he says “depois entra a gosto”, he’s just saying after you get married you can enter (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) whenever you please.
Today’s post is definitely Not Safe For Work. It’s filthy, in fact. Yesterday’s was a translation of a Quim Barreiros song but it wasn’t a very typical one, because it had been commissioned by someone else, so I thought I’d try something more mainstream. There are so many to choose from. “A Garagem da Vizinha” and “A Cabritinha” are big favourites, but I’ve always been intrigued by “Mestre de Culinária” because I can see there’s a double entendre going on but I can’t quite work out what he’s driving at, so here I go, deep-diving into it, trying to work out what he’s actually saying. Hopefully the experience will be educational, but if not, who cares, it’ll still be fun.
I’ll use a live version. Well… “live” in a manner of speaking. I think it’s overdubbed with the original track, but I like the vibe of the video because it looks like he’s singing at a student graduation ceremony and they’re all having such an amazing time and dancing like nobody’s watching in their capa e batina (aka “traje acedémico” – student robes). This just feels like the right way to enjoy music.
First of all, here’s a straight-up translation. I’ll get to the insinuação (innuendo) at the end.
Mestre de Culinária
Master of Cookery
Sou solteiro e bom rapaz Vivo num apartamento Ainda sou muito novo P’ra pensar em casamento
I’m single and a good lad I live in a flat I’m still pretty young To think about marrying
Convido minhas amigas P’ra comer e p’ra dançar Mas demoro muito tempo A preparar o jantar
I invite my girl friends over To eat and dance But I take a long time To prepare the dinner
Eu sou o mestre de culinária E sei enfeitar a travessa Vou comprar uma panela de pressão Para ver se eu cozinho mais depressa
I am the master of cookery I know how to garnish the platter I’m going to buy a pressure cooker To see if I cook quicker
Sei que sou bom cozinheiro Aprendi com a Isabelinha Mas confesso que me faltam Utensílios de cozinha
I know I’m a good cook I learned from Isabelinha But I admit I don’t have Cooking utensils
Todas me dizem o mesmo Que jantar delicioso Quem tem fome desespera Pois sou muito vagaroso
They all say the same thing to me That the dinner was delicious But anyone who’s hungry despairs Because I’m so slow
Eu sou o mestre de culinária E sei enfeitar a travessa Vou comprar uma panela de pressão Para ver se eu cozinho mais depressa
I am the master of cookery I know how to garnish the platter I’m going to buy a pressure cooker To see if I cook quicker
Of course, a literal translation is easy enough, but reading between the lines to see the nudge-nudge-wink-wink meaning he’s trying to convey is much harder. For example, I’m pretty sure this page was written by an AI, judging by the structure of the text, and it seems to be taking it very much at face value. My first assumption, before I started writing this, was that the innuendo would turn out to be something about him really being a mestre de cunilíngua, but I’m not sure how taking a long time over that would be a bad thing.
Wait… Mestre de Cu… But doesn’t that mean…?
No, the clue probably should have been in the first syllable of cu-linária. He’s the mestre de cu.
And sure enough, the pay-off line “Para ver se eu cozinho mais depressa” sounds like “Para ver seu cuzinho mais depressa”. He wants to see his guest’s arse as soon as possible. So it seems his aim is to but a pressure cooker so he can cook quickly, get dinner over and done with and move on to… other things.
I can see a few other lines of possible innuendo: panela can mean bum/buttocks (4th definition here), but I don’t think he’s planning to buy pressure-buttocks, so I think that might be a red herring.
Travessa is an interesting one because it has quite a lot of meanings, both as a noun and an adjective. The ostensible meaning here is a long dish or platter, but it can also mean an act of crossing (travessar = atravessar) and that can – according to at least one online source – mean an act of penetration. I don’t see much evidence for that though. It’s a little difficult to tell though becaue if you start googling words like that the results you get look like the kinds of things you don’t want to click on. I think like the guy might have been overthinking it, but I could be wrong.
A more plausible line of enquiry with travessa is as the feminine form of travesso, which means bad, naughty, wicked. So it would mean something like “bad girl”. Enfeitar a travessa? Decorate the bad girl? In tauromaquia (bullfighting), enfeitar means to stick a farpa ( a decorated spear thingy) in a bull (some of the pictures on this page for example) so… Well, that certainly sounds like it might have some sort of double meaning. I don’t see any solid evidence for that either but it feels a little more likely than the previous suggestion.
