The dictatorship of the proletariat

After drinking a beer to celebrate a success, we decided to go for some tapas with a glass of wine to top it off. There are four of us. The host selects a very good, modern bar that—I see—has won an award. Well deserved, because the tapas are delicious. We choose one each and, after a while, another with another glass of wine. Our host, who is very knowledgeable, explains that he's preparing a collection of stories about sleepless nights: those nights when you go out, things get complicated, and you end up at five hundred. Some about arguments, others about that time in the morning when, on your way home, you cross paths with people going to work, the sky goes from black to gray to blue. It's a brilliant idea. Flushed with excitement, he asks the waitress where she's from, and it turns out she's Cuban. A blonde, slim Cuban woman. We chat and chew, following that fun choreography of the bar counter: you move away, you approach, you pat your neighbor on the shoulder, you step back laughing, you return to the bar. While we're engaged in this dance, I overhear the waitress tell a customer that Cuba is a dictatorship.

The bar doesn't close late. We're in no hurry, but they're starting to clean the counter. They keep the trays of tapas waiting until the last gasp, just in case we're up for another round. When it's time to close, the Cuban waitress shows us the trays and says, "Do you want some? Take as many as you like, they're free." My friend replies, "No, no, woman. You eat them yourselves." I look at the girl's face. "Eat that pile of calories? No way!" If we don't devour them, they'll throw them away. And since, at this point in life, it's no longer just a matter of one tapa, we divide them among the group. They're excellent: cod, tortilla with peppers, ham shavings with mousseline.

They are excellent: cod, omelette with pepper, ham shavings with muslin

Just because she lived in Cuba as a child, the waitress doesn't have the obligation to throw herself like a madwoman at the leftover pinchos (snacks) that the tavern owners haven't found a reasonable way to use. Every day they prepare more than they serve, and if these girls ate them for dinner, they wouldn't have these little waists. Without the little waist, they wouldn't be able to work in the award-winning tavern that wants to sell its pinchos with skinny waitresses. But I'm surprised by the indifference with which she tells us they're going to throw them away. Didn't she have a mother like mine who told her not to leave anything on her plate? Contradicting the most basic rules of etiquette, I spend my life slicing platters and nibbling at everything that the people I trust with whom I go to lunch or dinner don't finish. I can't help it: and I want to be a model myself! The final conclusion is that we're old-fashioned, gluttons, and drunkards, but that's another story.