Elbonian Pasta Salad

I promised part travelogue, part food blog, part humor here, and I’ve been saving the story of the Elbonian Pasta Salad for just such an occasion. It involves Soviet-era airplanes, time warping, and pineapples showing up where they most definitely do not belong. As the woover-groover would say, this one has a little introduction to it. Elbonia is a mythical country comprising endless mud flats, inhabited by people with large hats who happen to be rather good software developers. Don’t look for it on any map, real, imaginary or Google-located, as Elbonia is an invention of Dilbert’s creator Scott Adams. While it is rumored that Elbonia is a play on the very real country of Estonia, the parallels end at “former Communist country.” Estonia is one of the most wired nations in eastern Europe, home to Skype and much closer in culture and language to Finland. But that doesn’t stop people, including a few Dilbert-ophile Estonians, from taking the Elbo-nian to the ribs on a regular basis.

I should round out the pre-roll by saying that I was on my way to Estonia for yet another meeting of the same conference that brought you the vegetarian pork incident. And therefore I’m compelled to finish the story behind the story with the travelogue that brought me to Estonia, because it explains why pineapple can be humorous.

Getting to Tallinn, Estonia from Newark NJ usually involves a change of planes, in either Prague or Frankfurt. CSA, the Czech National Airline, offered reasonable service with a stopoever in Prague long enough for a shower and perhaps breakfast. CSA proudly announces that they are the “top rated national airline” of the Czech Republic, but I think that’s because there simply is no second. Or maybe second place went to some true former Soviet Tupolev Bears, and I’m be willing to lay even money the Bear’s coffee trumps that of CSA. After a fight with paper tickets, long lines, and a flight attendant who told me the cold breakfast choice was “You don’t want it”, I settled into my seat for the hop over the pond to Prague. Except I noticed that we were mostly hugging the Atlantic coast, going northeast along the Canadian Martimes before shooting over to more frozen, but larger, land masses. Then it hit me: They didn’t want that piece of tin over water for too long. Looking to divert passenger attention, the flight attendants handed out little slips of paper that read “Movie Choice 1 ____ 2 ____” and mini-VHS players. That was the “in seat entertainment.” Sadly, both copies of Pavel teaches tractor repair (English subtitles) were taken quickly, so I attempted to sleep. Which didn’t work, but it was a good effort.

This is a very long preamble to the fact that I finally arrived in Tallinn, then had a 2-hour bus ride to Tartuu, where I sat with several hundred other attendees at a large dinner event. Tartuu is pretty far north, and it was July – which meant that the sky finally hinted at twilight around 11:00 PM. It was also unusually warm, and most hotels in Tartuu do not have air conditioning, so I eventually fell asleep in a real bed, with fresh air blowing in on me, a little after midnight.

I woke up to crisp, bright, unfiltered sunlight hitting me in the eyes. Grabbed my watch, and it read 9:15 AM, and so began the 30-millisecond panic attack that every business traveler has at least once: Had I overslept my speaking slot? Did I fly all of that distance, enduring a cold breakfast, a hot shower, and a missing Czech-mechano-thriller to sleep through my meetings? Why did the hotel call? Why didn’t the rest of my co-workers call? The answer, gentle readers, is that to a 3.5-diopter corrected vision nerd, 9:15 AM and 2:45 AM look very similar on the analog wristwatch. At that point, I resigned to having had about three hours of reasonable sleep, trying to avoid getting a sunburn while waiting for the real alarm.

Sleep deprivation, long distances, and Soviet-era humor put you in a strange frame of mind. So strange that you order something like this for lunch:

After giving my talk, meeting with customers, and walking back through the 11th century city of Tartuu, it was time for my favorite part of any trip: sampling the local food. Unfortunately, at some point I resort to tried and true options if nothing of local color and texture sounds or looks appealing, interesting or appropriate challenging. This is why I ingest a regular diet of cheeseburgers at the Hard Rock Cafe, turkey subs if there’s something resembling turkey around, or grilled chicken salads. Pictured above is the now infamous (at least in friendly circles) Elbonian Pasta Salad.

I’m not really sure who decided that “pasta” meant “tortellini” and further coupled pineapple with the pasta and chicken. I believe pineapple is only indigenous an entire hemisphere away from Estonia, so this was clearly some chef’s interpretation of “pasta” and “fruit salad”, but at the same time. Even though I left Prague behind nearly 24 hours earlier, there was something very Kafka-esque about it. But it was worth it to meet the Elbonian software developers.

[ad#Google Adsense]