What Happens When There Is No Cocktail Sauce - Try BDNF Instead
When I spent long stretches of time in Costa Rica, I started a list. I titled it: “Everything is Different.”
That is both the hazard of travel and its joy. Everything is different. I could write a similar list for Ireland.
For Europe as well as Central America, it starts as soon as you get off the plane and hit the restroom. I mean: the loo, the WC, the toilet. But I will start this post instead with cocktail sauce.
Two tales of cocktail sauce
I was enjoying a lovely dish of pasta in one of Coco’s many Italian restaurants. Lots of Italians have moved to this gritty little tourist town on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, and some of them have opened restaurants. Real authentic Italian food.
A woman from the US sat at the next table. She had ordered shrimp. She asked for cocktail sauce.
There was no cocktail sauce. One day there would be cocktail sauce. But the supermarket that caters to expats had not yet been built. The server was eager to please. But he didn’t know what cocktail sauce was.
She didn’t speak Spanish. She seemed irritated that this man, whose first language was Italian by the way, did not also speak English. This in this small town in a country where the national language is Spanish, you understand.
I could have ignored this silly little entitled problem. “What do you call a person who speaks only one language? — An American.” But I was there by myself this trip, and could use some human interaction. So I offered to help.
“‘Cocktail sauce’ es una salsa que se come con mariscos en los estados. Hecho de salsa de tomate y limón y…” I shrugged. “No se la palabra por ‘horseradish.’ Es una planta que crece en la tierra—muy picante, muy picante.”
Spanish speakers more fluent than I will recognize my pidgin skills. Short story: I was trying to list the ingredients for the server, but came to a halt at “horseradish.”
I told the woman I had never seen horseradish in Costa Rica.
He said they didn’t have it.
She told me she was sure they had it, but were pretending not to, because she didn't speak Spanish.
People are funny.
So I went back to my lovely pasta con mariscos, while she fumed through the rest of her meal of delicious, out-of-the-ocean-just-that-morning shrimp.
This was not a one-off
Years later I was in Doolin, County Clare in Ireland, at Russel’s Seafood Bar, famed for its fresh fish specials. I was enjoying my breaded shrimp with Mary Rose sauce. A group of four sat down, Americans. A man, one of those loud ones, also ordered the breaded shrimp. The menu clearly stated that it was served with Mary Rose sauce.
Mary Rose sauce is made of mayonnaise, ketchup, cayenne, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce. A classic British condiment, in Ireland it is standardly served with shrimp.
You can hear it coming.
He asked for cocktail sauce.
The server didn’t know what that was, but they didn’t have it. The guy didn’t believe him. “Go ask the cook for cocktail sauce,” he ordered.
The server left, came back, and repeated that they didn’t have it. The American was incensed. How could they not have cocktail sauce? He said, “Bring me the ingredients. I’ll make it myself.”
Language was not the barrier this time. They did not have horseradish in Doolin, County Clare, Ireland.
I wanted to suggest he try the Mary Rose sauce. But my wife was with me this time, urging me to mind my own business. And there wasn’t any fixing this situation anyway. I returned to my meal, excellent, but spoiled somewhat by the fuming that continued throughout, two tables down.
Travel is filled with these experiences. Not necessarily fuming Americans, but experiences like “no cocktail sauce.” In Costa Rica shrimp is sautéed and served with lemon. In Ireland, breaded with Mary Rose sauce.
Things that are different. They are both the hazard and the joy of travel.
So what’s going on?
Here comes the brain science
When the human brain is confronted with novelty, such as the prospect of eating shrimp without cocktail sauce, a protein, BDNF is stimulated. BDNF stands for Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor, and it is one of my favorite things about the brain. It competes for my heart with mitochondria.
BDNF is found in greatest concentrations in the hippocampus (memory, emotions, learning), cortex (thinking) and basal forebrain (which produces acetylcholine, another neurotransmitter used in learning). Its job is to help cells grow, survive and differentiate. It supports the dendrites, to strengthen existing connections and make new ones.
That’s what learning is, strengthening existing connections between cells and making new ones. The stimulation of BDNF is one of the great benefits of travel, developing a stronger, more resilient brain.
Unless. Unless “no cocktail sauce” is perceived as so much a threat to one’s well-being, indeed one’s identity as an American who is to be served by nonAmericans, that stress hormones, such as cortisol, shout down and shut down the BDNF, while the poor, distressed traveler engages in a fight or flight response.
You pays your money, you makes your choice. Spend your entire vacation in high alert over no cocktail sauce, not to mention the differently-shaped toilets and the request to place your soiled paper in a wastepaper basket instead of flushing(!) and come home swearing never to travel overseas again. Or try the damn Mary Rose sauce.
Full disclosure: I still like cocktail sauce better. But I’m up for trying anything you put on my plate.
What about you? Do you have a favorite “everything is different” story about travel?