Life in Culebrón

I couldn't think of anything to write for the blog, so I turned to Facebook. Rob suggested I tackle the mystery of why vegetables often go missing from Spanish restaurant dishes, and Ruth asked about translating Spanish menus. I started to see a link between the two, so let’s see how it goes. 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 ve...

We're just about to go to see the local brass band. The title of the event is something like "You bring a sandwich and we'll provide the music". I've bought some bread and things to go in it to make a sandwich. We've got some crisps - well actually they're some sort of healthy pretend crisps made out of soya or peas or some such - and, because my tortillas always sag in the middle, I've bought a tortilla de patatas as well. And, of course, a couple of cans of beer. I can guarantee though that we won't do this "properly". I don't know how many Spanish kids I've seen unwrap their mid morning breakfast, how many women I've seen break out the un-buttered, unoiled rolls in silver paper, how many families I've seen trudging across the sand laden with cool boxes, how many times I've seen tuppers (pronounce that as tapperr) laden with cooked dishes spread out on picnic tables, how many watermelons I've seen carved into...