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So my sister and I have a running debate on what the proper pronunciation of certain foreign foods and words should be…do we pronounce them as they would in their home country?  Or do we say it with our natural American (and Californian, nonetheless) accents?  It started when she simply said “I made some homemade bruschetta!” but pronounced it “bru-sket-ta.”  I stared her in the face for a good 10 seconds until it finally occurred to me that she was pronouncing the dish the way Italians do; although authentic, it was foreign to my ears.  Who did she think she was?  Giada De Laurentiis?

But my sister had a point – when people order Vietnamese Pho dishes and pronounce it “fuh” or “foo” or “po,” my immediate reaction is to correct them with the proper accents and emphasis, but when I go to a Mexican restaurant I don’t pronounce dishes with a rolled “r” or when I visit a French café say “croissant” and “baguette” like the French.  I’m now so nervous when ordering foods, feeling paranoid that the waitress is standing in front of me judging my inaccurate and bastardization of these authentic dishes.

So what to do?  Respect the culture with my feeble attempt to pronounce these dishes in a forced accent?  Or stick with the Americanized, and more likely warped, version of these eats?  Seriously, what’s the right thing to do?