Was this the worst chocolate cake in the world?

“Oof. I’m stuffed. This was a great meal.”

“The rump steak soup was good, right?,” Raymond says to me. 

“Yeah, really good. I think I’m going to need some help figuring out the desserts, though.”

We’re in Vienna, where he moved to a few years back. He brought me to a traditional restaurant, filled with happy-looking locals enjoying a night out. 

Raymond looks at the menu, all in German, and says,

“They’ve got Apfelstrudel.”

“That one I know!”

“There’s this great one, Kaiserschmarrn, which means ‘the Emperor’s mess.’ It’s like a sweet pancake all chopped up and served with plum sauce. The story goes the emperor got hungry one night, there wasn’t much in the kitchen, so this was what the cooks came up with and he loved it.”

“Sounds good. Anything else?”

“Yeah, there’s this one, I think it means… ‘chocolate cake wearing a shirt’, but I don’t know what that is.”

Our waiter is from Spain, so I ask him in Spanish and he says,

“That’s a chocolate pudding with some whipped cream around it. It used to be called ‘Moor in a shirt.’ They’ve made it illegal to use that name now–but some people here still do.”

I make a face, so Raymond asks me,

“Moor?” 

“The Muslims that Europe fought in the Crusades.”

“I don’t get it.”

“The dark-skinned Muslims Europe fought in the Crusades.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah… I think we’ll go for the Emperor’s Mess.”

The waiter leans down, smiles and says, 

“Thanks! It’s great to serve a non-racist table for a change.”

Raymond and I chuckle, but then I look around at the busy restaurant. 

It doesn’t seem like such a happy place after all. 

“The story goes…”

The story behind one dessert made it a lot more interesting. 

The story behind another… didn’t. 

Understanding more about our waiter, and how he feels about his adopted country made that dinner a lot more interesting. 

What he told us about his usual customers… well, that did make it more interesting also–just not in a good way. 

The more context we associate with something, the more meaning it has for us. And with more meaning comes more value. 

(If you want to see evidence of that, check out the Significant Objects experiment.) 

That’s why founders should tell their origin stories. 

That’s why scientists should tell the story of their research. 

That’s why experts should tell the story of how they came across the problem they solve. 

Finally, that’s why everyone you see giving a TED-style talk includes a story as well. 

This storytelling thing - not a complete scam after all 🤘

-Francisco 

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