I frequently travel abroad with two very dear married friends, "Martha" and "Peter." She is a super-lawyer and a gourmand who meticulously scrutinizes restaurant menus. Martha always asks lots of questions about ingredients and preparations before deciding what to order in an unfamiliar restaurant.
A few years ago we vacationed together in the Principáu d'Asturies (the Principality of Asturias, in northern Spain on the beautiful coast of the Bay of Biscay). Neither Martha nor Peter speak more than a few words of rudimentary Castillian Spanish, and they don’t know a single word of Asturianu, the local dialect – whereas I am fluent in Castillian and speak Asturianu at least passably – so I had the duty of translating for my friends throughout our trip.
One afternoon while exploring the countryside we decided to stop for a late lunch before returning to “base camp” at our hotel, the Casa del Busto in Pravia. (The hotel, BTW, is a beautifully restored old mansion dating back to the 16th century – highly recommended.) We found a lovely rustic restaurant in a village up in the mountainous Picos de Europa region. Their menu was extensive and impressive, featuring exotic (to us Americans, at least) entrees using locally-hunted game and fowl.
As usual, Martha asked detailed questions about just about every item on the menu – cooking techniques, oils and fats used, sauce ingredients, thickening methods, recommended degrees of doneness, etc. Translating for her was quite a task, as the menu was surprisingly large for such a small venue. Martha would ask a question in English, then I’d translate it into Asturianu (or Castillian when my dialect non-proficiency required) for our server, a lovely middle-aged woman who was the chef-owner’s spouse. The server would answer in Castillian, I’d translate her answer back into English for Martha, and so forth. This went on, back and forth, for at least ten minutes, maybe more. It was a bit of an ordeal for me – Martha’s questions can be quite exacting, which has discomfited many a waiter – but it was worth it to help my good friend order exactly what she wanted. (It's always more fun to travel together when she's happy!
)
After the entire menu had been translated and all of her supplemental questions were answered, Martha finally ordered her meal and Peter and I followed suit. Our very patient server repeated the order back to me in Castillian for accuracy – I told her she had it correct – and then the server turned to Martha and said,
in perfect, slightly-Irish-accented English, “Whatever he’s chargin’ you is worth it – he’s an excellent translator and very patient, too!” I suppressed a fleeting impulse to strangle her on the spot, but recovered quickly and joined Martha and Peter in rib-cracking laughter.
By the time our meal was finished (it was delicious!) we had become fast friends with our hosts, who brought out a bottle of their home-distilled
aguardiente (an excellent grappa of sorts) and joined us at our table.
It turns out our server was originally from Dublin, married her Asturian husband decades ago and moved to Spain. Most of the Asturian population is Ibero-Celtic in original, so she looks like a “native.” She and her husband own a vacation timeshare unit in Tucson and keep a big RV there – they take frequent roadtrips around the U.S.