# Biscotti



## Einstein

> NOTA DI MODERAZIONE:
> Questo thread nasce da alcuni messaggi che comparivano originariamente in un altro thread (qui). Poiché questi messaggi trattavano un tema diverso, sebbene collegato, tutti i messaggi riguardanti la traduzione di "biscotti" sono stati spostati in questo nuovo thread. Tutti gli utenti che desiderano proseguire la discussione di "biscotti" sono invitati a farlo qui.
> Grazie
> 
> MODERATION NOTE:
> This thread originates from some posts originally appearing in another thread (here). Since these posts dealt with a different -- although related -- topic, all posts discussing the translation of "biscotti" were moved to this new thread. All users wishing to continue the discussion on "biscotti" are welcome to do it here.
> Thank you




I think there's a misunderstanding that needs clearing up.

Biscuits (BrE) and cookies (AmE) are the same thing. The Italian equivalent is "biscotti". Yes, that's right! However, for some reason someone in America decided to apply "biscotti" to a particular biscuit/cookie known in Italy as "cantuccini" See here. So if you ask for "biscotti" in Italy they will want to know what kind, because it's like asking for "cookies" in America without specifying which.

If you see "biscotti" in an Italian recipe or menu, the translation is "cookies" or "biscuits", not "biscotti".


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## You little ripper!

I would translate it as “baked in-house biscotti” (a slight variation of theartichoke’s suggestion). I think it works perfectly for a restaurant menu. Ther are quite a few Google hits for it.

In-house definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

In-house work or activities are done by employees of an organization or company, rather than by workers outside the organization or company.


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## Einstein

You little ripper! said:


> baked in-house biscotti


Hi Charles. But have you seen what I said about "biscotti"?


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## Paulfromitaly

Einstein said:


> for some reason someone in America decided to apply "biscotti" to a particular biscuit/cookie known in Italy as "cantuccini"


You mean that in AmE, biscotti only refers to cantucci?


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## You little ripper!

Einstein said:


> Hi Charles. But have you seen what I said about "biscotti"?


I saw it, Einstein, but don’t  understand what your point is. They might be called ‘biscuits’/‘cookies’ in English, but we’re talking (I presume) about Italian-style biscuits/cookies.


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## Einstein

You little ripper! said:


> but we’re talking (I presume) about Italian-style biscuits/cookies.


I think "Italian-style biscuits/cookies" are a much wider category than cantucci. And we're talking about s translation. If the menu in English mentions "biscotti", an American customer might be surprised to find they are not what the Italians call cantucci.
Yes to Paul too. This has been discussed in a thread in the Culture Café, I'm afraid I don't remember which, but the general view coincides with what I said.


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## You little ripper!

Einstein said:


> I think "Italian-style biscuits/cookies" are a much wider category than cantucci. And we're talking about s translation. If the menu in English mentions "biscotti", an American customer might be surprised to find they are not what the Italians call cantucci.
> Yes to Paul too. This has been discussed in a thread in the Culture Café, I'm afraid I don't remember which, but the general view coincides with what I said.


I can’t speak for Americans, but in Australia any biscuit that requires double baking are called ‘biscotti’.  In fact, ‘biscotti’ is generally used for any biscuit that is Italian in origin (marzipan biscuits, for example).


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## Einstein

You little ripper! said:


> I can’t speak for Americans, but in Australia any biscuit that requires double baking are called ‘biscotti’.


I see. I don't think that's the case in America, but maybe an American can help.
Of course "biscuit", like "biscotto",originally meant twice baked.

[Comment on side discussion removed]


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## theartichoke

At the risk of carrying the "biscotti" digression further, I just want to add that a) Einstein, of course, is completely right that Italian _biscotti_ come in far more varieties than the _cantucci_ kind that go by the name "biscotti" in Canada, and b) when answering (post #4) Barking's question about _biscotti di nostra produzione_ in a restaurant, my mind immediately went to precisely the _cantucci_ kind, because I don't think I've ever seen any other kind of _biscotti_ in a _restaurant_ (as opposed to a bakery, a supermarket, someone's home) in Italy.

But there are many kinds of restaurants, and I clearly have not been to them all, so if the restaurant for which Barking is translating the menu is serving _biscotti_ other than _cantucci_, then the English should _not_ be "biscotti."


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## You little ripper!

Barking fellows didn’t specifically ask for a translation into American English. ‘Cookie’ is probably the only word that is understood in all the different forms of English, but maybe we need to know what sort of biscotti we’re  talking about to get the best translation.


