Starry eyed

Eating is a bit of a thing in Spain. Not a bit of a thing like it is in South Sudan, not in the sense of needing to eat to avoid dying, but eating for pleasure. It's also a never exhausted topic of conversation. Lunch is the main meal of the day in Spain and cheap set meals, a few euros on each side of 10€, are available all over the place. I know that most Britons living here don't agree with me but I can't remember the last time I had a memorable set menu in that price range. They're fine, some are better than others, most are perfectly pleasant but few, none actually, come to mind as showing much flair. For a bit of cooked sea bass or steak the set menus are incredible value. The ones I enjoy most though are the restaurants that have set meals costing something like 25 to 35€. Its enough money for the restaurants to be creative but, when the bill comes, I don't wonder about the sanity of just having spent a new mobile phone's worth of cash on something that will be flowing down the drains a few hours later. This said one of the things that we've done a few times now, on Maggie's birthday, is to go in search of a restaurant with Michelin stars. 

It started years ago when a chef called Kiko Moya came to Pinoso as the "Godfather" of the annual celebration of traditional food in and of Pinoso called Mostra de la Cuina del Pinós. The chef was from a nearby town called Concentaina. His little speech at the opening ceremony for that food festival made me think that a posh meal in his Michelin starred restaurant and an overnight stay in a hotel would be a nice gift for Maggie's birthday.

Two stories stick out from that meal. The first is that the only thing either of us remember as being particularly nice was a savoury version of a normally sweet local Christmas treat called turrón. The second is that they served us a dish at one point which featured the mould that grows on corn cobs. For those of you old enough to remember it was amusing, in a Pseuds Corner sort of way. We wondered why mould had never caught on, unlike egg and chips for instance. Overall though it was a pleasant enough experience and the basic plot seemed sound - an overpriced meal each year as a bit o a birthday treat.

The second year we went to a place in Almansa. No overnight stay this time just the restaurant which meant evening. Usually, and for no obvious reason, evening meals are less enjoyable than lunchtime meals in Spain - a bit more formal, less lively, less Spanish. It was a bad experience. I usually compare it to the time that you're invited to an acquaintances house for dinner. They serve things that you don't like at all but which you can, just about, eat without vomiting. With grim British style determination you wade through each course. In this particular restaurant the tasting menu had at least eight courses. The one that took most effort was a tuna heart stuffed with something that made it look like an eyeball though I suspect eyeballs taste nicer than whatever it was we were given to eat. I was only just about able to control my gag response.

The restaurant we went to in Cuenca the next year was totally forgettable. It wasn't a bad experience; nice enough as I remember with good service and decent food but I cannot remember anything of the detail. What I do remember as being really disappointing were the digs. Cuenca is too far from home to pop over for an evening meal and get back home. So, I booked us in to the Parador hotel there. The Parador hotel chain has some impressive buildings and impressive locations. They often convert places like castles, monasteries and convents into hotels. The hotel in Cuenca is a converted convent set atop a river gorge. That's it in the photo with this post. It looks great outside and the communal spaces inside - the restaurant, the lounges, the bar - are all impressive as well. The room though was quite small, it crossed my mind that it may have been the size of the original nun's cell, and the décor and fittings were very ordinary. The hotel was also full of a wedding and loud wedding guests dominated the character of the hotel for we non wedding guests. And it was not cheap.

We went to a great restaurant with a Michelin star in La Nucia, el Xato. This time it wasn't Maggie's birthday but it was the birthday of one of our long-time friends so we went as two couples. It was splendid. Great service from really pleasant servers, good price, verging on cheap for a restaurant with Michelin stars, excellent food and with a little gastronomic journey from the Valencian shoreline to the interior of the region explained in food and drink. 

Last year I hunted around for another starred restaurant but the places that were on my possible list were prohibitively expensive. Going to eat Mexican in Madrid for instance with the train, hotel and meal was way beyond my wallet. The set meal, with accompanying matched wines, was a bit short of 200€ per cover. I reckon that with the train fare and the overnight stay In Madrid it would have been around 800€ and I just couldn't justify, or afford, that. We stayed locally instead and had a remarkably ordinary paella at a restaurant which should have done much, much better.

