The Black Family Weblog

A friend recently explained to me that in Mexico, lemons and limes are reversed from the way we know them…that is, lemons are the green ones and limes are the yellow ones.  I don’t know about you, but this seems a little far-fetched to me.  I have a hard time believing that we can’t all get on the same page about fruit.  If this is true, shouldn’t it be well-documented in Fodor’s or some other reliable travelogue so you can be prepared for an unfortunate citrus-switching incident?  Really, how are you supposed to get along in another country, learning about new cultures and languages, when you have to watch out all the time for somebody giving you a wedge of lime in your iced tea instead of lemon?  The mind boggles.  How unpleasant! 

There may be even greater repercussions for a lemon-lime disconnect if you start thinking about it in combination with other language differences.  For instance, what happens if you try to order lemon meringue pie?  The Spanish word for meringue is “merengue”—which represents both a dessert topping and a musical style.  This could pose a problem.  Do the waitstaff add insult to injury by bringing you the wrong fruit and dancing at you?  Oh, the horror!  My advice?  Order the sopapilla.