Food as expression
My aunt Tita Blitte went marketing last Wednesday. When she arrived home, she unloaded her purchases on the wide kitchen table. “Ay, Ober, I finally got convinced to buy some cans of mackerel in oil as advertised on television.”
As you may have guessed it, we had canned mackerel for dinner. My aunt made mackerel carbonara, topping the dish with quartered mackerel so “you would know how it tastes as it is.”
“It’s good,” Uncle Gustave said. We all agreed. Then Pannon, my precautious nephew, gave his opinion on the food.
“Holy mackerel, it’s fantabulous.” My aunt, a religious woman, told him to be careful.
Pannon asked, “Why is it bad to say holy mackerel, Lola?”
“The expletive has an unacceptable origin. Mackerel replaces Moses in ‘holy Moses’ or ‘Mary.’ Just simply say you like something without the expletive, okay?”
We use food in our daily conversations. We have anak ng
tokwa (literally “son of a tofu”) or to fool someone; anak ng tinapa (son of a smoked fish) or for someone boastful.
The English language has a lot of idiomatic expressions using food also. “Carrot and stick” means reward, and cheese means to anger or annoy or irritate someone. Oh, I get it; lactose intolerance. Please don’t get cheesed off by what I just said.
I am a lightweight as a columnist so don’t compare me to Alex Magno; that would be like comparing apples and oranges. It sounds better than “Don’t compare me with Alex, because the guy makes sense and I don’t.”
As we ended our meal, Pannon made his food review. “I like our mackerel carbonara, lola Blitte, minus the holy part,” Pannon said and we all laughed. The little guy makes more sense than I do.