We were strolling down University avenue after dinner when B suggested we try the spicy hot chocolate. He mentioned this cafe, probably three times in this past month, but the name slipped past my ear each and every time. I am too rigid to deviate from my mother’s recipe book: almost all my gastronomical experiences in the bay area were confined to these several local Chinese restaurants. Hardly had I the interest (and gut) to walk right into an exotic place, point at a God-knows-what dish and say, “damn, why don’t we just try this?”
Well you can’t really blame yourself. When it comes to novelty one can’t be too careful. You probably don’t want to end up in an ER just because you don’t recognize the word noix: not all countries make idiot-proof products like the States… And this is why I tend to spend extra time reading menus in Italian (or Indian, or Mediterranean) restaurants. You know, upper-class menus don’t even bother putting up photos to accompany the fancy names…
So most of the time I would just order whatever sounded familiar and unharmful, and shoveled them down my throat right after they became available… Yes, you’ll need a guide to venture in this multicultural dining environment: a friend like B, or a paper, like the Metros.
We bulled our way across the Friday night lines for clubs till we stopped at this small cafe name ‘Coupa‘. People were sitting by the door chatting, big white mugs in their hands. It is a Venezuelan coffee house which opens late, and, according to B, serves amazing hot chocolate.
As we walked back to the car I took a sip of this spicy chocolate. If you ask me to describe my experience directly, my answer will be: “it was tingling my tongue a little bit, and the rich, thick chocolate soon overwhelmed the spiciness.” This is the best I can do without a dictionary at hand. Of course I can go out of my way to use some flamboyantly figurative and literarily retrospective expressions to describe the nuances but I’d better stop here before this sentence gets too long.
The points are: 1) I lack the vocabulary to express nuanced feelings (on the spot); 2) vocabulary directly assigned to describe what we taste, may indeed be limited. Human can distinguish five basic tastes: sourness, sweetness, saltiness, bitterness and savoriness. Spiciness is mentioned in daily Chinese expressions as well. However, what vocabulary do we have except those? Does “moderately-spicy” count? How about “sweet-n-sour”?
Sight, touch and hearing are endowed with richer vocabularies. I was once astounded by the paint nomenclature in a large stationary store: every bottle of paint amongst the hundreds on the shelf had a relevant name. Yet sometimes they still suffer from their inherent incompetence. Objects that are supposed to be described by the colors have to turn around and lend a helping hand: sand-pink, pool-blue… Just like honey-sweet, you may need silk to describe what softness is like.
When B referred to cologne later my vocabulary (or knowledge) fell short again, both on brands and smells. Later I learned some typical expressions from a retail associate: “can you tell this Gucci has a dirty smell?” Or, “the Yves Saint Laurent is absolutely less amber than that one.”
It seems that I would totally side with those vulgar husbands: “I know you are wearing something tonight and I like it. But hey babe, don’t play guessing games with me.” You know a satisfactory description is an insurmountable task I’ll give up in advance.
Life is short, enjoy!