Life in Culebrón

Nowadays, when I have a conversation in the street with someone, it goes a bit like this: “Hiya, how are you?” “I’m well, thanks, but did you hear about Rupert/Ted/Alison/Indira? She/he had a heart attack/has cancer/had a stroke (and so on)”. Obviously, it’s not always that style of conversation. Sometimes the answer is “Not so good”, because the person I’m talking to has just had a bypass/major surgery/has metastasis (and so on). It can be worse - “Did you hear about Betty? -  she died, you know”. Bearing this in mind, a news item from today may be of interest to lots of us, particularly those of us of a certain age, closer to the “time of reckoning”. As of today, there are new prescription charges. These charges only apply to people with prescriptions from the Spanish state system. If your prescription comes from a private doctor, then the charges will depend on the market price.  The charges apply directly across the state health system, be that in Murcia, Valencia, or anyw...

There’s a typical bread roll in Alcoy that’s called tortilongui or torti y longui; it’s a sandwich of omelette (an omelette, not a tortilla española) and longaniza (a sausage something like a British banger). Before about four o’clock last Sunday afternoon, I didn’t know that.  It happens quite a lot in Spain: you go into a bar or restaurant, they ask what you want, and when you ask what there is, you don’t get an exhaustive list so much as a couple of suggestions. Many places aren’t big on printed menus or blackboards, especially outside the (relatively rigid) lunchtime slot. You order something, and then five minutes later, something much more interesting lands on the next table. Part of the problem is knowing what to ask. If you reach for your phrase book and ask if there is anything to eat—comer—you’ll often be told no. A better question is whether the kitchen is still open. And if it isn’t, you can ask if there’s anything to snack on: tapear, or perhaps picotear.  Anyway,...

Maggie calls them fat pies: coca. Of course, it’s also the Spanish word for cocaine, but provided we’re thinking snack rather than snort, a coca is, to my mind, something like a local version of pizza. There was a time, maybe fifteen to twenty years ago, when it was one of the staples whenever there was free food at an event in Pinoso. No vol-au-vents, no cube of cheese and a silverskin onion on a stick; you got a rectangular piece of coca The best bits were the ones from the middle of the baking trays: a spongy, bread-like base, heavy with olive oil and smeared with grated tomato, usually finished with a salty punch of anchovies or sardines. The corner pieces had too much pastry and not enough topping. Just before Christmas, maybe five years ago the staunch women of Cáritas (the Roman Catholic charity) were running a fundraising breakfast from the community room alongside the parish church. One of the main things on offer was coca. It wasn't what I expected. They had a bowl of dou...