Let them eat coca
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...