Life in Culebrón

I'm not such a big fan of wine. It's not that I don't drink it but I'd nearly always go for other sorts of booze first. Maggie, my partner, on the other hand, is a bit of an enthusiast. One of the things she often does is to take our visitors on one of the bodega tours. Indeed, years ago, she used to organise tours for tourists as a business venture so we got to know nearly all of the bodegas in Jumilla and Yecla and a good number of the bodegas close to Pinoso that allow visits. Jumilla, Yecla and Alicante all produce wines that have Denominación de Origen Protegida (protected designation of origin) as well as wines more suited to drain unblocking or unarmed combat. Lots of the stuff that isn't D.O.P. is shipped to other countries, particularly France, where it is mixed with local wine and then sold as being from that country. The unloved wine is the sort of wine that you would use for things where any old wine will do - preserving fruits, cooking, turning into vin...

Spaniards don't care for British beer. They don't like it because of the temperature it is served at. Most use the word broth in their comparison. Spaniards like their beer cold. British style bitter beer isn't easily available in Spain because here, like in most places, beer means bottom fermented rather than top fermented product - lager instead of ale. Obviously, when I moved to Spain I wanted to integrate so I embraced Spanish lager wholeheartedly. It wasn't as hard as cracking the subjunctive because, when I was young, drinking Indian Kingfisher, American Rolling Rock, Italian Peroni, Canadian Labatt, Mexican Dos Equis, and so on and so on, was considered eminently cool. I had prior form. To my mind most lagers tend to be quite samey. It's not that they taste the same but the standard light, crisp and gassy lagers, like the majority of the Spanish ones have quite a lot in common. That's presumably why most Spaniards, in Spain, don't specify and simply a...

I find it vaguely amusing how the Italians seem to get there first. Here the tiny strong black coffee is called a solo but buy one in Teignmouth in Devon or Alberona in Foggia and it'll be an espresso. Expensive British coffees have Italian names. Another example is Spanish ham, the Jamón Serrano. Commonplace here but, when I want to describe it to visiting Britons, I find that I need to describe it as Parma ham so they know what I'm talking about. Spaniards by the way call the British floppy boiled ham York Ham - jamón York. Spaniards are often particularly narked about oil. Oil in Spain means olive oil. The default is olive oil. If, for some strange reason, you want another type of oil then you have to be specific - corn oil, sesame oil etc. Even if the Mediterranean Diet is besieged on all sides by hamburgers, pizzas and kebabs the oil is still an essential part of the Spanish diet. Obviously enough it's easy to buy Spanish oil here but it's not difficult to ...