Did you catch it?
"...the cumin, the coriander, mixed in with that fresh lime juice and that cilantro and it just brings out those flavors."
It's that phrase. "Brings out those flavors." What does that mean? What flavors? Meat flavor? Are we saying that adding a bunch of spices makes the meat's natural flavor more noticeable? Because it doesn't. It covers the taste of meat with the taste of the spices.
Okay, fine, I'm being ridiculous. Nitpicky. I'm taking a great slobbering bite out of a big juicy nothingburger and then slurping down a swig of beer without wiping my mouth in between.
Don't watch too close, because I'm going in for a second bite now, and my napkin's never been cleaner.
Hey, I'm sure all those spices and flavors taste amazing. I've only been to a Chipotle once, and it was really quite tasty. But it wasn't just basic ingredients. It wasn't just meat and rice and tomatoes. There was a lot of stuff in there. Little bits of stuff, most of which I couldn't identify, but which made the whole thing taste really good.
What it didn't do was: bring out any flavors that wouldn't otherwise have been "brought out."
Now: maybe I'm wrong.** Maybe there's another interpretation to that phrase. Maybe combining certain ingredients in certain amounts causes all the flavors to coalesce and compound and catalyze into something greater than the sum of its parts.
If so, we should say that.
Or maybe it's one of those pseudo-meaningless colloquialisms that evolved somehow into "the thing we say" that nobody quite understands but accepts without consideration because we've come to a place in the sentence where we have to say something, so it might as well be that.
That's my guess: it's a filler phrase that actually means less than what it's intended to mean.
I call this "commentator syndrome." You know: the sports color commentary guy, who's a longtime veteran of the sport he's commenting on, and who should be such an expert that his every statement brings wisdom and knowledge to all who can hear, but whose actual statements are so insipidly vanilla that you'd rather watch the game in complete silence instead. Turn on almost any NFL game on TV, and you'll understand what I'm talking about.
The thing is, it isn't their fault. Oh, they could do better. They could realize that they're saying silly and sometimes stupid things. Or, more to the point, the producers could realize it, and take steps to make their commenters better. Why they don't, well, I dunno. Probably has something to do with chemtrails and flouride in the water.
Regardless, broadcasting hates silence, so color commenters have no choice but to talk. They have to talk. They have to come up with something to say, and more often than not, the things they think of on the spur of the moment leave us all feeling dumber.
Which brings me back to "brings out those flavors," by which the person speaking (or writing) probably means "loads it up with flavor," or "makes it taste sooooo good," or some such like that.
Why don't we just say that instead? Because if we did, I'd have to come up with something else to write about today.
End rant.
* I realize that, last week, I said I would write an Annual New Year's Column. I do not regret any inconvenience this may have caused.**Naw.
