You have to wonder who they have checking their English translations. Frisch means fresh, as we have seen with our excursions to the asparagus stand (our excursion to the asparagus stand was only to take a picture of it though).
Funny-frisch (see photo below). Let’s parse this out. Does this mean “It’s funny! It’s Fresh!” or does it mean it’s funny-fresh. Or maybe funnyfrisch is a German word I don’t know and here it is hyphenated because it’s too long to fit in the peculiar graphic box they have made for it. The Germans have a lot of really long words so that could be the case.
The word, Siebentausendzweihundertvierundfünfzig, for instance, is the number 7,254. (there are 38 letters as opposed to 4 numbers). Or David Sedaris’ favorite Lebensabschnittpartner which means the person I am with today but has vague sexual overtones. So I did a quick check on the ol’ Google Translate (with whom I am more familiar than one cares to admit) tells us that no, Funnyfrisch translates to “Fresh funny,” while Funny-frisch translates to “Funny fresh.” Either way it’s problematic.
This then takes us to what they mean by funny. I find that foreign language speakers when speaking English often confuse fun with funny. More often using funny where fun should go then the other way around. “I love your dress, Monique, it’s so funny!!” It is easy to do. They have different but related meanings. The French do not have words for these things, of course they have amusant and drôle but really neither of them work in an American setting “Oh, Joe, you’re just too drôle,” you say, lightly patting his forearm, chortling, thinking what a dick. This probably works in England.
And the Germans have lustig and spaß. Seriously? Spaß? What do they expect us to do with that!! Almost every single American is thinking SpaB?! Certainly everyone who voted for Donald Trump is.
Anyway, that brings us to the issue at hand. Funny Fresh. As it relates to food, funny usually means “off.” Something’s funny in the fridge is not a call to stand in front of it with the door open and laugh. It’s a realization that you need rubber gloves and a bucket of hot soapy water.
I bought these wondering if the freshness was not quite what it was supposed to be. They turned out to be fine, crisp and fresh. And while not exactly funny, I did think they were amusing in a unpretentious way.
