What the host meant

A man at the next table in a Riyadh restaurant sends his rice back for the second time. It is too dry, he says. Then it is too plain. Then the waiter hears, at some length, how this dish ought to be cooked, and where, and by whom.

The waiter does what he has been taught. He explains, politely, how the kitchen makes it. The grain, the stock, the hours on the fire. Every word is accurate, and every word makes it worse.

Because the man is not talking about rice. He has brought six guests to a place he chose. His brother-in-law is at the table. If the evening goes wrong, it went wrong on his invitation. What he is really saying is closer to this: I am worried this is not good enough, and I am worried about what that says about me.

You cannot answer that with a recipe.

It happens far beyond restaurants. When someone with little knowledge of a subject holds a loud view on it, and the view does not follow from anything true, it is often not an argument at all. It is a feeling wearing an argument's clothes. Debating the clothes leaves the feeling exactly where it was, and usually makes it louder.

The useful question is not whether he is right. It is what he is afraid of, and what he is hoping someone will notice. A fresh plate set down in front of him first, with a quiet word that he has a good palate, would settle more than any explanation of stock.

The rice was probably fine. The host was not, and he was the one asking to be heard.