This year though there were lots of new restaurants with Michelin stars in the area and with reasonably (given the criteria) priced set meals. One in Calpe, a couple in Murcia and one in San Juan. All a bit fish based though and Maggie isn't big on fish. Eventually I settled on one in Ondara, near Denia, a short couple of hours from home. Maggie knew nothing about it till the last moment and she didn't know that I'd invited a couple of pals along too. The idea was that she would have company as she worked her way through the wine accompanying each course whilst I, nominated driver that I am, remained steadfastly boring and sober. Nice place, excellent service and the prices were fine except for the unnecessary graspingness of overcharging for things like water, beer and coffee. It was a strange failing because something I've noticed in most of the other posh restaurants we've been to is that they don't overcharge for the ordinary things. If a coffee costs 1.50€ in the local bar the posh restaurants usually limit themselves to doubling the price. Not so in Ondara. 

To be honest I've already forgotten what we ate; for me it's the experience that's the pleasure rather than the food. If I wanted to eat something I really liked I'd cook up a bacon sandwich and make a nice cup of tea but then I wouldn't have stories about eating mould, the feeling of dread as I forced myself to eat some supposed delicacy or the unpleasantness of handing over the credit card and contemplating the tip.

When in Rome

I'm not a big Google+ user. The other day I came across something called Communities, which seem to be collections of items around a theme. So I posted some blog entries there. At least one person read some of the blog because he commented on it. So I read his blog back and then I pinched his idea for this post.

Antonio's piece was about how to recognise tourists by their non Spanish behaviour in restaurants. For instance by eating lunch before 2pm, drinking large beers, ordering sangria or having paella as an evening meal. It made me think about the things that I do, that my British pals who live here do or our British visitors do that aren't quite Spanish. In general I stuck to foodie variations rather than commenting on hats, shorts, sandals and walking in the sun type differences.

Obviously eating too early is something that sets us apart. You know that lunch in Spain is anytime between about 2pm and 4pm and dinner anytime after around 9.30pm but maybe we breakfast too early as well. The Spaniards are a bit out of kilter with most other nations by taking their breakfast mid morning. Most Spaniards don't really have the cereals and toast type start to the day breakfasts that we Britons do. The majority just bolt from their house soon after rising, maybe grabbing a quick coffee. Although it's nowhere near as odd to ask for toast in a bar at 9am as it is to try and get dinner at 7.30pm it isn't quite right either. The busy time for Spaniards getting their toast, often topped with oil and grated tomato, will be an hour or two later.

There's no problem with ordering a coffee or a tea to go with your breakfast but generally Spaniards only drink water, beer, coke or wine with lunch or dinner, with savoury food in general. Years ago I was in a bar with someone having a mid morning coffee. The bar had several hams hanging from the roof and we succumbed. As the barman served the ham he whisked our coffees away and asked what we wanted to drink. Beer and ham is fine but coffee and ham is a bit Pet Shop Boys - It's a Sin. Oh, and getting milk in your tea is an enormous effort and prone to failiure. And, oh again, and this is pretty new to me, gin and tonic seems to be a post-prandial rather than a pre-prandial drink in Spain.

Butter on bread is another odd thing. The last time I was in the UK, in a decentish restaurant, I was a bit surprised to be served a bread roll, on my side plate, along with a little pat of butter. I'm pretty sure it was always dry bread, to go with the soup, in restaurants in my youth. Eating bread and butter with the meal was something you did at home but not when you ate out. Bread is an essential element of any Spanish meal but "nobody" uses butter. Britons often complain about the lack of butter or ask for some. Spaniards don't put oil on bread either, at least in public. There's normally salt on a restaurant table because salt goes with the oil and vinegar to dress a salad but it's not as omnipresent as it is in the UK. There is very seldom any pepper. Asking for pepper is very British.

The bread is usually served in a basket in the centre of the table. This idea of things for everyone is something Britons don't seem to take to either. If you go for a set meal, el menú del día, then whatever you order is yours but, if you go for something that you order a la carte, the usual thing is that the group of diners order a bunch of things go in the middle of the table and you take your choice. Only the main course is yours and yours alone though, even then, it's not unusual for a couple to put their mains in the centre and share them. If Spaniards go eating tapas those are nearly always for sharing. Someone at the Spanish Tourist Board must have mounted a brilliant campaign to promote tapas in the UK because everybody who comes to see us seems to know the word and be dead keen to try what are, after all, just a bunch of bar snacks. Some are great, some are boring.

Back to bread for a moment, well to sandwiches or rolls. We have lots of very traditional British sandwiches that are something and something. Ham and mustard, cheese and tomato, chicken and lettuce, egg and cress, beef and horseradish. Spaniards sometimes put two elements in a sandwich and there are lots of trendy sandwich places with plenty of variety but, in most bars, the traditional choices are still quite fixed. Ham, cheese, ham and cheese, ham and grated tomato, tuna maybe, lomo, chorizo, salchichon, maybe anchovies. In Malaga, years ago, I was refused a cheese and onion sandwich - the man just couldn't bring himself to sell me one despite having both ingredients. Nowadays Spaniards still think it's an odd mix but if that's what I want then that's what I get. Bacon sandwiches are available too but every time I ask for just bacon there is an "are you sure?" type question and, of course, there's no butter.

