kake: The word "菜單" (Chinese for "menu") in various shades of purple. (菜單)Kake ([personal profile] kake) wrote,
@ 2010-06-16 09:30 am UTC
Entry tags:chinese menu, chinese menu: characters, three weeks for dreamwidth

瓜 (guā) is the character for "gourd", and is generally used for things in the somewhat hard-to-pronounce Cucurbitaceae family. Like the characters I mentioned on Monday, 瓜 varies in different fonts in a way that really confused me to start with (screenshot). It's worth getting to recognise, though, since not only is it used in its own right in several food-related words, it's also the radical for a few characters including the 瓣 (bàn) of 豆瓣醬 (dòu bàn jiàng) (screenshot).

Here are some ingredients that use 瓜 in the name:

青瓜qīng guācucumber
黃瓜huáng guāanother word for cucumber
矮瓜ǎi guāaubergine (though this term is only used in Cantonese, not in Mandarin — the Mandarin term is 茄子/qié zi — and the menus I've seen are more likely to use 茄子 than 矮瓜)
木瓜mù guāpapaya
南瓜nán guāpumpkin
金瓜jīn guāanother word for pumpkin
苦瓜kǔ guābitter gourd/bitter melon
涼瓜liáng guāanother word for bitter gourd/bitter melon
冬瓜dōng guāwinter melon

As well as the above, [personal profile] superpitching recently discovered another 瓜 vegetable — 勝瓜 (shèng guā), which apparently translates as "sponge gourd", "angled luffa", or "Chinese okra" ([personal profile] pulchritude notes in comments that this is also known as 絲瓜/sī guā). I have never noticed this on a menu, but will be keeping my eyes open from now on, because in my brain a loofah is something you use in the bath, and so I would dearly like to eat one.

瓜: guā radical 97 (瓜) Cantodict MandarinTools YellowBridge Zhongwen

If you have any questions or corrections, please leave a comment and let me know (or email me at kake@earth.li). See here for what these posts are all about.


(Read 6 comments) - (Post a new comment)
(Flat) (Top-level comments only)

kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (kake)


[personal profile] kake
2010-06-16 07:13 pm UTC (link)
絲瓜 is the term I use to describe the two different varieties of loofah that are eaten.

I've edited this into the post — thank you!

Also, I think it's interesting that you consider the radical of 瓣 to be 瓜, as my first thought would be 辛. Then I checked the dictionary and found 瓣 under both radicals. :D

I was blindly trusting CantoDict :) I checked my dictionary, and it has 瓣 under both, too!

(Reply to this)  (Thread from start)  (Parent



(Read 6 comments) - (Post a new comment)
(Flat) (Top-level comments only)