It is All in the Name: How Words Can Change the Way We See Things
I have one very simple favourite dish: Spaghetti with garlic and olive oil. That’s how I do it: I slice the garlic finely, but not as finely as the Mob Boss does with a razor blade in Goodfellas. It might be a very good system and I haven’t tried yet, but I like the sight of that crunchy, gold-coloured garlic, fried in olive oil. For the movie lovers, here is that famous scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm3GIRhT1To. I also tend to play “Somewhere Beyond the Sea” while cooking my pasta. The right atmosphere is another important ingredient. Besides, it is a piece of great background music. No wonder it is so widely used in movies, from Goodfellas to Finding Nemo.
Today, I got distracted looking at Twitter feeds while also dancing with an imaginary Fred Astaire. But before you start judging me, let me say a few words. Twitter is a great tool to keep up with what is going on in your field of work. I use it to connect with other people working with Digital Communications, Environment and Accessibility. It does indeed take time to filter all the noise and block so many trolls. But I am in control of it… I only use Twitter socially… I mean, I only use it professionally… I can stop at any moment I want…I swear it! … I only use it for research purposes! Ok?… And for the record, a lot of people dance when working from home (and during the breaks). Just because you see them all very serious and composed in the office, it doesn’t mean that they don’t like to have fun when nobody is watching (and during the breaks). I bet you also do dance (during the breaks). It is just good exercise. Besides, it can be a bit lonely working from home. It is convenient to have imaginary friends that can dance well (during the breaks). It is something perfectly normal.
So, back to where I was, while I was very focused and involved in my research, the garlic got slightly overcooked… Now, I am that kind of person who doesn’t like to throw food away. I don’t like to waste effort either. So, I decided to have a go and make the best out of the accidental result of my distraction. Mind you, there are plenty of examples of foods that were discovered out of some distraction or accident. Take cheese: an 8000-year-old accident, resulting from milk that went off after fermenting in bags made out of the stomach of sheep.
Some foods were invented or repurposed to resolve a problem, or out from the decision of doing nothing. Ice-cream cones were apparently born from an ice-cream vendor running out of dishes, during the 1904 St Louis World Fair in Missouri. Another ingenious vendor, who sold crispy thin wafers in the next stall, saw that there was a collaborative opportunity and rolled up his wafers as cones.
Champagne is another good example. The bubbles in the wine were seeing as a problem. One day, a Benedict Monk tasked with finding a way to stop the bubbles forming, decided to taste it. He was marvelled with his discovery and described it as “drinking stars”. This story was not actually verified, but it sounds good enough to be told.
Yes, the overcooked garlic turned into charcoal. But do you know what? It gave a very interesting edgy taste to the pasta: a “charcoalsey” taste with a homeopathic memory of garlic. I quite like it and I might repeat it again. After all, using charcoal in food is not really a novelty. It has been around for at least a couple of years. But even before that, there has been always people who preferred their food somehow overcooked. The love of my life, for example, has been far ahead of his time. Since I met him, I have seen how he subjects slices of bread through the hottest settings in the Toaster and then eats them afterwards. That was way before Restaurants and Gastro Pubs started describing some dishes as having an “Earthy, Smokey” taste instead of burnt. Mind you, these words sound better than “charcoalsey” and don’t have to wait until the Oxford Dictionary includes them. They already exist. Nothing like the right words to make things more attractive and saleable. Words can change the whole way we perceive things. It is all in the name.
Now I have been thinking about how to call my simple pasta with garlic dish. I have thought about Spaghetti Al Carbone d’Aglio. Italian words seem to add more flavour to the food. It reminds me of scenes of Inspector Montalbano preparing his dinner. I also thought about using French and call it Spaghetti a la Charbon Ail. French words can make things sounds so cute and sophisticated at the same time. But perhaps the plain English Earthy Spaghetti might be a bit more down-to-earth. All suggestions are very welcome.
