I've had just enought time to... say "banana" in Italian.
 |
| Warm Italian on a cold autumn evening |
It was 7.00 pm in Parma and we were cold and hungry. The last few days we had been having dinner at 6.00 pm in Denmark which was kind of early but in Italy, the restaurant only opens at 8.00 pm which was kind of late for us. While waiting for the recommended restaurant to open, we hanged around and ended in front of a small fruit stall. The owner came out and engaged us in a conversation where neither party understood a single word the other was saying.
It was kind of fun though. He pressed his thumbs against the first finger and thrust it in a forward motion saying something we could not make head or tail of. This was repeated several times and we made our guesses about the significance of this gesture but not convinced we understood him. That was until he made the ringing sound before we realized he was kindly suggesting that we rang the doorbell of the restaurant which is just down the road. We laughed and told him we had done that but was not sure he understood us. Everyone was smiling and the autumn wind did not feel as cold.
With time to kill, we looked at his products and our puzzled look must have given away the fact we did not know what that ugly looking fruit with wrinkled skin was. He said something in Italian but that of course did not strike a bell. He then gently pushed against the skin revealing a deep wet purple meat beneath. Beetroot I guessed. I think. That opened the floodgate. We then pointed out the fruits and vegetables and he said it out lout in Italian. And we offered the English name. Who needs words for communication?
 |
| What is this fruit/vegetable/root? Anyone knows? |
There was
no way we could remember all those Italian words. So we decided to remember at
least one word, an easy one. We looked at the fruits and pointed at a bunch of
banana –
“How do you
say that in Italian?”
He looked
at us with a bemused look and say “Ba-na-nuh!”
And we all
burst out laughing simultaneously. Okay, we will never forget that! We left happily
for the restaurant waving goodbye to our new found friend. We will probably
never meet again but every time I see banana, I will remember that happy Italian
face saying “Ba-na-nuh!”.
ReplyDelete1000 Reasons (Busy, busy, busy)
This is the passionate Italian shopkeeper that we met on the first evening in Parma. We will be meeting many more. Italian shop owners are high up on my list of the most friendly shopkeepers in the world whether you are buying or not. Unfortunately, the reputations of Italian pickpockets are also well deserved from my personal experience. But that is a story for another day.
nikolaos p.
Nice shot!!
bjebie
Interesting, as always. I look forward to more from your adventure. :-)
ineedathis
What else but banana:-) you captured a beautiful smile by the vender!
Have a great weekend my friend.
:-) A great story Thou San! Indeed, 'just another word' ;-)
ReplyDeleteGreetings from the Netherlands! ;-)
dzjiedzjee.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteOnasill
Well caught vegetable frontage....always enjoyable to read you follow ups on the pic.
BlueLunarRose 21 hours ago
Looks all delicious, like his friendly smile, beautiful capture!
henrhyde (gill) catching up
Grand presentation , of this image
Aslam Kareem 13 hours ago
What a magnificent photo
Rebecca Ang
Read the interesting and funny account of your encounter with the warm and friendly Italian fruit/vegetable stall owner. Good to see his broad smile in this pic. Tis' true, we tend to rely so much on verbal language for communication. Of course, words are such a major channel of communication. But sometimes we forget other possible ways of connecting, communicating, of finding common ground such as via nonverbal means or through music.
ReplyDeleteOnasill, Carl's Captures, 5div, and 1 other people added this photo to their favorites.
1000 Reasons (Busy, busy, busy)
Who knows what this strange looking fruit/vegetable/roots are? The meat is a deep purple. I guess it was beetroot. Does anyone know for sure to correct me?
ineedathis
Great close up Thou! you making me hungry now:-)
Onasill
Perfect execution and excellent attention to details Thou
Carl's Captures o
Nice tones and textures and an amusing “ba-na-nuh” story :) Thanks for the entertainment and education!
ana_lee_smith
Perhaps, though I've never seen a beetroot with such deeply puckered skin or that colour skin. I've grown them in my rooftop garden sometimes & that's what I'm recalling ...not those in the supermarket which, otherwise, I might imagine had been hybrid to aesthetic viewing perfection. I love beets, pickled or otherwise. Takes me back to childhood. Growing up in north of England my mom would make pickled beet sandwiches ....yum*~* When going to a restaurant I'm sometimes surprised with an interesting beet dish on the menu. No, don't look like beets to me. Was the flesh very firm & have ringed veins in it? Thanks for your input on 'viewing the ML' series. Was an interesting experiment to document the viewers rather than that which they were viewing. Not sure why the guards told me to stop. They made that request only after I moved to the front of the crowd to shoot rather than within or on the periphery of the crowd. Perhaps they thought I was now too conspicuous & someone being photographed might complain *~*
Patricia Speck o
I have never seen beetroot look like this, but I guess they could be more 'natural' ones.
Excellent shot all the same my friend