XOXO

In the majority of Spanish bars, with most cold drinks, you will be given some sort of accompaniment. A few olives, a handful of nuts or a nut mix, a few crisps, maybe some panchitos (generic for cheesy puff, Monster Munch sort of crisp type things that aren't crisps) or even sugary sweets. You won't, generally, get anything with a coffee or tea, except maybe a biscuit. Obviously only the insane drink hot drinks with anything but bakery products. Some bars are more generous than others and some only serve the extras at given times. Something that used to be common, as an accompaniment, but aren't so much nowadays, are altramuces, lupin seeds. 

To digress, as I so often do, as I mentioned frutos secos (the nuts or nut mixes) I remember that they caused me problems when I was teaching English. To me it looked like a direct translation - dried fruits. So I'd go into a long spiel with the students about how the things that had a shell that had to be broken to get to the edible kernel inside - almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, walnuts and so on - were called nuts in English while things like sultanas, prunes, raisins and the like were dried fruits. I could never understand why Spaniards were so slow to grasp the concept; in fact it was me. The Spaniards recognised the two different words - fruto and fruta - and I didn't. The first is the idea of produce or product and the second is fruit. So they were wondering why I was babbling on about why frutos secos - for nuts and the dry mixes - were different from frutas secas - dried fruit when exactly the same distinction is made in Spanish.

Back at altramuces, lupin seeds; they're shaped like large smarties or the flying saucer shaped M&Ms (and, if you're old enough, the all chocolate Treets of yesteryear). They get called chochos. Now chocho is a word used to describe a part of the body that (at least in the old two sex days) was specific to women. I've heard chichi too. Indeed someone asked Maggie if XOXO at the end of a greeting in a birthday card spelled chocho - I suppose the suggestion was that it was some sort of sex code. I quite like them, the plant seed snack that is. Spaniards generally separate the outer skin from the inner kernel. I can't be bothered and usually eat the whole lot. They're salty and a bit slimy. You can buy them in supermarkets in jars usually, stored in brine. They can be cooked but usually they're eaten cold alongside a drink as an aperitivo. Unlike edamame beans they are not, at all, trendy.