Esperanto Food and Cooking Words: Kuirarto kaj Manĝo

Esperanto food words are mostly international roots (tomato, supo), and the grammar is word building: -aĵ- turns an animal into its meat, -ej- makes a place and -il- a tool.

• bovaĵo - beef, from bovo, an ox
• kuirejo - a kitchen, from kuiri, to cook
• tranĉilo - a knife, from tranĉi, to cut

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1. 1la pano
2. 2la fromaĝo
3. 3la akvo
4. 4la suko
5. 5la fruktoj
6. 6la kuko

La pano the bread, la fromaĝo the cheese, la akvo the water, la suko the juice, la fruktoj the fruit, la kuko the cake.

The pantry

• Mi aĉetis panon, lakton kaj ovojn. - I bought bread, milk and eggs.

Fruit and vegetables

Two of these are compounds of words you already have, so there is nothing new to learn:

• La pomoj estas maturaj. - The apples are ripe.
• En la ĝardeno kreskas terpomoj. - Potatoes grow in the garden.

Cooked, sweet and to drink

• Mi trinkas tason da kafo ĉiumatene. - I drink a cup of coffee every morning.

-aĵ-: the animal and the meat

English has a separate word for the meat of most farm animals: cow but beef, pig but pork. Esperanto has one suffix. ReVo's third sense of -aĵ- is the food one: konkretan objekton faritan el tio, kion nomas la substantivo, plej ofte manĝaĵon, a concrete object made from what the noun names, most often a food.

• Mi ne manĝas porkaĵon. - I do not eat pork.
• La fiŝo naĝas; la fiŝaĵo estas sur la telero. - The fish swims; the fish dish is on the plate.

On an adjective or a verb, -aĵ- makes a thing with that quality, or the thing the action is done to:

• La infanoj ŝatas dolĉaĵojn. - The children like sweets.

Kitchen words: -ej-, -il- and -ist-

Many kitchen words are built from the verb for what happens there:

• La kuiristo laboras en la kuirejo. - The cook works in the kitchen.
• Tranĉu la panon per la tranĉilo. - Cut the bread with the knife.

The rest of the kitchen are plain roots:

The cooking verbs

English cook covers anything from boiling an egg to making a salad. The Esperanto verbs are narrower, and ReVo draws each line:

• bolito boil (a liquid, by itself)
• fritito fry
• bakito bake
• rostito roast, to grill

Heat is in the definition of kuiri, so it covers boiling and frying but not a salad. For a dish with no heat, the verb is prepari:

• Ŝi kuiris supon. - She cooked soup.
• Mi preparis salaton. - I made a salad.

Boli or boligi

Boli is intransitive: the liquid does it, and it takes no object. To boil something yourself, add the causative -ig-:

• La akvo bolas. - The water is boiling.
• Mi boligas la akvon. - I am boiling the water.
• Faru fajron kaj boligu la akvon. - Make a fire and boil the water. (a ReVo example)

This is the ordinary -ig- and -iĝ- machinery. Most cooking verbs already take an object (baki kukon, friti ovon); boli, among these, does not.

Three that are not cooking

These look as if they belong in the kitchen, and do not:

• Ŝi gladas la ĉemizon. - She is ironing the shirt.
• Li tondas la ŝafojn. - He is shearing the sheep.

Melki kaproviron, to milk a billy goat, is ReVo's idiom for trying the impossible.

Mistakes English speakers make

What to do next

1. Name what is in your fridge, with -aĵ- for every meat.
2. Describe a recipe with baki, friti and boligi.
3. Then read at the table: ordering, bonan apetiton and je via sano.