The Barrendipity Game

Serendipity, as all good vocabularians know, is that happy faculty for finding something where you least expect it. Barrendipity, by contrast, is not finding something where you most expect it. And no one knows that better than the American turned world traveler.

Let him order Danish pastry in Copenhagen and people will shrug their shoulders in dismay. They call it Vienna bread. Ask for vichyssdise in Vichy: until recently the French waiter said blankly, "Pardon?" And why should he know? It was invented in 1917 by Louis Diat, the chef at New York's Ritz-Carlton Hotel to take advantage of all those extra potatoes.

The English, it seems, have never had the pleasure of eating English muffins unless they happened to come to the U.S. The closest thing they have to one is a toasted crumpet, which is about as close as a shrimp is to an oyster. And when playing pool in England, you can make a drastic mistake by complimenting someone on his "English." A Briton would prefer that you admired his "screw."

In Frankfurt, if you ask for frankfurter Wurst, you will be served a pair of hors d'oeuvre-size smoked sausages with a slice of bread. In Hamburg, if you ask for a hamburger, the man behind the counter will say, "Ich bin ein Hamburger! Everyone who lives here is a Hamburger!" And when you are in a German beer hall, don't bellow out that favorite of American rathskellers--"Ist das nicht ein Schnitzelbank? Ja, das ist ein Schnitzelbank"--everyone will think you're crazy, except, of course, the American tourists at the next table, who will join in.

In China, they have no chop suey; in Italy, you have to hunt to find a pizza with mushrooms; in Wales, a Welsh rabbit is only a rabbit; in Turkey, there are no turkeys; in Daiquiri (Cuba), it is almost impossible to find a daiquiri; India ink is made in China or Japan; in Spain, there is no Spanish rice.

Not that the problem should be that foreign to Americans. A Western sandwich isn't a Western out West: it's a Denver. California hamburgers are called doubleburgers in California; baked Alaskas are almost unheard of in Alaska; the grass is not blue in Kentucky; and in New York, a New York cut is called a boneless sirloin.

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