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## Paulfromitaly

It's a long-running matter 

https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/05/27/biscuit-vs-cookie/




> *Biscuit*
> Let’s start with the biscuit. In the UK, your biscuit might be topped with chocolate or have currants in it. You might dip it in your cup of tea, or have one (or two or maybe three) as a snack after lunch. If you were in the US, however, you might put bacon and eggs on it or smother it in gravy and have it for breakfast. Or you might put a piece of chicken on it and have it for dinner.
> 
> Oxforddictionaries.com notes this difference, giving two definitions for the word. But how did these two very different meanings come to be? According to the _Oxford English Dictionary_ (_OED_), the word _biscuit_ comes originally from the Latin _biscotum _(_panem_), which means bread ‘twice baked’, which would explain the hard, crunchy quality of a British biscuit. An American biscuit is more like what the Brits would call a _scone_ (and an American scone is something else entirely), and the pronunciation is another matter entirely. It’s unclear how these two different foods came to have the same word, and we can only speculate about the influence of the French language in the southern United States.
> 
> *Cookie*
> The word _cookie_ opens up a whole other can of worms. In the UK, a cookie is a soft, squishy, moist biscuit (for lack of a better word). British cookies tend to be bigger and more substantial than a British biscuit. In the US, a _cookie_ covers both what the British would call a biscuit and a cookie. The word comes from the Dutch _koekje_, meaning ‘little cake,’ and could have been popularized in the US due to early Dutch colonization, though we don’t know for sure.
> 
> So you’ve got it, right? A British biscuit is an American cookie and an American cookie is a British cookie and an American biscuit is a British scone and an American scone is something else entirely.


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## london calling

Einstein said:


> .
> 
> If you see "biscotti" in an Italian recipe or menu, the translation is "cookies" or "biscuits", not "biscotti".


That's what I was saying in the other thread.


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## You little ripper!

Of course _biscotti _is not a translation for the Italian ‘biscotti, Jo, but in the context of a menu I think it works perfectly. It might mean cantucci for some but not necessarily for others. Barking fellows who posted in the other thread hasn’t told us what biscuit they are as yet. That would help.


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## Pietruzzo

Now I'm curious to know what the singular of 'biscotti' is. 'A biscotto', 'a biscotti', 'a piece of biscotti'?


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## Benzene

Pietruzzo said:


> Now I'm curious to know what the singular of 'biscotti' is. 'A biscotto', 'a biscotti', 'a piece of biscotti'?


_EOD says:
*biscotti
PLURAL NOUN*
Small rectangular biscuits containing nuts, made originally in Italy.
Origin
Italian.

Bye,
*Benzene*_


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## theartichoke

Pietruzzo said:


> Now I'm curious to know what the singular of 'biscotti' is. 'A biscotto', 'a biscotti', 'a piece of biscotti'?



People say "a biscotti" in my part of the world. They also say "a panini" for a particular kind of pressed, grilled sandwich. It drives me nuts.

But among Canadians who are familiar with "a biscotti" (i.e., anyone who goes to chain coffee shops), they'd be as likely to call biscotti "cookies" as they would be to call spaghetti "noodles," a pizza "flatbread with tomato and cheese,"  or a cappuccino "coffee with steamed milk." "Biscotti" has joined the Italian words that are also now English words.

And the _OED _confirms the singular "biscotti," at least for Canada, so I'm not imagining it: 1995   _Toronto Life_ Jan. 60/3   Hanging out over a fine steaming cup of joe (and maybe just a teensy biscotti) is a good cheap date.


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## You little ripper!

theartichoke said:


> People say "a biscotti" in my part of the world. They also say "a panini" for a particular kind of pressed, grilled sandwich. It drives me nuts.


Italians are just as good at decimating words borrowed from English, just as much as I probably am at doing the same with the Italian language with this example! 

_Sono sdraiato davata alla televisione per in po’ di relax._


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## King Crimson

You little ripper! said:


> Italians are just as good at decimating words borrowed from English, just as much as I probably am at doing the same with the Italian language with this example!
> 
> _Sono sdraiato davatadavanti alla televisione per un in po’ di relax._


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## You little ripper!

That’s what I meant to write. Bloody iPad! I need to get rid of the autocorrect. It doesn’t recognise Italian and changes words to what it thinks they should be. I should have checked it.


