Why You Can't Translate a Spanish Menu
Cheap, excellent vegetables are everywhere in Spain, yet they often disappear once you sit down in a restaurant, especially at menú del día level. Menús are inexpensive set meals available all over Spain at weekday lunchtime.
First, there's tradition and hierarchy. In much of Spain, vegetables remain culturally secondary to the main event. A proper main course demands substance—meat or fish—with veg relegated to soups, stews or garnishes. Vegetable-led dishes feel like home cooking to Spaniards, not something you pay good money for in a restaurant. It's exactly the same idea that my dad would have had: that a proper meal was meat and two veg. Well, you see the similarity even if the veg get cut out!
Menús still reflect Spain's years of scarcity, when veg were fallback food. That thinking feeds straight into the menú del día concept. They're designed to look generous and to be great value—and the first judgement is through the eyes.
Veg typically hide in Spanish cooking—blended into purées, cooked down into sofritos, folded into stews, or offered as a first plate. I said 'plate' deliberately, not 'course': Brits see a menú del día as starter, main, and pudding, while Spaniards give parity to the first two dishes. Often the veg are there for the taking in that opener; but we foreigners tend to skip them for something meatier, missing how the courses complement each other. Here in Alicante or Murcia, a thrown-in salad is common too—yet we see it as a mere entree, not part of the meal proper.
Veg complicate kitchen logistics too. They need separate prep and burners, cool fast, overcook to mush—unlike meat or fish, which heats or reheats quickly and holds in a warm oven. Oh, and Spaniards tend to be a bit more traditionalist about veg and fruit. British restaurants will use frozen, out-of-season produce to add a bit of colour, but Spaniards tend towards seasonal veg and if it's not available then it won't be there.
It has to be said that this isn't always the case, particularly in the higher-end restaurants where vegetables often do get to share centre stage with the meat and fish. There, the idea is still to stress that these are not everyday veg; these are seasonal, locally sourced or heritage vegetables, just in case you're still lusting for a thick steak.
Now, to be honest, I'd never thought about it, but Rob's question reminded me that the other day another Robert had commented on the miserable garnish of veg, a bit of fried Italian pepper, that he got with his meal when we stopped off in Calasparra on the way back from going to see the cuadrillas (folk music bands) in Barranda village.
Now Ruth's turn: translating menús (or cartas, as Spaniards say - menú is the meal, carta the list to describe the offer). If I'm ever handed a carta in English in Spain, I ask for a version in Spanish because translating a food list is just so hard. Imagine doing shepherd’s pie, or any type of pie come to that, bubble and squeak, toad in the hole or even a Cumberland sausage the other way around
The particular item Ruth highlighted was gazpacho manchego. She wrote, "Gazpacho to me is cold soup, but gazpacho manchego is a stew." She’s spot on, and the confusion only deepens once you start travelling.
In Pinoso, what you’re actually eating is gazpacho pinosero. It’s a rabbit and snail stew featuring bits of torn-up, unleavened bread—torta de gazpacho—folded into the liquid. Travel just 28 km to Yecla, and the style shifts: a probably gamier stew with mushrooms and perhaps partridge or quail as well as rabbit is poured over the bread (torta) served as a whole, flat pancake on a dry plate. Head in to La Mancha district proper, to Cuenca, and the dish becomes an entirely different beast; the offal and game based stew is cooked down until the liquid evaporates, that's when the torta or maybe flour is added, leaving a stiff, thick paste.
So, there are at least three distinct versions of gazpacho manchego and there are actually lots more. The name is the same but the product is different. It’s like a British "bring-a-dish" supper: three bowls of chilli con carne on the table, and not one will taste like the other. The carta rarely gives you a warning of which one is coming!
These varieties, the differences over a relatively short distance (Pinoso to Yecla is 28 km), were brought home to me by some friends we had over. We took them, at their bidding, to a traditional Pinoso restaurant. We had gachamiga—a sort of stodgy, pancake-shaped dish made from flour, oil, garlic, water and salt. Two of the friends live near Valencia city, the other in Elche—Elche is 45 minutes from Pinoso, Valencia 90 minutes. None of them had ever had gachamiga before. We also ate faseguras, which are pork meatballs with pine nuts served in a meaty broth. Faseguras is the Valencian name and relleno is the same thing but with its Castilian name; in Pinoso the names are interchangeable—restaurants use one name or the other. My Valencia city friends said they were called pelotas.
Years ago, near Oliva, I saw and noticed the tradition of esmorzaret—basically a mid-morning feast built around a sandwich (though plenty of Britons would call it a roll). The standout feature was that everyone got monkey nuts, olives, and a simple salad as part of the package.
Some time later, I read a newspaper article about the tradition, which didn't quite match my experience—so I wrote a blog about it. One of the Valencia friends, the same friend who'd joined us for gachamiga the other week took me to task over that blog. Her version in her Valencia city neighbourhood—85 km from Oliva—was different again.
Last week, I caught a British TV programme with Michael Portillo tucking into esmorzaret. He was told it typically featured horse meat. I mentioned this to a Pinoso friend, describing esmorzaret as a Valencia province thing, not found here in Alicante. "No," he said, "we eat almuerzo here too." I explained that while the words might just be a Valencian-Castilian variation, the ritual was different. He wouldn't have it. To him—a born-and-bred Alicantino—esmorzaret was simply a snack between breakfast and lunch. In effect he was simply unaware of a tradition that is practised just one province North of here.
So sorry, Ruth. I can't really translate the cartas for you—they're all over the place. Certainly, you can guess some. Relleno? A meatball, but nothing like Ikea's meatballs or a Wiltshire faggot. Embutido? Meaty filling stuffed into a skin—like a banger or haggis. But good luck predicting the cold, sliced sausages you'll get on your plate in Pinoso even with that description. Ultimately, the missing veg and baffling cartas spring from the same source: fierce local pride that scoffs at dictionary definitions.
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A quick aside: Off to the side of the main theme of this blog but, as I mentioned Barranda, a week or so ago the annual survey of what's best in art and culture all over Spain was published. It's a really interesting document if you're looking for any sort of culture in Spain. It ranges from the best overall (the Reina Sofía in Madrid) to the best in each region in general and even lists the best in film festivals, TV or radio channels. The only reason I mention it here is that the Barranda festival got an honourable mention in the region of Murcia. The only two places listed in the best of the Valencian Community were the MACA contemporary art gallery in Alicante and the Cigarreras Arts Centre, also in Alicante. The report is here
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