Life in Culebrón

I often wake up around 5 am. Anyone of a certain age will know why. Usually, I find that I don't go back to sleep properly; I doze, and I turn things over in my mind. Typically, the things are of no importance - I remember a job to do, I wonder why my knee is aching, things like that. This morning it was mantecados and polvorones. Mantecados and polvorones are typical Spanish Christmas biscuit-like cakes. They're supposed to taste different to each other, though I can never remember which is which. A website I just consulted tells me that polvorones tend to crumble more than mantecados and that polvorones have ground almonds in them, while mantecados (which get their name from their high content of manteca or lard) don't. The website says the shapes are different too and then goes on to say that both can be round (!) but that polvorones are square and mantecados are rectangular. On other websites I've read that mantecados have various flavourings while polvorones don...

I haven't spent Christmas in the UK for umpteen years, so I may not be as expert on British customs as I think. Nonetheless, unless things have changed drastically, the first tentative signs of Christmas show up in the shops in September. By November the telly is full of Christmas ads full of good cheer, bonhomie and cute robins. Cities, towns and villages start to turn on lights from mid-December and even with online shopping I'm sure that shopping centres, supermarkets and places like restaurants and pubs get busier and busier through December, all building up to the big day. Finally, it's Christmas Day. You do your best to look pleased with the illuminated pullover and the novelty underwear and you console yourself by setting about the mountains of food. Boxing Day you might stay at home to and eat and drink more, or it may be that you have to visit relatives. Maybe, instead, you might thirst for action after so much slouching around and go for a bracing walk or head out...

Today and tomorrow are the days to eat roscón, roscón de Reyes. I've written about it several times before, check this link for earlier blog posts. So no real detail this time. It's a bit like a big doughnut, a cake to be eaten around epiphany, when the Three Kings, The Three Wise Men, allegedly arrived with their odd gifts for the baby Jesus - not a Scalextric American Police Chase nor a Linkimals Smooth Moves Sloth in sight but a couple of tree resin extracts and, always useful, gold. I've bought roscones lots of times. Buy them from a cake shop, made to order, and they cost an arm and a leg, well around 25€ which is pretty expensive for a cake. In supermarkets the price varies a lot. You can get some for five or six euros but the one I'd seen judged as the best for this year was from one of the low price supermarket chains, Día. I was expecting to pay around 10€ but I couldn't find one. I went back and forth to our local branch five times over three days ...

I spoke to my mum on the phone today. She said that she'd had a good Christmas and New Year but that she was glad to be back to normal. Later I popped in to town. I went to a cake shop that I've only ever been in once before, that time it was to order a birthday cake for Maggie, one with icing and a message and candles. This time it was to order a roscón. I can't remember whether I ordered the custard filling (crema) or the cream filling (nata) but either way I'm expecting better quality than the ones we usually buy from the supermarket. The last time we bought a baker's shop roscón was when we lived it Cartagena. I have a vague and nagging memory that I was shocked at the price then but, hey-ho, Christmas tradition and all that. The sensible eating can start when Christmas is over after the 6th. I've written about Roscones before, the traditional Roscón de Reyes cake, a bit like a big doughnut that gets eaten on Kings, at Epiphany, on 6th January when t...