Monotone

Eastside Road, January 4, 2010—

WHAT A MONOTONOUS dinner, I said, quickly regretting it. You don't have to eat it, she said, almost accurately. Oh but I was referring to the colors on the plate, I said; in fact I do want to eat it; I know it's delicious.
It was a slice of Thursday's roast herb-brined pork, just a bit rosier than brown; a heap of black-eyed peas, a bit beiger than brown, and a generous dollop of Michael's tomato chutney, less red than brown.
It was in fact a delicious dinner, and led me to contemplate that word "monotonous," which always makes me think of Paul Verlaine. So I Googled "verlaine monotonous" and was led straightaway to this site, whose wrongmindedness about poetry says a lot about our all too general routine wrongmindedness about food.

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon cœur
D'une langueur
Monotone.*

is how Verlaine's "Autumn Song" goes (it's badly transcribed on that website, just one of its problems). Casual English, which is what we mostly speak in this country, thinks "monotonous" means "boring." I take it to mean "little inflected." Visually that plate was the antithesis of everything the fancy restaurants have been plying us with (not to mention the food magazines). But the flavors, the textures! Green salad afterward…

Cheap Nero d'Avola

*How would I translate it? Let's see… the long sobs of autumn violins / touch my heart with languorous murmurings…