Back in the day, this is as opposed to now which is also day, but not the day. So, back in the day, when I was at NYU which is in Greenwich Village (in Manhattan) and Alrica was working at Scholastic which is in Soho (in Manhattan), we would often meet for lunch.
A digression for those who don’t know the layout of Manhattan. You can be comforted to know that Greenwich Village and Soho share a border. That border is called Houston Street. Two things about this: Soho is short for South of Houston, so as you might guess, Houston Street is the northern border of that section of town. The other thing, Houston Street is pronounced HOW-stun and not HUE-stun. It is not a city in Texas. It is not named for Sam Houston. I am not entirely sure for whom it is named, but whoever that Mr, Mrs, Miss, or Ms was, the person pronounced the name HOW-stun.
Now to regress (which probably isn’t the opposite of digress. Maybe to progress?) Many of our lunches were purchased at Hong Kong. No, not the one in Asia, but a restaurant conveniently close to both of us in our respective offices. Hong Kong was wonderful. It sold delicious foods such as Chicken with Cashews and Beef with Broccoli and other (Meat) with (Plant) which were not required to start and end with the same letter. Plus it was a very reasonable price.
The place had no atmosphere worth mentioning. If you wanted to eat there, you had choices of benches rather like picnic tables. But most of the time we took our food back to one of our offices or ate outside in a park. And it was scrumptious. Except the one time it wasn’t.
Once, when Alrica and I visited this fine purveyor of Chinese delicacies, we discovered the whereabouts of Jimmy Buffett’s famous lost shaker of salt. Someone had poured the entire thing into the sauces for the food made that day at Hong Kong. Our food was so salty it was inedible.
But we took it as a one-time error and the next time we returned there, the food was excellent as usual. That led me to realize (and probably Alrica too, but while I do not hesitate to speak for her in some things such as preferred ice tea making methods, I would not dare to do so in regards to realizations), it led me (us) to realize that it was lucky this was not our first trip to Hong Kong. (The restaurant in Manhattan, not the region in East Asia.)
If that had been the first meal we ever received from Hong Kong, we would have assumed that their recipes called for salt as the main ingredient and meat and vegetables as an afterthought. Why would we have possibly returned? The correct answer is: there is no reason or E) None of the Above. We would not have returned.
This supports the idiom which says you only get one chance to make a first impression. Though in this instance, that’s not entirely true. There could have been several people who bought food that day from Hong Kong for the first time. So Hong Kong had multiple changes to make first impressions, not just that day, but everyday it was open and serving meals. I suppose the more precise idiom would be you only get one chance to make a first impression per impressionable person on whom you are making an impression. But brevity and wit make it clear why the less precise version of the idiom is better known.
At present, Alrica and I are in South Carolina. My friend Jeff, who lives in North Carolina, told us we should try a fast-food chain of the south called Bojangles. I love trying regional fast-food chains. I like to see what is different, the same, and, for lack of a better term, regional, about them. Plus, if the chains ever spread nationwide, it is fun to think you knew about them when they weren’t so ubiquitous. For example, they have Culver’s in South Carolina. Of course, I remember Culver’s from living in Iowa and Wisconsin, when it was a Midwestern chain. It’s fascinating to see Culver’s locations spread like pancake batter emanating from Wisconsin and spreading across the United States. (And if you think I should have used a custard reference, rather than a pancake, I get that. But I am going back to a pancake theme below. Just have a little faith.)
Jeff recommended that we get, as our side, Bo Rounds. He accurately described the shape of them. He told me to imagine a tater tot, but someone had pounded it so it was much flatter and way more spread out. I like his metaphor of pounding it, presumably with a mallet or something malletish. As a mathematician, I would have probably said “Imagine a tater tot in which, while still cylindrical, no longer had a height greater than the diameter, but instead had a diameter greater than the height.” Mathematics is a wonderful language for expressing exactly what you mean, but it is rarely poetic.
Of course, we took Jeff’s recommendation and did eat at Bojangles on our drive to South Carolina. We got the Bo Rounds, as suggested. And while Jeff’s description did him credit in terms of shape and size, it was less on the nose about flavor. Because the moment I tasted my first Bo Round, I realized these are not a form of tater tots. No, these are latkes.
