When I first moved to Mexico, I was annoyed, frankly, by the amount of time it took people to eat here.
At a typical restaurant, the waiter would drop off the menu and disappear. He would reappear to take our drink order, and then disappear again.
It was unnerving how no one, except me, cared about this. I’d be at a restaurant frantically trying to catch the waiter’s eye (should I stand up? should I go get him?) while every other Mexican looked happily oblivious. Lounging over their post-dinner coffees like they could have stayed there all night.
In Spanish this after-dinner lingering is called the “sobremesa.” An exact equivalent doesn’t exist in English, but it basically means chatting with friends after a meal and letting the food digest.
Basically, the sobremesa means that meals in Mexico — or rather, lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day — can stretch into two hours. Or even four, if you’re hanging out with your work buddies and throwing back tequilas.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever be one of these sobremesa, hanging-out-in-a-restaurant-all-afternoon types of persons. Patience is not one of my virtues, and after a meal I like to go home. But I’m happy to report that the change is underway.
Consider the evidence:
1. When I was in New York recently, I felt ambushed when the waiter appeared to take our order, five minutes after we sat down. Were we supposed to be reading our menus this whole time? Didn’t everyone else just want to have drinks and sit for awhile? It turned out, no. All the Americans were ready to order except me. I asked everyone nicely if we could please order appetizers first, and then decide later on our main plates.
2. We had lunch with Erik and Jesica recently, and the four of us hadn’t hung out in awhile. We met up at 2 p.m. at Barracuda Diner. At 3:30, we were still talking… at 4 p.m., still talking… and finally at 4:30, Crayton and I had to leave to pick up our friend at the airport. But I could have stayed longer. It was fantastic, this sitting after a meal without a care in the world except the company we were with. Two hours had ticked by, and I hadn’t once fretted about some task that had to be done at home.
3. I now love when the waiter drops off the drink menu and disappears. I think it’s classy.
What about you? Do you like lingering after a meal?