We took the scenic route. We stopped over for the night in Andalucia, in Córdoba, before heading on to Zafra, Mérida, Cáceres, Trujillo and Plasencia. It's a while since we've been so far from home in Spain and it reminded me of something I already knew, but often forget, those small but significant regional differences.
Toast for breakfast. Usual, traditional, commonplace all over Spain. Near to home toast is, usually, half of a smallish breadstick or baguette. Just the half, media or, if you want the whole thing entera. The most basic version comes dry and you self add the oil and salt. The next step up, pricewise, is to add a layer of grated tomato (in Catalonia they usually rub the tomato directly into the bread). Richer people add serrano, cured, ham and even cheese. In trendy spots they offer avocado too.
In Andalucia the differences from home are subtle. There is a tendency to flat slices of bread though "burger bun" molletes are also pretty common. Bread apart, the routine with oil and grated tomato is much of a muchness. Pork dripping, with or without paprika, wasn't on offer. In Sevilla and Cádiz it would have been. The next day, in Zafra, now into Extremadura, the tomato looked completely different. It had been mashed up with garlic and oil and then blitzed with one of those hand blenders. To be honest it looked a bit unpleasant. Our cats have been known to produce something with a similar colour scheme and texture. Fortunately I'd chosen to be radically local and I'd asked for the local paté, cachuela. Adding pork products to toast is big in Extremadura because of the fame of the local, cured ham - it's often quoted as the best in Spain. Maggie was stoic as she chewed on her toast with tomato. Next morning she wondered if they might have the Madrid (and ever so English) variant of butter and jam. In Madrid, where Maggie lived years ago, butter and jam was the norm. Usually in Madrid the bread has the same colour and consistency as a slice of Mother's Pride but three times as thick. Extremadura offered sliced bread too but from far less industrial looking loaves. In Trujillo they even offered brown bread. I wonder if there's a doctorate in this? Varieties of toast on the Iberian Peninsula.
about this thing of trying the local variant I should mention my consternation in not noticing something in Córdoba before I ordered. When in Rome and all that. There lots of people were having pitufos for breakfast. I've only ever used the word pitufo to describe what we Brits call Smurfs but in Córdoba a toasted sandwiches with oil, cooked ham and cheese is a pitufo. I understand that they're more typical of Malaga.
Now moving on to croquetas...
