Romanian Reminiscences 7

A meal to Remember

Ben entered the kitchen with various different thoughts going through his mind as he anticipated what might be on offer. He’d heard stories of people going off to far-flung lands and eating all sorts of wild and wonderful fair, such as grasshoppers, spiders, snakes and so on. He himself had once been to a Japanese Church fete and tried octopuses’ head, probably made more palatable by the batter around it, but nevertheless a bit of a culinary walk on the wild side, so he was fairly confident that he could handle even the most daring of Romanian dishes.

The kitchen was rather small, but there was enough space for him, Florin and Doina at the little table in its corner. The table already had plates and forks laid on it, not to mention some serviettes, a bread basket with chunky, freshly sliced bread in it and a couple of side dishes that Ben didn’t recognise. One was a saucer-sized plate with little white slices of what looked like the fatty part of bacon that people back home didn’t usually eat, although these slices were much thicker. If they were indeed from bacon, thought Ben, that must be one heck of a slice of bacon! The other strange delight was in a small bowl with a teaspoon in it. It was a reddy substance that appeared to be some vegetables mashed up and was presumably for spreading on the bread.

As Ben surveyed these things, Doina took a silver coloured pot that was extremely well rounded off the stove and emptied its contents into a large white ceramic container, which she then plonked on the table before Ben. This was obviously the main course. Looking at its quantity made Ben wonder how many more people were coming round to eat.

Steam was still coming off of the food, which Ben recognised as clearly being a rice dish. Ben loved a good curry, although he found the glistening of the copious amounts of grease in the rice disconcerting. Something gave him the feeling that this wasn’t going to be quite like the rice dishes he was used to from his local Indian takeaway.

Ben managed to ascertain that the name of the rice dish was in fact ‘Pilaf’. At least, this is a word that he heard both Florin and Doina refer to it by, so unless they were making some sort of derogatory comments, this must be its name, he concluded.

Doina produced a large spoon and used it to put a healthy portion of the ‘Pilaf’ on Ben’s plate. He would have been quite looking forward to it if it wasn’t for the grease that was oozing out. At least, he could spy some chicken chunks and carrots mixed into it, which he thought would be the saving grace.

‘Nu te rușina. Simte-te ca acasă!', were Doina’s encouraging words for Ben. Or at least they would have been encouraging if he had understood them. Also, they conveyed a hidden message that she had now already started to become familiar with Ben, switching to using the more informal pronouns full time as opposed to the more formal ones that she’d felt necessary to include in the beginning.

The meal went well. Ben did his best to try and drain off a little of the grease from the ‘Pilaf’ using his fork. It didn’t work so well, so in the end he just went with the flow as he was so hungry and ate it. He also very much enjoyed the red stuff on bread. If he wasn’t very much mistaken they were using the word ‘Zacusca’ for it, so that’s how he would name it too. There was a tricky moment though. Florin seemed to be a great advocate of the white stuff that resembled bacon fat. Ben surmised that this wasn’t going to be his cup of tea and after one mouthful, he realised it certainly wasn’t. Florin seemed determined to get Ben to eat as much of it as possible, and was waxing lyrical, presumably about its qualities, 'Slănină a fost mâncarea care a ajutat strămoșii noștri să construieasca România!'. Sometimes it was good to not understand.

Ben had started out hungry, but as the meal progressed, he could start to feel his stomach fill. A few times Doina had reproached him, 'De ce nu mânanci?' Ben didn’t need to be too well versed in the Romanian language to realise that she was asking why he wasn’t eating more. Indeed, ‘Mâncare’ and the related verb ‘a mânca’, ‘food’ and ‘to eat’ were two of the first words he learnt. It was good to know about food vocabulary so you wouldn't go hungry. This was Ben's strategy at least. Anyway, back to the question, he thought it would have been obvious why he wasn’t eating more as he had already lined his stomach with plenty of ‘Pilaf’, not to mention a number of slices of bread with ‘Zacusca’ on it, but Doina appeared to have other ideas about what constituted a good meal.

'Nu, mulțumesc', was a phrase that fortunately Ben knew, but he was struggling to say it assertively enough. He was evidently going to need more than a few ‘No, thank yous’ to get himself out of this situation.

He managed to force down a few more forkfuls of ‘Pilaf’, not to mention a couple more slices of bread with ‘Zacusca’. He even contemplated another slice of the white stuff, but he did his best to resist that particular option. He was starting to understand why he had seen a number of decidedly rotund people from his taxi as he had travelled to this, his new temporary home.

Ben was starting to get worried as Doina wasn’t letting up on the ‘have some more’ policy that she was intent on pursuing. He was unsure how much he could put into his stomach without it having dire consequences later on.

Fortunately, once again, as if someone was watching over him, at just the right moment, the front door of the flat swung open and in walked someone new, who distracted Florin and Doina’s attention from the food, that they were otherwise so concerned about.

Image by Harald Dona from Pixabay