As a translator, there’s one word that makes me question my career choice—— apéro. The cultural phenomena covered by this simple word are so immense that you just can’t simply translate word-to-word in another language. But, first of all, what is ‘‘apéro’’?
Apéro is the abbreviation/casual version of the French word ‘‘apéritif’’, which, of course, has the equivalent in English —— aperitif. In both languages, it has something to do with alcohol. Well, that’s what it looks like. You don’t actually drink an apéro or open up a bottle of apéro. You can organize an apéro, mean a friend and chat over apéro, visit your family and have an apéro instead of having a real dinner together. Apéro is not just a sort of alcohol, it’s more of a social gathering.
Me being a Chinese, I didn’t know the concept of apéro before arriving in France. I do know the literal meaning of aperitif in Chinese, which is 开胃酒(kai wei jiu)/餐前酒(can qian jiu), which again means either an alcohol that opens up your appetite, or an alcohol that you have before a meal. To me, both meanings speak nothing to me, because I don’t see how alcohol can open up appetite— if I want to get hungry before eating, I prefer drinking a cup of strong oolong tea. This term only exists in fancy western-style fine dining restaurants in China because, elsewhere, we just drink alcohol either during or after a meal.
Anyway, let’s travel back to France. What is it like having an apéro? Here’s the classic version : a group of well-dressed people sit around a stylish coffee table, over which crystal goblets filled with rosé are distributed to everyone. And you can’t forget about the appetizers! A wooden cheeseboard alongside with a plate of cold cuts plays a big role in our apéro, too. It’s classy, it’s chic, but it’s not the case for everybody.
The choice of drink, to begin with, is not necessarily wine. A popular option among middle-aged men and elderly people is Pastis —— an anise-flavoured spirit that you dilute with cold water and ice cubes. Younger people prefer a cold beer and if you have a picky taste and search for original flavor, craft beer is à la mode and can be found almost everywhere now. For a fancier occasion, cocktails are always fun to choose.
And then, for non-alcoholic folks, you can have a soda for apéro. Believe it or not, you can find a 1 liter glass bottle in some French supermarket, which blew my mind when I first found out. There’s also a healthier choice of alcohol-free drink: ‘‘sirop’’, which is basically flavored water, a squash if you prefer. That’s also something that doesn’t exist in China. In French supermarkets, you can find all kinds of concentrated sirup to add to your water to make it taste… less boring. It doesn't sound very appealing, but it’s loved by French kids and even adults.
Since we have figured out what to drink now, we need to know what to nibble. You can have cheese with baguette, cold cuts with baguette, tapenade with baguette, olive oil with baguette… You get the point, just everything with baguette because you don’t want to get hungry while chatting. For people who're not very familiar with French culture, they talk a lot. I once attended a New Year's Eve soirée and the apéro time lasted till midnight. Why? Because they keep chatting!
But then, if you don’t want to get stuffed with French bread before dinner, you can also just open a bag of chips! The younger generation tends to just have some potato chips during apéro because one, it’s cheaper, and two, who doesn’t like chips? I’ve also been to a gathering full of moms and, for apéro, the host served baby carrots with homemade mayonnaise as dipping sauce. Honestly, you can have whatever snack you like for apéro.
Why do the French love doing apéro so much? As a foreigner who observes a lot, I feel like it’s because they get to talk. As I said before, French people love talking, or chatting if you prefer. Over an apéro, you get to sip on a drink that may or may not be your guilty pleasure that makes you lay back and relax. You snack on some bite-sized food instead of munching on a huge chunk of meat or slurping spaghetti with heavy sauce, which makes the chatting more graceful. It’s less formal than a real meal, and it gathers people around in a cozy way —— I guess that’s why they enjoy apéro time this much.
I think I have gone through everything necessary for an apéro and I guess my readers understand the concept of it at this point. Now, I would like to go back to the beginning, about how I couldn’t translate apéro, well, into Chinese to be more precise. How can I explain a whole culture that doesn’t exist in my country in one simple word? Well, there’s always this ultimate solution —— translator's footnote. ;)