It's like I'm in Italy, but I'm not
It's nice and warm out - perfect weather to wear a light breezy shirt meant for the Mediterranean.
Wandered through a small town that some of my relatives live in today. A suburb of Katowice, in case you're keeping track.
I found myself trying out both the best and worst gelato/ice cream in town. I inserted that slash because I never determined if I was dealing with true gelato or not - it was served in a matter vaguely resembling proper gelato, but the taste was all over the map. Mostly in the poor area.
The best stuff I got was a pale imitation of Toronto's excellent Dolce/Paloma products - but it was actually half-decent compared to the second cone I tried, which was a complete abomination.
Think yellow-coloured lemon and you'll know exactly what I mean.
Ironically, though, my personal experience from the two shops was also wildly divergent from the quality of the product itself!
The best part of that little experience - aside from the fact that the tiny servings only cost a pittance - was discovering that the concept of "sampling" has yet to reach this small town.
In the first store I used the Polish word for taste test - 'degustowanie'.
The girl's response?
"What's that?" - in Polish, of course.
She really meant it. She was confused.
So I said, "no wiesz... to sample" ("No wiesz" = "you know"). Yes, I used English in an attempt to be more clear.
After a little more effort she came to the bizarre conclusion that she doesn't have anything with which to offer samples.
Um - how about the serving spoon? Why not try that?
Oh, right.
So I sample the lemon and share it with the others.
Hmm - instant judgement: you can TASTE the sugar.
I don't want Skittles, I'm looking for gelato.
I pass on getting a full scoop of the lemon. My expectations lowered commensurately, I get Nocciola and a Polish milk/berry flavour which - to be honest - isn't that bad.
Those two scoops cost the equivalent of a loonie or so. While the serving size is puny, and quality is merely "Gelato Fresco" at best - that Canadian case study in a name that screams false advertising - (that's right, I went there), in terms of value for money, it's not that bad.
It's not very good, but it'll do.
The adventure continued when we crossed to the opposite end of the town square. Feeling cheeky, I walk up to the "Italiana" ice cream stand to see what the standards of sampling are at.
Looking at the display, I try and find their lemon - gourmands know that they can make a broad sweeping decision on an entire display case by first gauging the quality of the lemon, a deceptively simple yet devilishly difficult flavour to perfect.
I try hard to find the lemon, but have trouble. Which is an especially bad sign considering that there are only six flavours to choose from!
It goes from bad to worse: my expectations nosedive when I finally spot the lemon.
This is going to suck.
If you've been paying attention you already know the problem.
It's yellow.
I could just give up and walk away but I feel like testing my theory - even though I know it's already well proven - plus, I have my new social study of who knows what a sample is.
This lady is incredibly more helpful than the last one! She demurs that she does not, in fact, have any spoons of any sort. Only cones.
Before I can say "that's okay, at least you tried", she pulls out a cone and scrapes off a generous sample which she deposits for me to sample.
Pleasantly surprsied by this level of service - which in this town was until-now lacking - I swallow back on my pride and try the yellow lemon.
I try not to gag. Or laugh.
It's even worse than I expected. A disaster / a complete catastrophe.
It was even more bland than the W hotel.
But - and here's a key lesson for people with even a passing interest in marketing - the lady serving the iced swill was so pleasant I felt like I might as well actually buy a scoop or two.
Which I did.
A candied pistachio (awful) and a "grape and rum" (i.e., rum and raisin) flavour. Neither very good, but at least they wouldn't taste out of place, say, in a crusty Baskin Robbins.
It cost me even less than a dollar this time, even with a little tip I gave her for being so generous with the sample - you have to love how pleased people get with even absolutely symbolic tips when they're not expecting anything - but whatever.
Although the serving may have been identical to that of the first shop, it felt more generous and enjoyable - despite the quality being objectively rather miserable.
Service saved the day, completely overriding an objective evaluation of which product should have produced a 'happier' response.
Does this mildly busy-case related story mean that I have a mindset of a person still a work, perhaps fielding e-mails or something?
Heavens no - I'm merely typing up a storm before passing out. Commentary on the amusing habits and phrases I'm noticing and picking up will just simply have to wait for another day.