One evening several years ago, my wife and I were enjoying a meal at a newly opened exotic restaurant. Although we were greatly impressed by the food and atmosphere, after a few minutes of eating, we nevertheless lapsed into our usual habit of playing a private elitist game we call “Name That Seasoning,” where we both take on a pseudo-superior sense of taste and try to identify which particular herbs or spices have been used to flavor the food. Scoring is informal and unverified; the player who puts together the longest list of plausible flavoring candidates wins, whether actually correct or not. Since we first devised this game, I have racked up an astonishing record of approximately 0 – 52. For me, we might as well call the game “UFO: Unidentifiable Flavor Ornament.” I was not even able to defeat her in a battle over that most American of foods, the French fry, when we once tried some boutique fries from a local food truck, and she incontestably added “a hint of cayenne pepper” to what I thought was a slam dunk with “table salt.”
Anyway, the food at the restaurant that night was Asian, so without really knowing what I was talking about, I started the game with, “I think there might be some anise on this chicken.” My wife shook her head and said, “I don’t think so. That’s just regular fennel.”
This response of hers—“That’s just regular fennel”—has been stuck in my head ever since, like a sesame seed in my teeth. What’s so regular about fennel? Where I grew up, fennel-seasoned food was about as common as emu eggs for breakfast. My idea of seasoning was basically to add salt, and if you were feeling really crazy, Dijon mustard. The most outlandish spice I knew of was nutmeg, which Mom would pull out at Christmas to sprinkle on eggnog for the kids. (Needless to say, the eggnog was never seasoned with alcohol.) In college, I liked taking girls on dates to trendy chain restaurants where the server would bring salads and then pull out a giant baseball-bat-sized peppermill and ask, “How about some fresh-ground pepper? Say when!” I think if I asked him instead for a little rice vinegar and truffle oil, he would lower the bat dejectedly and drag it slowly back to the kitchen to have a talk with the manager.
A few years ago, while riding on a train somewhere outside Tokyo, I became enamored of the train line’s public service posters for improving commuter behavior. They called the campaign “めいわくだもの” (meiwakudamono), a made-up portmanteau word that translates roughly as troublemaking fruit. The first poster I saw showed a “ながらあるキウィ” (nagara aru kiwi), a kiwi fruit that texts obliviously while it’s walking. Some others: “荷物がおじゃマンゴ” (nimotsu ga oja mango), a mango carrying too much luggage; or “ドア前陣ドリアン” (doa maejin dorian), a durian that hogs the train’s door space. These clever puns inspired me to spend a few weeks trying to come up with English versions that could be used on, say, the New York City subway system. “Fare Jumpersimmon” and “Wreak Havocado” are the only ones I remember now.
The train company’s campaign was cute and funny, but I wondered, “Why fruit? What did fruit ever do to deserve being stereotyped and shamed in this way?” I think a much better food choice to represent bad commuter manners would be seasonings, because they are the final surface elements that affect overall food “communication”—for better or worse. There is a Japanese term, 塩対応 (shiotaiou), that literally means a “salty” response, or cold, crusty interaction. So the idea works, right?
Here are my first submissions for a public transit behavioral coercion campaign I call “むかちょうみりょう” (mukachi + choumiryou = worthless seasonings):
足をクミン (ashi wo kumin), cumin that takes up seat space with awkward leg placement.
うるセージ (uru-seiji), sage that talks loud with no regard for others.
間に合うダシ (maniau dashi), dashi that “dashes” for closing train doors.
And of course we can’t forget the fennel:
電車でフェンネル (densha de fenneru), fennel that sleeps indiscriminately on the train.
