quesadilla, (‘quez-a-dill-a’) five times longer than the time needed to eat one,
while the server looked confused, and then amused. Finally she leaned
forward and said the word correctly, slowly and in a loud voice: ‘kess-a-di-ya’
She then waited for me to repeat. I am now fluent in the Mexican fast food
language. We never ate in Taco Bell again.
At least in Chinatown we had been able to get our food by pointing and
in Taco Bell by perseverance, in spite of our linguistic shortcomings – but we
were not so fortunate in a small restaurant in the Florida Keys.
Manny and Isa's Restaurant on Islamorada is a Cuban place renowned for its
Key Lime Pie. When we visited we had no idea what we would have as a
main course, not being au fait with Cuban cuisine, but at least we knew what
we wanted for dessert.
As it turned out the menu was generic and choosing was not the
problem, ordering was. Our first indication of this came when I had to ask for
water about ten times, eventually using sign language – do not ask! This
encounter was obviously too much for our waitress because another staff
member then came and served us. We did eventually get the water though.
Emma and I decided that my Oxfordshire accent had been the problem and
so she did the rest of the ordering with her Wolverhampton accent - soon
discovering that accents were not the only barrier to communication. I was
having a bowl of soup with a side of garlic bread, a request rapidly understood
by our diminutive Cuban waitress. Emma’s order went something like this:
Emma: ‘Can I have a cup of soup?’
Response: 'Coca-cola?'