Watching someone eat chocolate for the first time
While at English-language summer camp in Québec in 1984 reading a copy of TIME magazine about the Summer Olympics boycott by Eastern European countries, my Polish bunkmate stared around the big canvas tent we lived in from her bottom bunk with her distinct lack of cheerfulness, not knowing what to do with her quiet time. For the rest of us, it meant reading in bed and scarfing down some chocolate we called ‘tuck’, a British expression we didn’t know was British.
The Polish bunkmate had parents rich enough to send her to Canada for summer camp, but not enough for her to have any tuck. The other girls didn’t take to her because she couldn’t speak English very well and was quite reserved. I decided it would be funny to let he read the propaganda that is TIME magazine and also gave her some of my chocolate bar. She looks at me a bit scared, broke off a square, popped it her mouth, and went very quiet. “It’s good,” she said, finally smiling a bit. “What, you’ve never had chocolate before?” She nodded for no. She was 15.
Now it’s time to see how cocoa bean growers in Ivory Coast react when they taste chocolate for the first time, as filmed by a Dutch TV crew. Just like the Polish girl, it’s hard to believe that anyone hasn’t had chocolate before, especially cocoa bean growers.
In Dutch, French and at least another Ivory Coast language, with English subtitles:
Next, the Dutch at a market are shown a cacao pod and can’t figure out what it is, even after tasting it. I like the older man who wanted to say ‘abrikoos’ (‘apricot’) and turned into ‘Afrikoos’ (roughly ‘Africot’):
(Link: boingboing.net)
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