You see it quite often when someone will say ‘there’s a word for that…there’s no direct translation but it’s loosely like…’ then proceeds to give it a translation.
I saw one recently of kummerspeck, I think the commenter said it was ‘food you eat when you’re sad’ or ‘grief bacon’.
I would also like to preemptively apologise for my ignorance.
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“Kummerspeck” is a single word, and there is no single word in English that means the same thing, so we explain it by breaking down the word “kummer” means “grief or sorrow” and “speck” means “a layer of fat, or bacon, or adipose”; therefore it means “sorrow adipose”, or “grief bacon”. That’s still not clear with explanation: “it’s excess body fat that accumulates when somebody overeats in response to stress”. Yeah, we don’t have a word for that, and while we acknowledge that happens, we haven’t really thought of that as a specific thing that needs its own name.
There are lots of times cultures have developed ideas and concepts that don’t appear in some other culture. It’s particularly true of cuisine, or religion. We don’t have translation for certain things, so instead we replace the word with an explanation so that we can have understanding.
My wife is Danish, so you hear “hyggelig” a lot. A lot of places will tell you that means “cozy”. That’s pretty close, but a sweater or slippers can be cozy in English because “cozy” means physical warmth and comfort, but “hyggelig” specifically refers to the the shared feeling of closeness that comes from spending quiet time together sharing warmth and companionship – it’s something shared by people, not a sensation from an article of clothing. We don’t really have a word for that, so “cozy” is what we use instead, but it doesn’t communicate the same idea.
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