It's safe to say that my primary motivation for going home over break was food. Ten days of food that I didn't have to cook or buy or scoop out of a can? Yes, please. Speaking of food, I spent the latter half of said break watching my parents take days to prepare all the dishes for the Passover seder they hosted last night. To be clear, everyone in my immediate family is a damn good cook, and when my parents cook, they go all out - everything from scratch, everything in large portions, everything unarguably delicious. The downside? I had class last night and this morning and was thus subjected to watching the preparation of this feast - and aiding in it - while harboring the painful knowledge that I would not be partaking.
There are no words to express the depth of my disappointment. Ironic, considering the nature of this column.
Because I'm a masochist, I chose to exacerbate my misery and write a column about weird and random food- and meal-related words this week. For some of them, there is just no good reason not to have an English equivalent. Take the Georgian word "shemomedjamo," for example. (For the geographically illiterate, Georgia is a country just northeast of Turkey. Georgian does not refer to a thick and unintelligible Southern accent. At least not in this context.) "Shemomedjamo" means to continue to eat even after you're full just because it tastes too good to stop. If you've ever told yourself to power through another helping or tried to convince yourself that yes, there is in fact a second stomach for dessert, "shemomedjamo" needs no explanation. But if I were to give one, I'd quote Louis C.K.: "The meal is not over when I'm full. The meal is over when I hate myself."
While the Georgians may understand this mortifyingly common American plight, Orcadians are more sensible. A dialect spoken on Scotland's Orkney Islands, Orcadian has the word "swadge," which refers to a rest during a meal allowing for food to digest, thus making room to continue eating. I could've used this word a couple weeks ago when I had so much for dinner that I literally couldn't stand up straight after I ate because it put too much pressure on my stomach.
Another great word? Buli, a language spoken in Ghana, has "pelinti." Have you ever taken a bite of something, unaware that it was actually a bajillion and one degrees, and then furiously started sucking air into your mouth while your tongue played handball with that bite and your soft palate in a desperate bid to save your taste buds from burning? Yeah. That's "pelinti." It means to move hot food around in your mouth.
Norwegian has the brilliant word "p??legg," which refers to anything you would put on a sandwich. Cold cuts and condiments are included, yes, but "p??legg" means literally anything you might ever consider putting on a sandwich - from the classic (peanut butter and jelly) to the classy (peanut butter and Nutella) to the gag-inducing (peanut butter, potato chips, pickled herring and mayonnaise).
Then there are those who enjoy food a bit too much. "Nakkele" is a word from Tulu, an Indian language, which describes someone who, like a dog, will lick whatever their food was served on when they're finished. But hands-down the best word I found was "oka-shete." I'm not 100 percent sure that I spelled it correctly, but "oka-shete" is from Ndonga, a language spoken in Namibia and parts of Angola, and has the most wonderful definition: trouble urinating due to eating frogs out of season. The lesson? Always eat local.
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Falcon Reese is a junior majoring in sociology. He can be reached at Falcon.Reese@tufts.edu or on Twitter @falconreese.
