Can't shake the feeling that my host mom was testing me tonight,. I sat down at the dinner table and found a plate of delicious food was already awaiting my consumption. The only problem was the fish was left cooking a bit too long and it's consistency was more like a shoe than tilapia. Anywhere else, I would have asked for a different piece or at the very least chosen to discard of it. Yet here, for whatever reason, I have been extremely hesitant to give my mother any negative feedback on her cooking. And that's not to say I've been faking--this was the first time that I have had a major problem with anything in the month I've been eating under her roof. Rather, I've just been unwilling to make any critique or substitution to her menu. Perhaps it's her sweetness or perhaps it's the passive-aggressiveness that permeates through this country, but I vowed to myself that I would treat all dinners like mailmen treat their jobs, and battle through no matter the conditions on the ground...or plate.
In hindsight, perhaps I have been too quick to heap praise and too unbelievable in my enjoyment of every possible form of rice and beans my mom has whipped up. Her suspicions raised, tonight this fish was the litmus test for my sincerity. Surely, she thought, I would have to speak up this time. AL CONTRARIO, MAMATICA! Given my well developed forearm muscles, I was able to saw through the majority of the fillet, despite being given what I know to be the dullest knife she owns. No sooner did I get to the last piece which was both too tough to cut and too large to politely fit in my mouth, my mother, her mother and her aunt sat down around the table to eat their meals. A quick survey of their plates confirmed my fear. For they had the same food as I, save the fish, which had mysteriously been replaced by an egg! It was as if to say, just give in and speak up! There's an alternative to this madness! But the principle at this point had clouded my reason, and I was certainly past the point of no return. And so they sat with their plates untouched before them, their soul purpose to watch the Lebron James-like drama that was my decision as to what to do with that last piece of fish unfold.
The tension was palpable. They did not stare me down, for that would have been too obvious. Instead, they sat with their heads down as if they were in an interminably long moment of contemplation. Every so often, however, their eyes would glance, however fleetingly, in my direction. I spent the next seven minutes buying myself some time to figure out a way out of this culinary conundrum by individually eating each of the final 27 grains of rice that remained on my plate. If an ant had managed to crawl on my plate during this period, I probably would have eaten it too, if only to avoid the final reckoning that was that crusty piece of über well-done pescado. Yet, as John Donne would have said, if he were alive and there as opposed to being dead and entombed at St. Paul's in London: The bell tolled for me!
At last, I saw a window of opportunity! A fault in the watch! For a brief moment, all three women's eyes were cast down on the red tablecloth! If I could just get that last piece down before they looked my way again, I could say con permiso and walk away freer than O.J. Simpson after a double homicide! And so, in what very well could have been my last act of courage, I chose to swallow my pride and the oversized morsel and see what would become of me. I knew I had to hurry and finish masticating before one of them raised their accusatory eyes and say whatever the Spainsh equivalent is of gotcha! I chewed so ferociously and feverishly that my face must have been a contorted spectacle. I thought I (or rather my salivary enzymes) were making progress when my Mom, sensing a disturbance in the force rose her head and our eyes met. There I was, a revered gringo, humiliated on the field of battle. Now I know how Lee must have felt when he surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.
Mother smiled lovingly at her vanquished child and said, with all the double entendre that a two-word phrase can possess, ¿Quiere más? (Want more?)
And I, mouth still full of fried fish, managed to mumble, Estoy bien.
No comments:
Post a Comment