The fixed price set meals are served at lunchtime. This is not invariable but it is normal. Evening meals are a much simpler affair and whilst you may go out to eat in the evening to celebrate Valentine's or somesuch, it's really at lunchtime that you eat the main meal of the day. Lots of restaurants don't even open in the evening except at weekends and nowadays we're often a bit surprised when visiting Britons automatically think of going out for a meal equates with going out in the evening.

It's not at all unusual, if you order a glass of wine to go with your meal, that the server will put a bottle of wine on the table. It probably won't be particularly good wine but it will be a full or nearly full bottle. Britons don't like to leave alcohol, particularly when they think they've paid for it. When someone asks me how to say cork in Spanish I find that I suddenly need to just pop out to get something from the car. The shame of my compatriots wanting to carry off the dregs of the bottle is too much for my wannabe Spanishness. Doggy bags aren't a Spanish concept either.

And when the meal is over it's tipping time. I tend to tip, I tip on coffee even but most Spaniards don't. They may do but there is no moral imperative to tip. If the service is good, if the price makes it easy then tipping it is. So if the meal cost 47€ then the fifty note will do nicely but if it's 50€ and the service was as service should be then lots of people won't add anything. It can be a bit embarassing as Maggie and I put in a euro each towards the tip and one of our visitors throws a ten note down worked out on the British Imperial Standard.

There are more but I think that's enough ammunition for my "you British" critics for now.

Wispy light and more

The first time I ever caught the sense of a conversation going on around me in Spanish was on a bus in Granada. I'd always thought that Spanish conversations were probably about Goethe or something equally profound but that one was, in fact, about whether peas should or should not be an ingredient of some stew. Food is a topic of conversation close to the hearts of many Spaniards.

One of the things that crops up in those food conversations is the Mediterranean diet. If you were to ask me what the Mediterranean diet I'd have to say that I'm not quite sure. I know that it includes more fish than meat, cereals, pulses, nuts, vegetables, fruit, wine and lots of olive oil but I'm a bit hazy on the details. We live pretty close to the Mediterranean. In fact yesterday we were in Santa Pola and if we'd chosen to we could have gone for a paddle, so I should know what the diet is but I don't. One of the confusing things about it is that lots of what seem to be traditional Spanish foods look remarkably unhealthy. Surely things like chorizo, the white bread sticks, the deep fried pescaitos, the peanuts dripping in oil, the cheese, the croquetas and all the rest can't really be part of a healthy diet?

Back in Santa Pola I asked if they had any sangre, blood, to go along with the beer. I'm not sure what sangre contains exactly apart from blood and onions but it looks like liver and it tastes yummy (though Maggie disagrees). It's not so available away from the coast which is why I was taking my opportunity. There wasn't any so I asked for Russian salad instead. Ensaladilla rusa is a staple in lots of Alicante and beyond - a sort of potato, egg, tuna, carrot and pea salad held together with mayonnaise. Tasty certainly but healthy?

Actually, I know exactly what I think of when the Mediterranean diet is mentioned and it has nothing to do with the food. The Mediterranean diet is a bronzed Anthony Quinn peeling and eating fruit directly from his pocket knife, it's him eating, and laughing with his friends as he drinks copious quantities of wine around a sun dappled outdoor table against the azure blue background of the sparkling sea.

I read an article in el País yesterday which seemed to reach a similar conclusion only they made no mention of Quinn nor Jean Reno in the Big Blue who would be my other point of reference.

El País told me that back in 1953 an epidemiologist called Leland G. Allbaugh published a paper about the, then, normal diet on Crete. Cretans ate a very basic diet yet they were healthier than Americans. A medical doctor, Dr. Ancel Keys, saw the research and spent years trying to work out why. He did research in seven countries and, to oversimplify, came up with the  conclusion that saturated fat in diets was a major conditioner of heart disease along with cholesterol and high blood pressure. Whilst he was involved in the early years of the survey Keys and his wife published a book called Eat Well and Stay Well. Later, in 1975, they published a second book called How to Eat Well and Stay Well: The Mediterranean Way. It was, apparently, that book which led to the term Mediterranean diet coming into everyday use. But the “Mediterranean Way” was more than particular foods and cuisines or eating patterns. It involved aspects of lifestyle and the economy, such as walking to and from work in physically active occupations like farming, crafts, fishing and herding, taking the major meal at midday, having an afternoon break from work. In short the food was only a part of the traditional Mediterranean  lifestyle.

