On the Sense of Smell and Her More Neglected Counterparts

There can be many things learned while working in a restaurant. Conveniently, it is an opportunity to test various delicacies and unique combinations that you would be unlikely otherwise to try. Many people, when they go out, choose to do so with a particular meal in mind, I know I do: burgers, cappuccinos, specials that cannot be made at home—however, the casseroles, the fillets and the bakes, which are your classic home-cooked meals—are nevertheless popular, if not more so than other regular specials. Here there is another world of interesting new recipes—homemade breads, our famous carrot cake, savoury cheesecakes, pork casseroles, falafels with tzatziki, smoked salmon salad with a horseradish dressing, rhubarb and ginger tart, duck in cherry, chicken in orange and Dijon mustard, and nothing, from the ‘burgers’ (served on Italian paninis) or the even the scrambled egg, is ordinary. As my boss says, “We don’t serve anything we don’t like.”

It has certainly helped my creativity when it comes to meals. I have discovered the mechanics of poaching eggs, the structuring of aesthetically pleasing dishes, experimenting with things that can be combined— like cottage cheese in cumin/coriander carrot soup—and things that cannot. There are lots of good recipes to be found in any home magazine, from great soups, to soft Rolo-cookies, and on the bbcgoodfood.com website which allows searches to be categorised by preparation time, low-GI, or dietary specifics.

The downside of course is having all these readily available. My palate is satisfied, but my waistline is beginning to feel bashful. So I must expound on the marvels of the sense of smell:

Smell, apart from making up one fifth of senses that feed our brains information, is also the most nostalgic of the senses. Just think—what can conjure up memories better and faster than any other sense? Particular examples that spring to my mind is Old People Smell which permeated the house and car of my best friends’ grandmother, which nevertheless spelt out only good times (and which I have since discovered is the smell of mothballs). There are specific aromas that speak with infallible eloquence of the new Barbie doll’s shampoo on that brilliant Christmas morning, and the lingering excitement of candles which hint at the gentle glow of Christmas suppers. And if your friends are the sort who stick to one fragrance, that same smell on anyone else is all wrong.

In the kitchen it is easy to be overpowered by the more obvious senses: taste, of course is forefront. It gives valuable clues as to cooking time, freshness of ingredients, nuances of flavouring, and of course is completed in the taste sensation for which we crave. Touch also is employed: the tongue as the most common tool, to detect what work still needs to be done, or where it has been overdone. Between one’s fingers too can be useful, and the give where a fork presses in.

On the topic of undervalued senses, sight is poorly put to use. Sight gives valuable insight concerning the freshness of raw matter in salads, the necessity to swirl a dressing perhaps, and especially, where weight-watchers are concerned, the fat content. Easy giveaways are the marbling of butter beneath your ‘healthy’ dose of vegetables, the consistency of the bread tells of the amount of oil used in baking it. Congealed lard on stored things doesn’t even need expansion, and the creamy texture of a casserole or pudding always speaks of either cream or condensed milk. I watch in horror as ladies who have chosen a vegetarian wrap for its ‘healthy’ reputation are presented with a floured pancake piled with oiled vegetables and swimming in yellow grease from the melted mozzarella, and eat as obliviously as if it were a celery stick. I am not against enjoyment of food, but if you are to take dietary requirements seriously, I cannot but say use your eyes.

Now for those like me who work in restaurants and are daily exposed to the sights and smells that lure us in as well as the customer, this is a curse and a blessing. A blessing to be privy to the private goings on, in order to make informed choices about the healthiest option, but a curse because we are seduced as easily as the customer, and there are never-ending bowls waiting to be washed that contain copious amounts of chocolate mixtures, remnants of casserole not quite cleared from the corners of a pot and off-cut pastries which find their way into our mouths. It hangs around our heads when the brownie batch and the fresh warm scones exit the oven and await eager fingers while they cool. How could we not be affected?

For what the eye will not render to view, smell probably can and at no cost to one’s waistline. For example, a beef pie will tell you in plain terms that there is beef in it, what sort of flavouring has been employed (whether wine, cream or herbs) and the eyesight will spot the telltale pooling blobs of oil that clearly mark the dish as a no-go. Curiousity is satisfied about a new pink mayonnaise: the sharp, tangy scent of mayonnaise countered with a tiny herbal blast of tomato. The taste of coffee, for example, is mainly smell. It is incredible how little of this unmistakable flavour is missed when one blocks one’s nose while drinking. In this instance, that the French use one word parfum to denote both smell and taste, does not seem like a very obscure occurrence.

In my opinion, a health-freak’s view in a butter kitchen, the importance of smell and sight above taste cannot be overstated. It detects the traitorous lagoons of oil in which the food was soaked, and the generous puddles of butter, and the pooling yellow grease of melted mozzarella.