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## Pietruzzo

You little ripper! said:


> Italians are just as good at decimating words borrowed from English


As far as I'm concerned, English speakers are free to "decimate" borrowed words as much as they like, as long as I understand what they mean. Now I know "a biscotti" is "un cantuccino". Fine*.
*And this can be either an Italian or an English word. The choice is yours


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## Odysseus54

I think what happened with 'biscotti' in the US is that, since a 'biscuit', the closest cognate, is in fact a totally different animal, and since a 'cookie', the correct translator, is too generic, they found it better to use the Italian term for the best known Italian cookie - the 'cantuccio'.  As they do with 'panini', 'latte' etc.  The sizzle.  However this may have happened, that's what we end up with - a 'biscotti' is a 'cantuccino/cantuccio'.  At least in the US, or at least where I lived.


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## london calling

The original question:



barking fellows said:


> Ciao a tutti, devo tradurre _biscotti di nostra produzione_ (che è come dire _biscotti *di produzione propria*_) per il menu di un ristorante. Posso dire _*home-baked biscuits*_ o non va bene perché è un ristorante? Qual è il modo migliore di dirlo? Grazie


Those are biscuits in BE and cookies in AE as far as I'm concerned, even if the _biscotti_ he refers to are really cantucci, because a 'biscotti' in my part of the world does not mean a cantuccio (except possibly in pretentious advertising/marketing/branding hype...) and would not be understood as such by your average Brit. I agree with Einstein in post 1.


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## theartichoke

london calling said:


> ... a 'biscotti' in my part of the world does not mean a cantuccio (except possibly in pretentious advertising/marketing/branding hype...) and would not be understood as such by your average Brit.



Which reminds me of something I was curious about but forgot to ask back in the original thread. Faced with a cantuccio, what would your average Brit be likely to call it?


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## london calling

An Italian biscuit with almonds in it.

Seriously, Waitrose (a posh UK supermarket) uses the Italian word for them, _cantuccini_ (well, 'cantuccini biscuits', actually) I haven't seen them in Lidl's (a cheaper supermarket) but they do sell 'savoiardi biscuits', which I bought in London to make a tiramisù and 'amaretti biscuits', so if they were ever to sell them I daresay they'd call them 'cantuccini biscuits' too.


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## theartichoke

Ah. So BE goes for redundancy, while AE takes the plural for the singular. Let's hope no American ever moves to the UK and starts marketing "biscotti biscuits."


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## Pietruzzo

theartichoke said:


> . So BE goes for redundancy


Italian can be even more redundant. Around here you could find cantuccini-like biscuits/cookies called "biscotti della salute" and even "quaresimali alle mandorle"


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## london calling

Abbiamo i cosiddetti *Morselletti cilentani *da queste parti, originari del Cilento. I quote:

Prodotti soprattutto nel comune di Castellabate, i morselletti o _muzelletti_sono chiamati anche _viscuotti ccu ‘i mènule _(biscotti con le mandorle).

Non riesco a postare la foto del sito, ma vedrete che somigliano moltissimo ai loro cugini toscani.


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## You little ripper!

Savoiardi are called ‘savoiardi’ or ‘sponge fingers’ here. There is a Vittoria brand called ‘biscotti’; it also has ‘savoiardi’ on the label. As for ‘amaretti’, they are called ‘amaretti’, ‘amaretti biscuits’ and ‘biscotti amaretti’ here. Australians are reasonably familiar with the word ‘biscotti’, even if it’s simply because it’s similar to the word ‘biscuit’. They don’t automatically think of ‘cantucci’.


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## london calling

I've just spoken to my dad. Lidl is having an Italian week in the UK. He read out the various things they're offering, one of which was 'Cantuccini biscuits': 300g for £1.79. So there you go.


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## Odysseus54

That's a great price - How much is that now in Euros?  Like, 22 cents?   Seriously, before they kick me out for drunken behavior, I think it's one of those American things.  If you look up 'biscotti cookies' and then go 'images' you'll see a whole bunch of cantuccini plus stuff like chocolate cantuccini, cantuccini without the almonds etc.  It's not black-and-white, it's just one of those usage things, I think.


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## theartichoke

Yes, it's the shape / method that makes the thing a "biscotti" here: almonds are in no way an expected ingredient. If they're there, you've got an "almond biscotti." I learned to make them at home years ago, from a recipe out of _Gourmet_ magazine that featured orange peel and chunks of dried fig along with the almonds. Those were actually pretty good.


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