Comida y propina (Food and Tipping)
Before entering the diplomatic service I was a graduate student in American Studies at the University of Minnesota. Minneapolis was then, in many ways, still “Zenith,” the name Sinclair Lewis, America’s first Nobel in Literature, favored when writing about the city in such novels as Main Street, Dodsworth, and Babbitt. He meant “Zenith” ironically. It means “the top” or “the best.” By exaggerating Minneapolis’ appeal so markedly Lewis meant to signify everything parochial about it and the Midwestern United States. Lewis would surely have been interested in a certain restaurant in Minneapolis that claimed to be Italian. I went there one day seeking cosmopolitan relief from Minnesota’s wholesome ordinariness. I ordered pasta, and the waiter brought me a plate of noodles. When I asked “Where’s the sauce?” he said, “Oh, you want sauce too?” He handed me a bottle of ketchup. It was a scene straight out of Garrison Keillor’s show A Prairie Home Companion.
Americans in those days ate not for pleasure but to stay alive. It wasn’t just McDonald’s and fast food; it was also that the wrong Brits had crossed the ocean to what became the United States, and we Americans were still in their thrall. We had had a political revolution but not a gastronomic one. Good food was too sensual an idea for Americans, almost sinful. If only New England’s early settlers had been fun-loving instead of those dour Puritans.
The situation has largely changed today in the United States. In addition to a multitude of other cosmopolitan influences (the United States is, after all, the United Nations in miniature), we Americans have become more of a Hispanic culture, with vast immigration especially from Latin America. These immigrants have been instructing we gringo Yankees in how to enjoy ourselves. Also, New York, not Paris (where there are great museums but little contemporary artistic excitement) has been the center of the art world for decades now, and good food and wine have accompanied this cultural flowering. But there are splendid restaurants everywhere, and California wines get better every year. Indeed, ordinary American restaurants and wines are better than ordinary French restaurants and wines, though the best American restaurants and wines may not yet equal their French counterparts. But the best Spanish ones already surpass the best French ones—though I have noted a tendency in Spanish restaurants near the French border to compromise honest native food with fussy, French pretensions. Spaniards should resist this with all their power. French food and wines are, in general, the most overrated in the world.
This was demonstrated by the 2010 list of the best restaurants in the world, selected by an association of eight hundred and six chefs, restaurant critics, restaurant owners, and gourmands. On that list three of the five best restaurants were Spanish and another was in the top ten. And the list didn’t include El Bulli, the restaurant on Spain’s Costa Brava which for many years has reigned as the number one restaurant in the world, because El Bulli was soon to close its doors and become some kind of gastronomic museum. The top French restaurant on the list occupied the eleventh position. And, surprise: an American restaurant was found among the top ten on the list. Prejudices of all kinds in favor of French cuisine and against Spanish cuisine were overcome by Spain’s striking prominence on the list. But having spent not only considerable time in Spain but in France as well, it didn’t surprise me.
It was in Spain that I first discovered a world of gastronomic pleasure, and to this day I am an habitué of Spanish cuisine. At home in New Jersey my family and I cook regularly with olive oil and garlic, and some of our favorite dishes are gambas al ajillo (garlic shrimp), gazpacho, chuletas de cordero (lamb chops) with lots of garlic, and alcochofas salteadas (artichokes with bits of ham). It is our family custom to make a paella on New Year’s Eve. Sweet melon with salty Iberian ham is one of the world’s great edible inventions, and Spanish chorizo sausage is nowhere surpassed, nor is that marvelously dry and subtle manchego cheese, nor olives stuffed with anchovies. Spanish restaurants in the United States are pale imitations of their counterparts in Spain. Crossing the Atlantic seems to have diluted their flavor. My family makes better Spanish food at home than that generally available in Spanish restaurants in the United States.
Olive oil has entered the American diet in a major way in recent years, partly because of its supposed health benefits—the good fat, not the bad; doesn’t clog your arteries. And now the latest: olive oil, it has been reported in a medical study, suppresses the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Something about it knits one’s neurons together, greases one’s brain, I suppose.
Which is fine, except that eating because something is delicious, instead of for its alleged health benefits, is, I think, more important to happiness and even health, whatever the cardiologists and neurologists say. Doctors and medical scientists change their minds every ten minutes anyway. Garlic has also been touted for lowering blood pressure and cholesterol, but most Americans still will not cook with it or tolerate it in restaurants, healthy or not. They fear that, eating garlic, because of the strongly scented breath it provokes, will alienate friends and drive away intimates. There is a restaurant in San Francisco called “The Stinking Rose” that specializes in dishes with garlic in them, as if such cooking is so unusual as to give name to a restaurant. There could not be a restaurant in Spain with such a name, garlic being a normal part of everyone’s diet. The Stinking Rose name does offer fair warning to Americans: garlic may be pretty as a rose, but if you eat it your breath will stink.