There is a blind man who comes in with his wife and two children every now and then, and here is something to notice. He has a little baby, a moon-faced smiley thing - such a little delight to look at. And he cannot see her. And I tell you, not because he can’t see the sumptuous arrangement of the meal he’s about to eat, not that pity for the man who cannot view and appreciate the scope from a mountaintop, or the stroke of Da Vinci, but because he could not see the round moon-face of his shining little daughter that nearly broke my heart. All day I thought of it and this entry and could only think that we with all our senses are darned lucky little blighters.

Life Lessons from a Rustic Tea Room

 

The common waiter or waitress can be found in any small tea-room, public eating or drinking places, or restaurants in the locality of Hilton/Pietermaritzburg. While a natural inhabitant of the area, it must be remembered that all of these servers, for so we shall henceforth call them, are not naturally thus, and many will become a server as a primitive rite of passage, or initiation into what is known as Adult Life. Sightings of these creatures are not rare in this area, and it is not uncommon for the youngster fresh from highschool to sight a Commonly Spotted Server at any local café, and recognise them from former schooldays. Personally, we avoid these places.

All servers are endowed with a friendly disposition. There are no exceptions. None whatsoever that have been noticed or recorded by the clientele, that is. Of course we cannot vouch for the mysterious life of this species, but we cannot imagine it to be any different. It is common knowledge that servers have no life other than serving your every whim.

While it is a great event to have been conducted through this rite of passage, to remain in this standing, however, is a gross humiliation in their culture. Never presume to assume that this stage of their development is a permanent arrangement--or risk offending their fragile dispositions. A kindly treated and gently handled server is compliant, happy and willing to please you. They will arrange matters behind the scenes so as to be of least inconvenience to yourself. It comes as a surprise to everyone unfamiliar with them, but minding one's P's and Q's are taken as a sign of great respect in their primitive minds, and it is remarkable the effects this can yield.

Taking its own dignity very seriously, offence given by you to a server can be detrimental to your daily enjoyment of life. As previously stated, servers are seldom without ambition and view this capacity as strictly temporary and on an as-needed basis. To assume otherwise is dangerous to your health. On this subject, be aware that the server lists serving you as a plight, and an intrusion on an otherwise quiet moment of communicating with its peers (via an electronic device considered to be indispensable: the server culture values highly the art of communication), intellectual exercise (reading), daydreaming (a common pastime). Therefore, oblige it with the requisite amount of consideration and courtesy, knowing that all your requests must be processed by a creature who is working hard to be smiling and on its feet all day.

It is necessary to note at this juncture that this particular status is in fact a trying one, as, in order to be a good server, the poor specimen is subjected to daily tortures, which most days, seldom seem to balance it's (in many cases) slight remuneration. Many are subjected to the playing of incessant music, often a CD of 'elevator music' (so simple you are familiar with the entire thing immediately, and whose music, if original and pretty at first, soon loses that initial charm and gives way to grotesque, sickening, maddening dislike) which is played again, and again and again during the day, and incessantly throughout the week. Again, and again, and again, over and over and over.  

Yes, pity the creature whose name is bandied about like a swearword, and summoned with no more ado; who must listen to you gossip at the expense of your best friend who is not there, or complain (oh, the complaints!) with a fervour that enlivens rather than tires, about the state of the country, the petrol prices and the electricity bill; who must wait, patient and smiling while you agonise whether cakes fit into your diet or not ("oh, no, I really shouldn't") and hear you always consent at last ("oh, it's so wicked of me; but it's your birthday; but I've been so good lately; but it's a special occasion; but it's a weekday"); who is threatened with no tip if their recommendation does not take the client's fancy; who must endure the same jokes about the dish ("this wrap is unwrapped?" [Does it? I'd never even noticed! Do you mean to say that I've worked here all this time, and EACH time I took one out it was UNWRAPPED? Great Scott! why didn't somebody say so?]); and who must explain the quiche of the day to every person who can't read past "the quiche of the day is:"; and who must explain the purpose of a menu to those who inquire "what drinks do you have?"

Finally, it is important to note that this species, whatever their faults, are incredibly observant. While you agonise over whether you should or shouldn't, being privy to the goings on in the kitchen, and rather inclined to being judgemental, they could tell exactly where you shouldn't, being all too familiar with the category of female who come in for "skinny" cappucinos and add to this a large helping of cake lathered with cream. Or those who claim to be health conscious and choose something that is deep friend in oil, or cooked in cream, and then feed their "beerboeps", or smoke. Then there are those who come in from cycling excercise for the week and drown their pantings in chocolate milkshakes or hot chocolates. From the mere way you swipe the bill, or listen to what is on the menu, the server already forms an opinion of you. In the non-server community, this may be seen as uncalled for prejudice, however, what is rather unnerving, is that these opinions are correct. They have an uncanny knack to tell a likeable comrade from a disagreeable acquaintance, they can decipher the nuances which indicate happy marriages, terrible jobs, imminent couples and parents who will someday realise they have raised a rebellious, irresponsible teenager (or worse--like a plague upon mankind).

If you are looking for life advice, forget the horoscope and the fortune-tellers. Your most accurate bet would be to ask your local server, because they know all about you.