It was pink and smooth, a peaceful sea populated by roaming herds of bell peppers and stale bread. It was also gazpacho, and I was supposed to eat it.
The first bite made me immediately uncomfortable, like a pack of teens stopping in front of me on the beach or a passing acquaintance who insists on forcing small talk. (It’s not that I can’t make words, but that the nagging voice in the back of my head won’t stop shouting “THIS CONVERSATION MEANS NOTHING.”)
But my disgust with the gazpacho had nothing to do with the unexpectedly salty flavor, the garlicky lumps of protein or the creamy-but-grainy texture of old yogurt — my problem was that it was cold. I was a caveman again, sticking random twigs and berries in my mouth, and I knew instinctively that this particular bit of organic material was not food.
It was like a senile aunt or that possessed lady from Ghostbusters was forcing me to eat her leftover chowder straight out of the fridge — and I couldn’t say no because that’d be rude.
It was a simple enough problem, and there seemed to be a simple enough solution. “Hey, you know what?” I said to myself, “This soup wouldn’t be all that bad if I just stuck it in the microwave.” I grunted in agreement.
My dialogue completed, I translated for my host — but there I came upon the crux of the issue. As my coarse but caring Spanish host mother so emphatically explained, “Gazpacho is cold.” To deviate from that principle would be to alter the reality of the gazpacho itself! Hot gazpacho is soup, and soup is not gazpacho — so sit down and eat, Michael.
I begrudgingly complied, but I couldn’t help but think: Why the dogmatic distinction? Gazpacho and soup — can’t it be both?
Society likes to give us choices and pretend there’re only two options, that it’s always black and white (It makes me gag to use “society” as the subject of a sentence — sorry). But as a general rule for life, it’s better to embrace the gray. Because you never want to just nail yourself down to one color and one color only, you know?
Ambiguity rules! In that it’s always there if you look for it. And I’m not going for “best of both worlds” with this whole “hot gazpacho” thing — because the gray third option is never a straightforward mix of the standard two. Plus, you’ll probably never stop getting crap from both soup people and gazpacho people, and golly do people get crazy about their liquid comestibles.