“Stink” was the word that occurred to me when I arrived in Spain and was at my first embassy cocktail party. I was chatting with one of the ambassador’s Spanish guests. Or trying to. His breath was fierce. And Spaniards stand close to others when speaking. Between this gentleman’s breath and his standing so close I felt dizzy. My eyes crossed trying to keep him in focus. I backed up slowly, not wishing to offend, but he followed, keeping the distance between us constant. No one ever stands so close in the United States unless they have amorous or bellicose intentions.
The author seated at his desk in the American Embassy in Madrid.
As soon as I could decently manage, I excused myself from this gentleman and, anticipating relief, approached a very pretty Spanish woman only to discover that her breath was equally insupportable and she stood just as close. Not to mention that, upon our being introduced, she kissed me on both cheeks. Not being used to this familiar form of Spanish greeting, I entertained certain fantasies, though these were dispelled as I realized that such affection and closeness is just how Spaniards are. But how could so glamorous a woman have such lethal breath?
I thought then that these Spaniards must practice uncommonly poor oral hygiene. Surely, they did not floss; surely they needed to invest in quantities of industrial strength mouthwash. Of course, since everyone eats garlic regularly in Spain, no one notices anything repugnant about the breath of others. Everyone has the same perfectly fine garlic scented breath.
But I only learned this when I myself became a garlic aficionado. Ever since, I have been unable to imagine good food without it. One does, of course, run the risk of finding one’s American acquaintances restricted to fellow eaters of garlic. Luckily my wife and children like garlic flavored food as much as I do. I believe I could operate a profitable business in the United States manufacturing pins that say I EAT GARLIC. These would be worn like religious talismans, much like a Cross or Star of David. Bumper stickers for cars might also sell well. Advertising their gastronomic proclivities, garlic eaters would assure non-garlic eaters that their “foul breath” was not a matter of sanitation. Were this not sufficient, garlic eaters could form social networks, clubs, participate in e-mail chat rooms. Seeking mates, they might resort to the Personals in newspapers: Elegant woman, late thirties, brunette, blue eyed, 5 foot 6, full figured, seeking long term relationship. Garlic eaters only. Box 234.
Good coffee was something else I had never experienced before living in Spain. This was before the Starbucks Revolution in the United States and all the other coffee houses it spawned. As a student I never drank coffee except to stay awake while studying. It tasted like sulfuric acid and seemed entirely capable of burning a hole through one’s stomach. Mark Twain used to refer to American coffee as “slumgullion.” I don’t know what it means precisely. I suppose the “slum” part offers a clue.
I began drinking coffee on arrival in Spain because it was so good, and there were all those dizzying choices: café con leche (coffee with milk), cortado (a small coffee with a whisper of milk that “cuts” the coffee), espresso, cappuccino (same as in America). And now this is widely true in the United States too. The coffee revolution happened, I believe, because traveling Americans experienced European coffee and, on their return to their country, would no longer tolerate American coffee. So now they and I drink coffee not as a drug to enable us to keep working but as a refreshing and delicious treat.
Today there are two kinds of coffee in the United States, good and bad. There is virtually a class distinction between those who seek lattes and those who drink slumgullion. The former costs considerably more. But it’s not just an economic matter; it is political and cultural as well. It is hard to imagine George W. Bush sitting in a coffee house, but easy to imagine Barack Obama there. John Kerry may have lost the presidency in 2004 partly because he was perceived as a snob who probably drank “fancy” coffee instead of American rotgut. It went along with people thinking he was not 100% American because he spoke French. There is a long anti-intellectual tradition in the United States, and those who speak anything besides English and seek out good coffee are often thought of as effete intellectuals, egghead professors, that is, people like me. I never know whether, when pronouncing the name of something like the nation Chile properly—“cheelay” rather than “chilly” (cold) or “chili” (a food)—I will be thought by my fellow Americans to be putting on airs. If only English was, like Spanish, more phonetic.
