Let me take you back to Maureen’s childhood.
Mothers everywhere are often the guardians of culture and behavior.
My mother ensured I learned to eat with a knife and a fork, because that’s what people in England did, and to this day that’s how I cut food.
I use two utensils, and often when I eat out, and there is a dessert fork only, I’ll ask for a spoon, rather than chase the dessert around the plate. (So much easier.)
Two utensils work perfectly with tiramisu, bread pudding and undeniably delicious but wobbly desserts like crème caramel, or anything that needs cutting into bite size pieces.
But as I moved around the world as an ex-pat, I also learned that there are multiple cultures where eating without utensils, with one of your hands, is not only perfectly acceptable, but highly practical given the dishes.
Back to my mother and the spread of culture. As people traveled and palates and cuisines became more varied and familiar, spaghetti bolognaise crossed the water from Italy to England. It was adopted with enthusiasm. Pasta and ground beef were an affordable combination and tasty.
As a child, I was taught that the correct way to eat spaghetti was to twirl the pasta onto a spoon. And if you visit Italy, you can see the Italians twirling away with elegance and flair.
Mothers know best, and my mother had my brother and I twirling like Italians. But twirling pasta for a child is difficult. Nevertheless, we persevered.
Let’s fast forward to my early adult years. One of the first restaurants I ate at was the Spaghetti House, close to Tottenham Court Road in London. (That restaurant is no more, but the chain is alive and well and still serving excellent Italian food in London.)
Back in the day, I noticed at the Spaghetti House that Anglo-Italians were cutting their spaghetti with a knife and fork — a la Inglese or English style.
After that I became empowered to cut my spaghetti and even break the long strands of spaghetti into halves at home into boiling water — another cardinal sin, but practical.
Which brings me to the current debate on the spelling of Guam’s native language. Should it be Chamorro, Chamoru or CHamoru?
Must we only have one way to spell the name of the local language?
Not everybody in Guam agrees on the orthography of CHamoru and such a spelling is unknown in orthography.
I am mindful of the famous saying from the 4th century, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” In Rome and in various countries, Italy is referred to as Italia, or a close variation of the theme. But nobody in Italy has a problem with Italie, the francophone and equally widespread version, or Italy, the Anglo-American name.
On multilingual maps or bi-lingual maps of Italy you can see versions of Italy’s cities. It’s obvious what we are talking about whether it’s Roma/Rome, or Milano/Milan.
And since pancit, potato salad and barbecued ribs share happily space on the fiesta table or local buffet menus with kelaguen, hagun suni, and other Chamorro dishes, I’d say a Chamorro menu has no problem with choices either. mbj
— Maureen N. Maratita is the publisher at Glimpses Media. Glimpses Media includes the Marianas Business Journal, Guam Business Magazine, The Guam Guide, Wave 105.1 FM, Power98 and Route99
