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Episodes Season 1 · Inside

Episode 1February 10, 20262:31

Sobremesa: the meal after the meal

Amparo Lezcano, an interpreter in Valencia, on sobremesa: the time at the table after the plates are cleared, when nobody gets up.

0:00 / 2:31The word

With Amparo Lezcano · Conference interpreter, Valencia

Show notes

Sobre means over, mesa is the table. Amparo Lezcano interprets at conferences in Valencia and has never once translated sobremesa: she describes it, and finds the description flat every time.

We talk about Sunday lunches that end after dark, the difference between dessert and what comes after it, and a lunch in Helsinki where the thing happened without its word.

In this episode

Why sobremesa is time, not furniture
How an interpreter handles a word with no equivalent
Weekday lunches and weekend tables

Transcript

Click a time to play from there.

0:00
OdileThis is The Long Vowel. I'm Odile Marchetti.
0:04
TeodorAnd I'm Teodor Halvorsen. One word, one guest, under three minutes.
0:10
OdileToday's guest is Amparo Lezcano, a conference interpreter in Valencia. Amparo, what did you bring us?
0:18
AmparoSobremesa. Sobre means over, or on top of, and mesa is the table. So, literally, over the table.
0:26
TeodorThat sounds like a tablecloth.
0:29
AmparoIt sounds like furniture, yes. But it is time. It's the part of a meal that starts when the food is finished and nobody gets up.
0:39
OdileHow long does it last?
0:41
AmparoThat's the thing: there is no rule. After a Sunday lunch at my grandmother's, it could go on until it was dark. Coffee, then a little glass of something, then somebody's cousin arrives and the coffee starts again.
0:56
TeodorSo it's not dessert.
0:58
AmparoNo, dessert is still the meal. Sobremesa is what happens when the plates are pushed to the middle and the conversation becomes the main course.
1:08
OdileAnd you would notice if it were missing.
1:12
AmparoOh, immediately. If people stand up right after the last bite, it feels like the lunch was a meeting.
1:20
TeodorYou interpret for a living. What do you do when the word comes up in a speech?
1:27
AmparoI don't translate it. I describe it. Something like, the long conversation after a meal. It's correct, but it's flat. It's like explaining a joke.
1:38
OdileHave you seen it happen anywhere else?
1:40
AmparoI once worked a week in Helsinki. On the last day, after lunch, nobody moved. Somebody made more coffee. Nobody called it anything, but it was a sobremesa. The word was missing; the thing was there.
1:57
TeodorIs it disappearing? People eat at their desks now.
2:01
AmparoIn offices, maybe. But at the weekend it is very alive. My nephews eat in twenty minutes on a Tuesday and then sit for three hours on a Saturday.
2:13
OdileSo the word protects the time.
2:15
AmparoI think so. When you have a name for something, it's harder to give it away.
2:21
TeodorAmparo Lezcano, thank you.
2:24
OdileAnd thank you for listening. That was sobremesa. The next word is from Japanese.

Download the transcript: WebVTT · SRT

In this episode