Life in Culebrón

I thought we might take a look at coffee. At home I drink tea but Spaniards make such terrible tea and such good coffee that, away from home, it's coffee.  Let's start with the exception. We're in a bar or restaurant. That being the case I have no idea why you would, but, if you wanted an instant coffee, you need to ask for un café de sobre. I suspect that when decaf was first introduced it was only available in instant coffee form so some people got into the habit of asking for un café descafeinado de sobre in which case they'd get a little sachet of decaf coffee and a glass full of warm milk to dissolve it in. But here we're really talking about coffee from one of those machines that hiss and spurt usually at the precise moment someone talks to you. The noise makes it impossible to hear or understand anything but your native tongue. In the UK and the USA the coffee that issues from those machines seems to have Italian names. Not so in Spain. The short, strong, th...

One of the worst films I've ever seen in Spanish, and I've seen some shockers, is called Balada triste de trompeta by the director Álex de la Iglesia. There is one good scene in it though. The protagonists have just finished their meal. The waiter asks if anyone wants coffee and every one of the fifteen or so people around the table specifies a different type of coffee. This is not the Starbucks/Costa/Nero thing. No big coffees served in everything from bucket sized mugs to drinking through a hole in a plastic topped, hand scorching, paper cup. No expensive buns either. No this is just common or garden coffee in a common or garden bar or restaurant. It's one of those things I'd stop noticing but we were on holiday in Andalucia last week and I, we, noticed this very specific ordering because of the accent - the Andalucians have a way of swallowing letters - and because, as good holidaymakers, we were gawping around us. From time to time people still ask about instant co...

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 ...

I went last night, as I often do, to the Monday evening intercambio session at the Coliseum bar in Pinoso. The idea is simple enough, an English speaker is paired up with a Spanish speaker and the hour long session is divided in half - the conversation is in English to start, or in Spanish, and then, for the second half, it's the other way around. It's supposed to run from 8.30 to 9.30 but we're always a little late starting and so a little late finishing. There is no cost but there is the expectation that you will buy a drink or two. If things go well, if the conversation flows, as it often does, I really enjoy the sessions because they are an extended chat. They add to my cultural briefing on Spain. The exchanges have to go further than "hello, how are you?" and people are expecting linguistic problems so there is none of the feeling of failure if one of the speakers tries an extended discourse. Serpentine as the monologue of one of the speakers may be, ho...