A theory

Someone described the Spanish Education system as being different to the English one in that the Spanish is inflexible in curriculum but flexible in terms of behaviour. In England it's the opposite.

Maggie likes to eat out. I'm more interested in getting fed. Dining against eating. We haven't eaten out for a while so today we were in a nice restaurant; nice that is till the bill came when we found we'd paid 30€ for seven prawns!

We were watching the food being delivered to the communion party upstairs and the birthday party downstairs - pelotas, gazpacho manchego, ham and cheese, plates of sliced sausage, rabbit paella, prawns, deep fried cheese - all the local staples and all very nice. It reminded me of a conversation I've had with several of my Spanish students learning English about food in the UK. It's an almost unshakeable Spanish belief that Brit food is poor food. I tell them about the popularity of eating and cooking food in the UK and about the availablity of food from all over the World. My theory though, a very generalised theory with lots of exceptions formed whilst watching all that food go by, is that in the UK there is an incredible choice of food but lots of it is pretty ordinary whilst in Spain choice is severely limited and very regional but quality is often high. Or, thinking on the hundreds of chop and chips meals I've eaten here, maybe not.