A hyper-fast lunch

All citizens have suffered it. You call a restaurant in Barcelona to book a table for two in the afternoon (this is an hour that meets two requirements; it adapts to our Mediterranean eating biorhythm, later than that of civilized northern countries, and coincides with the lunch break of most offices and companies in the city). The establishment worker replies that it won't be possible at two and that we will have to adapt to the restaurant's two shifts; at one in the afternoon or three in the afternoon. First problem: if we want to book a table, it's not only to be foresighted or to secure a seat in the place in question (to make their job easier, in short), but because the condition of users should mean that the restaurant adapts to us and not the other way around. Like it or not, we refuse to have lunch at vermouth time and also not at the time a Madrilenian sits down at the table.

The on-duty restaurateur will reply that the double shift ensures the survival of their business, because it doubles the amount of their income with the same worker expenses. And the lifelong Barcelonian will start firing missiles against the system of a city theme-parked by tourists (most people in the civilized world, in fact, already have lunch during midday) causing, in turn, a lot of establishments with terraces where you are going to have a coffee or a vermouth in the same time slot to prohibit you from sitting at their tables if you don't consume something more than an anchovy. As with aporias, everyone has a part of the truth. What is undeniable, as a consequence of the problem, is that the shift system ends up accelerating and setting limits and schedules for an act that our culture took with great calm. Whenever you eat, you live stressed by the shift change or the final closing of the kitchen.

The paroxysm of the situation flares up in restaurants where a mandatory one-hour lunch shift has ended up being imposed (and I'm not referring to fast food establishments). A few days ago, I was eating with a friend in the center of the Eixample in a decent spoon and plate restaurant with a daily menu between fifteen and twenty euros. I booked a table at two, surprised not to have received any reprimand, and did not expect to leave beyond a quarter past three. But the speed with which the waiter brought us the three initial tapas, the rice as a second course (in fact, before we finished the initial starter) and the bill, without having asked for it, were hints evident enough to understand that we had to leave the place at three. That's how it ended and, I insist, the timing  did not ruin our lives. We chatted, ate with the expected correctness, and verbally interacted with our usual joy.

Or well... maybe this thing of eating at full speed and downing coffee like a tequila shot does have something tragic about it. Until four days ago, our Mediterranean civilization was based on the art of associating lunch with a leisurely dialogue. We used to mock Yankee office workers when they guzzled a sad Caesar salad engrossed in front of a Subway and the poor Japanese noodle eaters on the subway stairs. Fortunately, we are not yet as crazy as in these places in the world and we have trusted restaurants where we can enter within the limits of a reasonable time slot; but the obsession with the shift causes conversations to accelerate, food to be tasted more quickly and, ultimately, for friends to abandon conversation to turn it into a review of work agendas or a simple catch up. It's funny, in short, that a mere quarter of an hour ends up becoming an endangered animal.

Until four days ago, our Mediterranean civilization was based on the art of associating lunch with a leisurely dialogue