The Language of Eating

Sitting in Bryant Park, I gingerly turned the page of my book and took another sip of tea. Completely absorbed in my novel, I was not even taking breaks to people watch, as I tend to do. I was suddenly jostled out of my concentration by the movement of all the chairs at the table next to me. I glanced to the side and found myself intrigued by the collection of individuals who had taken seats beside me. All six members of the party carefully began removing Tupperware from their bags, silently placing them on the table. They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, until one girl spoke up.

“This is called inarizushi”, she said slowly, in a thick Japanese accent. “It is very popular dish in Japan”.

“Oh! I have tried this before!” said another, before she happily introduced her own dish, Pierogi, a type of Polish dumpling.

My book lay on the table, abandoned, as I continued to listen to the names of the foods, all said in extremely dense accents hailing from the same country as the dish brought. Although conversation was no doubt greatly stunted, everyone managed to communicate his or her thoughts, and each person listened patiently as the others tried hard to find the English words to express themselves accurately. And when they, trying so hard to find those words, still came up empty-handed, they simply smiled and said the food was delicious. After all, “mmmm!” is the same in every language.