Latkes, also called potato pancakes, are shredded potato and onion with salt and other seasoning which are fried in a skillet, made almost like a pancake. (See, I promised a return to pancakes, and here it is!) It is a common food associated with Hanukkah. (Hanukkah involves miraculous oil, so foods fried in oil are a Hanukkah tradition. I’m sure even Judah Maccabee enjoyed a good jelly doughnut before revolting against the forces of oppression.) My first bite of Bo Round and I felt that ketchup was not the appropriate condiment. I hankered for either sour cream or applesauce. And given that now it is Hanukkah, how appropros!
But what I also found, at Bojangles, was Cheerwine. I had seen a billboard for Cheerwine on the road south. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but I guessed, from the aluminum cans in the picture, that it was not, as the name might imply, wine. I just think most vintners grimace at the idea of putting their product in a can. (I know there is wine in a box, though probably not your finer wines, but I am unfamiliar with wine in a can.)
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| Been around for 106 years and I am just learning about it? |
It turns out Cheerwine is pop, if, like Culver’s, you originated in the Midwest. It is soda if, instead, like Subway, you originated in the Northeast. (On that note, and on a tangent, you would think Subway started in New York City given that there is NYC subway map wallpaper on all the stores. But no, it started in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Yes, that’s still the northeast, but it makes you wonder if this is a tepid form of cultural appropriation.) And if, like Bojangles, you originated in the South, you probably think Cheerwine is a kind of coke.
Regardless of the regional term you use for fizzy soft drinks, Bojangles has Cheerwine in the self-serve soda fountains. And I wanted to try it, and it was great. It is a cherry soda, refreshing and bubbly. But why do I bring this up?
Because a week later, I had a second chance to get Cheerwine from a soda fountain. And I found it wanting. It was barely any of the red cherry syrup and way too much of the colorless carbonated water. Bleah! Not good, let me assure you.
But, like Hong Kong, I realized how fortunate it was that this was not my first encounter with Cheerwine. I knew this was just a problem of that particular soda machine having too little syrup, either through the bag running out or a problem in the brix. (Aren’t you impressed that I know a technical term like brix? It refers to the ratio of the soda syrup to the carbonated water, so it is exactly what I want for this paragraph. And so many people told me my trivial knowledge would never be useful. Ha!)
Had that been my first drink of Cheerwine, my first impression, I might have disdained it. I might have declined future chances to repeat the experience. But having found it to my liking the first time, I know that this was more likely the fluke, and I will return to Cheerwine at some future opportunity.
This makes me wonder. How many things are there in the world that I think I dislike, but really it is a matter of my first experience with that thing being a negative one? I will give you an example: shrimp. Mom, if you are reading this, I love you very much and I enjoy many of the wonderful recipes you made for our family when I was growing up. But not your shrimp. For years, I thought I didn’t like shrimp and I wouldn’t eat it. It wasn’t until college, while dating Alrica, that she convinced me to try shrimp. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed it. It turns out I don’t dislike shrimp. I just didn’t enjoy the way my mother made it the first time I had it. That initial encounter led me to an erroneous conclusion. How many other such erroneous conclusions have I come to on the basis of a sample size of one?
I have tested some of my dislikes to be sure they are not just a one-time affair. For example, I am positive there is some chemical that cucumbers and melons have in common which most people seemingly cannot taste, but I can. And its flavor is reminiscent of a sour citrus juice which was breaded in baking soda and ashes, then left to rot in a tomb for a few centuries, and then reintroduced into the offending flesh of the fruit or vegetable (though horticulturally, cucumbers are also fruits.) I am also fully convinced that tea is a revenge plot by trees in response to the incessant human desire for paper and two-by-fours, offensive to taste buds, and probably a ploy by the sugar industry to maintain their profitable business.
But now think grander than just foods and beverages. Are there places that someone doesn’t like because of bad first impressions? Are there religions that some sectors of society demonize because of early impressions, possibly even those not personally experienced? Is this the root of bias, implicit or explicit?
I know I am a mathematician, not a sociologist. But how important are those first impressions on our way of thinking about big, important things? Can we overcome them with a good second impression, like my experience with shrimp? Or are some things so ingrained that we won’t allow ourselves to take that second chance?
Well, this is heady stuff now, way beyond Hong Kong and Cheerwine. But to paraphrase Jimmy Buffett:
I’m wastin’ away again in First Impressionville.
Hating foods with whole shakers of salt.
Some people claim that there’s whole subgroups to blame.
But I need to reset default.
