After the failed endeavor with lentils last year:
In our infinite wisdom, we ask our patient waiter
(Previously the cook, later a harried multi-tasker)

How, pray tell, to cook the lentils right this time.
Only his answer, of course, comes back in roughly
The same Italian as what Dante immortalized in rhyme.

Cameriere e cuoco, I now know. Should we listen
Long enough it may reveal why the word bathroom
(Bagno) keeps getting spoken in our cooking lesson.

According to the due lingue directions on the bag,
There’s no English translation of Non mettere a bagno.
Google informs me it means “Do not bathe” (soak them?).

But the hypothesis of this entire experiment, set forth
By our kind native witness, seemed to be (beyond a doubt)
That any cuoco would have to know to soak the lentils first.