Several years ago, I was on a business trip to Belgium. My meeting was in Ghent which is about a 6
hour drive from my home in Germany. (Ghent: You know the place where they
signed ‘that’ famous treaty. Ok, ok, so you don’t remember… neither did I. I
had to look it up. Just like you, dear
reader, I remembered the name of the treaty [from 8th grade World
History!!!] but had ‘no clue’ what it was for, or about, and certainly not when
the darn thing was signed!! Turns out, it was to end the War of 1812!!)
Memory (i.e. historical and cultural references) firmly intact,
I got into my car and drove to my meeting. Afterwards, that night, I prowled
the streets of Ghent for a bit before turning in. Typical European town, I surmised:
old town, narrow cobble-stoned streets, old houses, big church, nice bridge, torture
museum, etc. (As I was later to discover,
that was quite an understatement. Ghent is far from a typical town … but more
on that in my next post.)
The next day, I got up and started to wander the streets…
visiting the church, walking around the market place, walking across the bridge.
As I entered a back street, I was LITERALLY confronted with store after store -
with windows filled with chocolates: hand-made Pralines and every other chocolate
delight!!
For those of you.. like me… who know the name ‘Praline’ but
could not recognize one if our lives depended on it: a Praline is simply a piece
of covered chocolate with a filling inside. We (meaning us in the USA) call them ‘chocolates’.
You remember... the kind that people used to give your mother as a gift. (The chocolates
you had to take a bite out of, or poke a hole in, to find the filling you liked. Unless, of course, it was a Whitman’s Sampler
- which had a ‘map’ in the top of the
box!!)
The back street was filled with confectioners … not big,
fancy, high-priced gourmet stores… just small shops run by ordinary people
selling their own hand-produced chocolates (i.e. Belgian people making and selling
chocolates in Belgium, hence the name ‘Belgian Chocolate’!! Who knew???)
The people in the stores were so friendly, ’Here try this,
try a bit of that’… as they explained the various fillings and ingredients
hidden deep within the rich chocolate coatings. I tried one, then - I tried another… I tried
them all. But having NYC shopper genes in my genome, I moved on. I needed to
continue my search…. perhaps I would find a better one, a better buy… a better
something or other. I knew not what.
Finally, I had to stop. I could sample no more!! So,
instead, I bought. I bought a lot… and then I bought some more. I excused my apparent gluttony by explaining,
to the salesperson, that I planned to give most of my purchases to my family in
the States. In reply, she suggested that I buy more and ship them as gifts, instead
of taking them back on the plane with me. My wary, NYC shopper genes kicked
into action. ‘She just wants me to spend more money’, I thought. ‘No, no’, I responded,
‘Everything will fit perfectly well in my suitcase’. Then – explaining that I actually lived in Germany and was
planning to visit the States in 3 weeks or so – I inquired if the chocolates
would still be fresh. ‘Of course’, she replied. Then in very perfect English, she said ‘but
you really ought to ship them’. Later, I
was to discover the emphasis was on OUGHT!! (Europeans have a way of using the polite
word ’ought’ to indicate a ‘must do’.)
I left the store, my arms laden with my purchases; and, then
loaded them into the front seat of my car. As I made my way home…, during the 6
hours… I sampled, I nibbled, I snacked,
and then I gobbled a little from this bag, a little from that box: secure in
the knowledge that I had purchased more than enough.
By the time I got home, I had eaten a bit (ok, ok... to be
truthful… apparently quite more than ‘a bit’) of the chocolates. In the weeks leading up to my trip to the States,
I ate most of the rest. But, I did manage to save one nicely-wrapped box for
the folks back home. (In truth… if the wrapping had not been so nicely done and
- IF - I could have replicated the wrapping… I would have ‘sampled’ from box, as well.)
I guess the saleswoman was right: I really ‘ought’ to have
shipped my Belgian Chocolates home!!
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