food, animation and childhood

Sometimes, not getting what you want reveals lovely surprises. Now, most people who know me realize I am an avowed dessert junkie. After lunch today, I returned to the cafeteria for a little sweet to get me through the afternoon on a day when the warm sunny outside world beckons and work is tough going. I looked at the oatmeal cookies – overbaked. (I like mine light and chewy.) The other cookies? Ditto. No chocolate pudding. Not in the mood for Jell-O. So that left me with a single option: butterscotch pudding. The prospect didn’t immediately thrill my mind, but my taste buds sang from the moment the first spoonful touched my tongue. Songs of childhood and days gone by, of mother’s love and after-school snacks. Yummy. Its creamy smoothness contrasts nicely with a cup of strong hot coffee, too.

I guess I’m just feeling a little nostalgic these days, what with translating a text about how marketing can bank on nostalgia, and mother’s day being just around the corner. Also, there’s a new release out on DVD this week: a double-disk compilation of episodes of La Linea, Italian animated shorts from the seventies.

It took until last year to figure out what the show was actually called; I had always referred to it as “monsieur Bayou Badou”, after the first seconds of the theme music. I still imitated how he would stretch once the pencil had completed his outline, before taking off down the line. Funny, then, to learn that he was called “Balou” in some parts of Europe and “Badum Badum” in Slovenia – without words, a lot of us naturally converged on the same principle!

Once I had figured it out, it was right over to YouTube for a session of concentrated linearity. (Isn’t it marvelous how easy it becomes to find something online once you know what it’s actually called?) But I’m still going to invest in the DVD. Or splurge, whatever. Besides, it’s a healthier form of nostalgia than butterscotch pudding!

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