At this point, I’m aware that the “misadventures stemming from language barrier” formula is a bit tired, so I will try, dear reader, to bring you some fresh insight.
Not this week, however. This week is perhaps the apex of that formula, at least in terms of how simple a mistake kicked off such a disastrous spiral.
It all began with a craving for a nice, hearty tomato sauce. How many heroes have been felled by the false allure of a plate of pasta? Coming from a distinctly Italian-American flavored family, I thought whipping up a batch of sauce to be no great task, but now I see this was merely hubris.
So, I gathered my ingredients: rigatoni, garlic and a can of crushed tomatoes from the supermarket, and eggplant and red peppers from the Sunday market. I waited four days for the best opportunity to cook, which, after so much aspiration, only deepened my imminent sadness. Foolishness, thy name is Icarus.
I went through all the necessary steps: cutting vegetables, allowing the eggplant to sit with salt for an hour prior to cooking, sautéing the combination. I even struggled my way through conversation with my host to ask for a can opener.
And that is where it all went wrong: without looking into the can of “double concentré de tomates,” I pour all of the contents into my pot — all of the contents of a giant can of tomato paste.
There is a key difference between a can of crushed tomatoes and a can of tomato paste. The former is self-explanatory, while the latter is a thick, acidic concentrate. My mother uses about a tablespoon of paste to thicken a sauce made with a 32 oz. can of crushed tomatoes. I poured 30 ounces of paste on top of sautéed vegetables.
Immediately, panic set in. What have I done?! It seems that with my limited French, I did not realize “double concentré de tomates” was tomato paste. In my defense, I have never seen such a large can of tomato paste in the United States, and the container just had generic pictures of tomatoes on it.
To assess, I ate a small teaspoon of my Frankenstein sauce and immediately gagged. My internal monologue gets desperate.
This cannot work. How can I salvage this?
I sent an SOS to my sister, who advised me that I add two cans water and one can wine for one can tomato paste. I tried this, but there is so much freaking tomato mush in the pot that even just one can of water starts to overflow.
Should I pour half out into a second pot and try to add enough water? But then I will have about four pounds of sauce and nothing to do with it — there is not enough Tupperware in the world to store all of this.
At this point, I was so frustrated that I resolved simply to dump the whole concoction and drown my sorrows in French McDonald’s (affectionately pronounced “MacDoh”). But then another problem arises: the garbage is on the verge of overflowing, and I don’t have any idea where I would even take it out.
That’s why we have sinks!
I stood for almost 20 minutes dumping the appetizer from the S.S. Diarrhea into the drain in small enough batches so that they could be blasted away by the sink. The whole time, I muttered prayers to the universe under my breath that my host mom would not walk in and see me trying to dispose of this panicked creation.
With such wastefulness and confusion, I hated what I was doing. I had not felt that particular blend of shame and panic since I was 13 and learning about my body with the bedroom door closed.
The monologue became existential.
Could anyone have spared me from this fate? Could the manufacturer have put a picture of tomato paste, not tomatoes, on the can? Could the cashier have seen me buying pasta and enough tomato paste for a small country and said, “Excuse me, confused American student, but this is tomato paste?”
Or have I been hurtling toward this unavoidably, all because of my hubris in thinking I could handle French grocery stores? Am I Oedipus incarnate?
I eventually finished the dirty deed and sulked out the door to dry my tears with French fries — sorry, “frites” — and they were the best damn frites I have ever eaten.
My host mom still does not know the shame of what happened that night in the kitchen. And what did I learn from all of this?
I don’t know. The importance of food-related vocabulary? Using a translator app in the store? That the universe is a cruel place full of suffering, and the slightest aspiration can set in forth a chain of events leading to painful downfall while a chorus of peers follows you around chanting about hubris?
Something like that.
