> In the new simplified Chinese the characters for “dried” and “f***” have become the same – hence that confusion.

> “Dried” (gan) sometimes means deprived of moisture, as in beef jerky. But it can also mean “not served in broth.”

> I believe “cowboy” actually means veal (cow boy).

> The phrase “husband and wife” is meant to convey two things that belong together, e.g., the yang and the yin, Siegfried and Roy.

> I think “elephant” refers to a kind of shellfish that has a long neck resembling an elephant’s trunk.

> Off topic, but did you know that the popular pasta dish “spaghetti alla puttanesca” means spaghetti whore-style? No wonder it’s $10 a plate — but if you want to eat it that’s $8 extra.

1. It’s not “f** the fragrant chicken cartilage” but “dried fragrant chicken cartilage”

2. “The Sichuan’s hair blood is prosperous” is Sichuan style-flavoured dried blood (sort of) – the words sound really odd – could be a slang for some kind of local food.

3. “The hexagonal germ fries the cowboy bone” is “Dried mushrooms and steak stir fry”

“4. “The oil fresh water fish f***” is “Fried dried fresh-water fish.”

5. “Saliva chicken” is “mouth-watering chicken”

6. “Husband and wife lung slice” means “2 fillets/slices of lung (presumably from pork/duck etc)”

7. “Sauce cow” is “stir fry beef with soya sauce”

All those “stab the body” food are referring to sea urchins.
The problem herein is the mandarin of way of saying dried which is “gan” (干) and sometimes, some people misspell it from (肝) which means liver (but also pronounced in the same way phoenetically ie. sounds the same)

I’m no expert, but the character that seems to be rendered as “f***” is the word “dried” (ouch!) which only adds to the mystery.

In many cases the bizarre translation results from taking a fanciful name literally. An example in English is “surf and turf.” Explain to your Chinese visitor that to order steak and lobster you ask for “ride the wave on long wooden board and piece of grassy land.”

In other cases, a Chinese word or phrase is a (phonetic) transliteration of a Western word or phrase. As pointed out by commenters, the word “salmon” thereby becomes “three text.” The process is inexact and arbitrary, but there can be an art to it: “Saddam Hussein” could be phonetically represented by “Sah Dan Hoo Szen,” which means something like “silly, blundering fool.”