The availability of good coffee in every Spanish bar suggests the world of difference between Spanish and American bars. A bar in Spain is usually a family-oriented place—sociable, safe, well-lit. All the generations go to the bar together. Grandma wants a coffee, Paco, a beer, Maria, a glass of wine, the children, ice creams or Fanta limones (a brand of soda) When I first arrived in Spain, I thought bars were social clubs. For a while I wondered where “the real bars” were.
Most American bars are dark, menacing places. Grandma would not feel safe, and the children would not be permitted to enter even when accompanied by their parents. There is no coffee or ice cream in American bars. Americans largely go to bars not to be in society but to drink and, often, to get drunk. One rarely sees drunks in Spain; one sees them too often in the streets of America.
When it comes to alcohol, Americans tend to be all or nothing. We are, after all, the country of Prohibition. We passed a constitutional amendment in the 1920s forbidding all alcoholic beverages and then had to undo it in the 1930s with another amendment. The 1930s amendment put the gangsters out of business.
Moralism with regard to alcohol may explain why bars are generally considered places of ill-repute in America. The woman seated alone in that bar must be “in business.” Those fellows at that dark corner table must be mobsters. Fist fights break out in bars. Indeed, some men go to bars seeking a fist fight, as if a night out wouldn’t be successful without receiving and delivering a quantity of lacerations and black eyes.
Some American men behave in bars as if the Old West is still alive. They delight in splintering chairs over other men’s heads. They get drunk so as to express hostility and be violent. Large bars have bouncers to keep the peace. You don’t behave, they bounce you out of there. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a bouncer in a Spanish bar.
The drinking age in the United States is currently twenty-one. So what do many young Americans do on their twenty-first birthday? They go out and get blind drunk. Instead of growing up with alcoholic beverages as something natural and normal, to be enjoyed rather than abused, they reach twenty-one and go crazy.
When I grew up the drinking age was eighteen, but I could not vote until I was twenty-one. Now these two rites of passage have been reversed. At eighteen you can help decide who will be president of the United States and you can serve in the military and get killed in a place like Iraq or Afghanistan, but you can’t drink. Being Jewish I had the advantage of having some sweet wine on Friday nights almost from infancy as part of Sabbath observance. So I grew up thinking of alcoholic beverages as natural and pleasant, certainly not something that inspired in me bellicose attitudes. Today, I enjoy drinking wine, and, from time to time, I do get a bit inebriated. But, as I do, I become more, not less, sociable and pacific. At a party I may kiss every woman on the cheek and hug every man, but the last thing I would want to do is hit someone. That old 1960s adage, born in opposition to the Vietnam War, “Make love not war,” would seem to apply to me especially when uninhibited. I rather wish it was universal in the United States. We would be a happier country. But Puritanism is still alive and well.
The author being interviewed on Radio España on his thoughts about Spanish cuisine.
Here’s an example of it. In American restaurants waiters come by regularly and ask customers, “Are you finished or are you still working on that?” Working?! Does one always have to be working, even while eating and spending a lot of money in a fine restaurant? You are enjoying a sensual delight, and they want to know whether you’re still “working” on it? Would they ask you whether you were still working on it while smelling the flowers, listening to music, or making love? It is rather a utilitarian view of life. Do they think that if you are not working you are somehow sinful or, worse, wasting time? Nobody asks you if you are still “working on that” in a Spanish restaurant.
In Hollywood movie ratings, violence is more acceptable than sex or nudity. I think it may be, in part, because violence usually constitutes “hard work.” You are “getting something done.”
Every American, regardless of religious background, is a protestant (with a small “p”). What I mean is that we embody what the sociologist, Max Weber argued in his book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, that under Calvinist Protestantism, the religion of the Puritans, one must not spend, just invest, because accumulated wealth is likely a sign that you are of the elect of God. Such an idea, which explains a figure like steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, may have made us a rich and powerful country, but it doesn’t make us happy. My own belief, helped along by my years in Spain, is that if there is a God she (yes “she!”) wants us to be happy, and wealth is only incidental to happiness.
Another thing that would make the United States a happier country, I think, would be to rethink the whole issue of tipping. In Spain, tipping is something casual, just leaving the change from one’s meal or bar tab on the table or counter. Waiters make most of their money through salary; if they make a little extra that’s fine, but they’re not especially dependent on tips for their livelihood. In the United States waiters are paid little or no salary. Their livelihoods are entirely dependent on tips. I once worked as a waiter and was paid a token one dollar per week—my real income was tips.
