Delphi
Dinner (cont'd)
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After
correcting my pathetic pronunciation, our waiter launched into a lengthy
description of how glorious that particular dish was. But for all his
praise, his explanations did get vague at points. Like when we asked how
one particular lamb dish was cooked. He stuttered a bit, his eyes kind
of distracted, as he hurried through a mumbled description:
"Lamb
on thee fire...with, um, local spices..." he picked at some dust on his
crisp white apron. "And, eh..." he searched for the proper word, clearly
discarded a few in his mind, and finally came up with: "...thing-es."
"But!"
He rushed on, "The next dish is simply marvelous! It is from thee plains
of Thessaly, with an ex-squeesite sauce made from..." I kept nodding and
mentally scratching each suspect
meal off the list in my head. I soon found, however, that each dish contained
at least one suspicious-sounding element, usually the part our waiter
said in Greek without translating.
Once
we had established the magnificent culinary perfection of the dozen or
so meals printed, I inquired about the four or five dishes penned in at
the bottom.
"Ah..."
He paused
significantly.
"You
don't wan' those."
He shifted
his feet uncomfortably while I glanced at Frances. "Okay, but what are
they anyway, in case we're interested?"
He raised
his eyebrow and a slight, disgusted and pained sneer shadowed his lips.
The kind of look guys get when watching the mating ritual of the praying
mantis on PBS and it gets to the part where the female bites the male's
head off. This is different from the kind of look women get at that part,
which is more a sort of triumphant and knowing smirk.
"Oh,"
he intoned nasally, obviously disturbed he couldn't steer us away. "No.
Really sir. You ar no interested."
"Try
me." I gave my most winning smile.
"They
ar... local dishes, sir. Only the locals eat them." He was smiling a bit
too large now, his eyes flashing as his mind cast around for a good deterrent,
but, unfortunately for both of us, he had me intrigued.
"I'm
just curious. How about this first one here?" I asked innocently.
He sighed.
Clearly I was not going to give up. "Eet is cooked from the entrails,
and the hearts, and the testicles, and the gullets and other parts of
the sheeps."
Now
it was our turn to get that disgusted sneer on our faces. I did not even
bother to ask about the next dish. I was too busy working on trying not
to think about what the "other parts" of the sheeps might be.
The
waiter grinned a little victoriously at our reactions. "I told you tha
you wood not like eet!" He drew himself up proudly. "You haf to be born
on thees mountainside to love eet!" Then he bent down with a conspiratorial
smile and added softly, "I was no born here, I hhaate eet!"
We ordered
the lamb on fire with local spices and thinges. The lamb was tender, the
spices were spicy, the "thinges" were crunchy. I didn't ask.
Copyright
© 1995 by Reid Bramblett. All rights reserved.
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