The delights of red pepper

So I was sitting around two weeks ago with some of the other people at my guesthouse (I still haven't moved into my home). Two of them hardly spoke any English, and then there was Fielding--the American Fulbright teaching assistant--and me. Because we lacked any real ability to converse, the game we decided to play was something like: What do you call this in your language?

We pointed to the onions on our plate, and the guys said what they were called in Turkish: soğan, and then we told them what it was in English. We did tomatoes: domates, and so on. Yeah, I know, exciting, right? Finally, we got to the bowl of red peppers on the table. Biber. Ah, biber! I could remember that! It sounded familair enough to me.

Then one of the men, a doctor named Umit, said: kırmızı biber, meaning: red pepper. Then he said another word to further clarify: pul. He seemed to explain that there were two kinds of biber, the powder (like cayenne pepper) and then red pepper flakes like the one on the table. I tried to ask him if the word he was saying meant "flakes." He and his friend seemed confused by my question.

You see, I had learned that very day that pul meant stamp. Did it also mean flake? The dictionary came out. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. My insistence on understanding this word, pul, only lead to further frustration. I tried to make some charades-worthy gestures to indicate that pul also meant stamp. These gestures only drove the two men crazy. Finally, Umit pulled out his cell phone and called someone. He spoke rapidly and then handed me the phone.

"Uh, hello, um...yes, I believe my brother is wanting you to know about this biber from our region. It sometimes comes in a powder form, but it can also come in a bigger form, about one millimeter across and very flat."

"You mean a flake? It also comes as a flake? Does pul mean flake?"

"Um...I don't know what you are talking about...I'm sorry...it's from our region...it's only found in the east..."

I quickly ended the conversation, pretending I knew exactly what he was talking about. I stopped asking questions. Everyone was happy. The conversation moved onto other topics.

Now, two weeks later, I finally remembered to look it up. Pul does indeed mean flakes. And I found this happy little picture to prove it to you. Hooray!