Tips can make the dining experience in the United States fraught with tension. Should one leave 15% of the total bill as a tip, 20%, or something in between? And should the percentage be based on the food and drink alone or the tax as well? In New Jersey, where I live, it is customary to leave 15%, but just across the Hudson River in New York City it’s customary to leave 20%. One almost has to carry a pocket calculator to figure out how much to leave on the table as a tip in American restaurants. Some Americans do exactly that. And there is always stress about whether one has left enough of a tip or too much.
I hate the whole idea of tipping. It seems undemocratic, suggesting that the person receiving the tip belongs to a lower social class. He or she is not a professional but your temporary slave or, at least, a lower form of life. Also, there is the assumption that one will not get good service unless one “bribes” those serving you with a handsome tip.
I much prefer the system in most Asian countries where, without tipping, service is excellent. Indeed, tipping in Asia is considered an insult to professional integrity. I recall landing at Tokyo’s Narita Airport, jumping in a taxi, and giving the driver ten percent over his bill when we arrived at my hotel. He returned the extra money to me, smiling but suggesting I had made a mistake. I tried to give him the tip several more times, with the same result: he firmly pushed the money back into my hand. The same thing happened when I attempted to tip the bell boy who carried my suitcase to my room. He looked at me strangely and walked out of my room without acknowledging the Yen I was holding out to him. At dinner, the same thing happened with my waiter. He ran after me into the street to place in my hands the tip money I had left on my table. It took those three experiences for me to learn that one does not, indeed must not, tip in Japan, and this certainly does not negatively affect service. It may even improve it. People in the service industries consider themselves professionals, not beggars.
I do wish the United States would follow the Asian model in terms of tipping. Add the fair amount—either in the direct cost of things or as a service charge—to any bill and then everyone can relax. Yes, tipping in Spain is more relaxed than tipping in the United States but I still see it as a vestige of feudalism; it makes unnecessary social distinctions between served and server that I abhor. I understand that during the Spanish Civil War, at least in Republican territory, there were bars and restaurants where even minimal tipping was not only discouraged but forbidden. Everyone, in every field of endeavor, was considered a worker and entitled to equal respect.
During my embassy days I had one experience with tipping I shall never forget. We had a fire in our Madrid house. Some Chinese-American friends were visiting and were cooking their specialty, Peking Duck. The duck, marinated for hours, was now suspended in the middle of the oven by a series of strings, the marinade sauce dripping below. Suddenly, the whole stove, inside and out, became a ball of flame. I hastily turned off and unhooked the butane tank, tossing it into the garden. If the flames had reached it, it might have exploded. Then I phoned the emergency number.
By the time the firemen arrived the oven fire had gone out, perhaps because there was no more gas feeding it and the duck, now a tiny black thing the size of a scorched sparrow, was cremated. I thanked the six firemen for coming but they continued to stand about in their Roman centurion fire hats. I had thought they would return immediately to the firehouse, but they just stood there. I figured the least I could do was offer some hospitality. I put out cheese and crackers and olives and chorizo. I put out soda and water, but when there was little interest in them I put out beer and wine and Scotch whiskey. I thought the firemen would say, “Thanks, no alcohol on duty,” but they quickly drank everything I had just put out, so I put out more. My family and our somewhat chagrined Chinese American guests had joined us. A Spanish neighbor with whom I was friendly had also come over. We seemed to be having a party.
But didn’t these firemen have other things to do? Maintenance work at the firehouse? Fires to put out? I was running out of supplies, but they still stood there. An hour went by. Finally, the chief signaled to the others and the firemen left. Each shook hands with me—rather gravely I thought. I had no idea at the time that they had left disappointed.
As my neighbor prepared to depart I asked him why the firemen had remained at our house so long when there was clearly no further danger. “What did you give them?” he asked.
“Well, you saw,” I said: “food, drink, whatever I had.”
“No,” he said, “the tip.”
“Tip?” I asked, incredulously. “In Spain one gives firemen—public officials—tips?”
“Not a lot,” he said, “but something. They stayed because they were waiting for the tip. They were only eating and drinking to be sociable. Had you given them a little tip they would have left immediately and it would have saved you a fortune in food and drink.” So, in this respect I prefer the American idea: don’t tip public officials. If you did, it would be considered a form of corruption.
The next day my kindly neighbor left on my doorstep a beautifully wrapped little package. I untied the ribbon, and inside was a little plastic duck. From then on he would jokingly refer to me as “El Hombre del Pato” (Duck Man). I still have that duck. Indeed, it has been sitting on my desk in New Jersey as I wrote this story.