A Light Meal for Afternoon (Spanish)
Etymology: merendar (to snack)
Just as afternoon tea with a jam scone was an essential and quite ordinary detail of life for the Queen of England, an afternoon snack with at least a slice of cake and a glass of milk was one of the greatest longings of my childhood. So, while I can easily refuse practically any meal, I can never refuse an invitation that includes cake or cookies.
It's not that I grew up in poverty, on the contrary, I was financially comfortable, but what was lacking was a mother who usually had time to make cakes or cookies at home. My siblings and I had a mother who worked day and night to give us a good future, so maybe I owe her everything I have today. But my then-child's heart wanted cake, one of the few things my mother didn't used to make. My mother was never a good cake baker at any point in her life. Even when she had the time, her cakes came out of the oven as a different food but not a cake, a little thicker than pudding.
The irony is that one of the things I cook best now is cake. If we're having a get-together with family or friends and everyone's bringing something, I usually bring a cake. Because I make them often.
I adore houses that smell like cake or cookies because they are places where you can truly dwell and be joyful. Cakes and cookies are not just any food; they are not meals created solely to feed the stomach; rather, they are something prepared for pleasure, to make people happy.
Cakes are not baked out of necessity; they are baked with love. Cake makers are also people who wish to make others happy. As a result, those are undoubtedly happy and pleasant people, who are living in homes that smell like cakes, and so, the smell of cake is also the smell of love and happiness.
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And, time. There is a reason why those happiness snacks —tea, coffee, cakes, and cookies are preferred in the afternoon. Not in the morning, not in the evening, not at noon—no, it is in the afternoon.
Because the afternoon is the perfect time of the day; the day is not over yet, but the hard parts are left behind. It is a passing stage that leads to the joy, the comfort, and the looseness of the evening. The afternoon is like the sweet state of lying lazily in bed before leaving yourself into night sleep; not yet entering the agenda of evening but having left the busy morning behind.
Combine the best time of the day with the best food, and one of life's ordinary miracles happens: afternoon tea or coffee. That's why afternoon snacks are important in many cultures. In Spanish, this extraordinarily good habit is called merianda, in Portuguese and Italian merenda. The English call it afternoon tea, Sweden calls it fika, and France calls it goûter.
Since I've been busy losing weight for a long time, I needed to spend my afternoons with lighter foods, like yogurt and fruit, so I neglected cakes. I now feel that it’s now right time to fill the house with the smell of cakes, the happiest smell in the world. Cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, apple, peaches, lemon, whatever ingredient one prefers, but we need cake, only cake to be happy.
I wish everyone a warm weekend spent in houses that smell of cake.
Till next week,
— Gulsun
Thank you for taking the time to accompany me in the story of a new word. Every word of the world’s languages is also ours, belonging to humanity while giving us an essence of the culture in which it was rooted.
We are made of stories—that is, of words.
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