That’s the chorus, but what about the rest? Is cooking a metaphor for something else? Well, the word “comer” (to eat) isn’t mentioned, but it is a slang word for having sex, so all this cooking imagery might be leaning in that direction. Is the theme of taking a long time implying he’s old and in need of viagra? Nah, that seems unlikely because he says right at the outset that he’s young. Obviously given the “eating” motif, oral sex has been suggested but I don’t really see it – I can’t put my finger on why, but I think the innuendo would be more obvious if it were that.
The whole thing has a general smutty air to it, but I think trying to spell out exactly how the smut works just feels like clutching at straws. Maybe the wider narrative is just a frame for the chorus and that’s where all the double-entendre lies.
Here’s the question I asked about this on Reddit
Coloqiei-me o* desafio hoje de traduzir uma canção de Quim Barreiros para inglês. O título é Mestre de Culinária.
Claro que já sabia que existem várias insinuações na letra, mas não percebi o que o poeta dizia. Depois do exercício, compreendo mais, mas acho que ainda não entendo cem por cento.
Hum… O trocadilho mais óbvio é “para ver se eu (seu) cozinho (cuzinho) mais depressa”, que ecoa a primeira sílaba de cu-linaria. Acho que “travessa” (um prato elongado) também tem duplo significado (manhosa”?), mas além disso, não tenho certeza. Quanto mais pensei, mais imaginei que havia insinuações em quase todas as palavras. Eu estava num corredor de espelhos sem saída.
Acabei por desistir antes de enlouquecer. O que me passou ao lado**
*”Coloqiei-me o desafio” strikes me as a really odd locution but that’s the correction. I wrote “fiz um desafio”
**I wrote “perdi o quê” for “what did I miss” but that’s not very idiomatic.
I fancied doing another translation, and there’s a song I saw a while ago and mentally filed under “What the hell did I just see?” so here I am, coming back to give it a more thorough treatment.
I’ve definitely mentioned Joaquim de Magalhães Fernandes Barreiros before and I think described him as Portugal’s Benny Hill. He does smutty, innuendo-laden songs and he’s well-liked by many and perhaps a source of embarrassment to others. He’s well-known enough that Netflix chose him to promote its series Sex Education in Portugal – and here’s the result.
OK, well this is going to be fun. *Cracks Knuckles*
The first thing to point out is that a few times in the lyrics he addresses the listeners directly and he does this using the vós form of the imperative tense. This is pretty uncommon. In fact, the first time I saw it I almost had an aneurism becaue I thought it was a new tense that I’d never seen before. I’ll highlight it in the portuguese text for anyone who doesn’t recognise it.
Educação Sexual
Sex Education
Rapazes e raparigas Ligai o computador Vamos todos aprender Como é que se faz amor
Boys and girls Turn on the computer We’re all going to learn How to make love
É hora de despertar Para a vida sexual Uns vão gostar de banana Os outros de bacalhau
It’s time to wake up To sexual life Some people like banana The others, cod
Seja homem ou mulher Não importa a orientação A realidade é sempre Melhor que a fricção
Whether man or woman It doesn’t matter the orientation The reality is always Better than friction*
Falai abertamente De sexo sem timidez Está na hora de começar Aguentas oito de uma vez?
Speak openly About sex, without shyness It’s time to start Can you handle eight at once?
Para cima, para baixo Está no ir, está no quente Enfiai devagarinho E gozai suavemente
Up and down It’s on the go**, it’s in the warm Put it in slowly And have fun***, gently
Para cima, para baixo Está no ir, está no quente Enfiai devagarinho E gozai suavemente
Aguentas oito de uma vez? Aguentas oito de uma vez? Aguentas oito de uma vez?
Up and down It’s on the go, it’s in the warm Put it in slowly And have fun, gently
Can you handle eight at once? Can you handle eight at once? Can you handle eight at once?
* Reality is better than f(r)iction is obviosuly a pun. There are a few ways of expressing the equivalent of “truth is stranger than fiction” in portuguese, but this is legitimately one of them – see this TSF Rádio Notícias article, for example.
**Not sure about the translation here. “Está no ir” isn’t a phrase that comes up a lot if you google it, but it does seem to mean what you’d think if you translated it literally “It’s on the go”
***Gozar usually means to enjoy something in european portuguese – “gozar de férias” (enjoy the holidays) is an example given on priberam, so I’ve just translated it like that. However, the fact that in brazilian portuguese it also means “have an orgasm” is pretty obviously going to be relevant, given what he’s singing about!
Luso 