In 2011, the European Food Safety Authority published a position document arguing that it could not establish whether the Mediterranean diet was healthy or not because it was unable to find a clear definition of what the diet was. The Authority also noted that the inclusion of quite a lot of wine in all of the versions made it technically unhealthy. The Mediterranean diet though does feature as an intangible cultural heritage on UNESCO's list - just like Flamenco or the Fallas celebrations. The definition is not about the food it's about agriculture and tradition, about sharing food and about cultural identity. The full definition is at the bottom of the page

The newspaper article writer argued that the Mediterranean diet was actually more of a process of four decades of hype than an actual dietary regime. Like I said, Anthony Quinn, the suntan, the cicadas singing, the shared bottle of wine. The laughter. Now that was all around us as we ate the ensaladilla rusa in Santa Pola yesterday.

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UNESCO definition: The Mediterranean diet involves a set of skills, knowledge, rituals, symbols and traditions concerning crops, harvesting, fishing, animal husbandry, conservation, processing, cooking, and particularly the sharing and consumption of food. Eating together is the foundation of the cultural identity and continuity of communities throughout the Mediterranean basin. It is a moment of social exchange and communication, an affirmation and renewal of family, group or community identity. The Mediterranean diet emphasizes values of hospitality, neighbourliness, intercultural dialogue and creativity, and a way of life guided by respect for diversity. It plays a vital role in cultural spaces, festivals and celebrations, bringing together people of all ages, conditions and social classes. It includes the craftsmanship and production of traditional receptacles for the transport, preservation and consumption of food, including ceramic plates and glasses. Women play an important role in transmitting knowledge of the Mediterranean diet: they safeguard its techniques, respect seasonal rhythms and festive events, and transmit the values of the element to new generations. Markets also play a key role as spaces for cultivating and transmitting the Mediterranean diet during the daily practice of exchange, agreement and mutual respect.

And something else...

For years I didn't own a power drill. I made do with a little hand held job, in fact I often said that I preferred the manual ones.

I forget now how it started but, for years, I have been doing online surveys. Sometimes they ask me reasonably sensible things like who I might vote for or how I keep up with news and current affairs. Usually though they ask me annoyingly written and stupid questions about whether I agree more with the statement that a) my bank is friendly, honest and innovative or b) that my bank is chummy, trustworthy and forward thinking. There's no space to say that all banks are equally soulless. money grabbing and intrinsically corrupt. The survey people give me points for doing each survey and I can change the points for things in an online catalogue. The first time I used the points to send pigs to Nicaragua but somewhere along the way I used others to get a power drill. I now know that power drills are better than hand drills.

The other day I was asked to do a survey about sobrasada. I eat sobrasada from time to time. I usually eat it spread on bread or maybe as the spread in a sandwich. I've always presumed that sobrasada was the dripping that comes from making chorizo, the rough cut pork sausage flavoured with paprika type pepper. I thought of it as being a Spanish version of the bread and drip that I used to eat as a lad. I assumed the Spanish stuff was the reddy brown colour because the dripping came from the paprika coloured meat and that the thicker consistency was because it contained strands of cooked pork flesh.

Anyway this survey asked me tens and tens of questions about sobrasada. They asked me whether I preferred the stuff that comes in tubs or the variety that came in a skin. They asked whether the keeping qualities of it were important and whether I preferred the cheaper stuff or the stuff that is denominación de origen; D.O. is used a lot in Spain to mark out more traditional products prepared in specific ways. D.O. ham for instance generally means that the ham comes from a certain breed of free range pig that feeds on acorns. D.O. wines contain particular grape varieties which are grown, harvested and matured in specific ways. Suddenly, I realised there was a whole back story to sobrasada.

It turns out that the pukka stuff comes from Mallorca and Ibiza in the Balearic Islands though Cataluña and Valencia have their own versions. Sobrasada is a sausage made from pork loin and bacon meat minced and mixed with paprika, salt and black pepper. There are versions with and without cayenne pepper which are labelled as either sweet or spicy. The mixture is not cooked, it is stuffed into a pork intestine and hung from a pole for several weeks until it is cured. For the spicier version the ends of the sausage are tied off with either red or red and white string to differentiate it from the milder version.

Apparently the chemistry that dehydrates the meat is favoured by the weather typical of the late Balearic island autumn, the time when pigs are traditionally sacrificed, with high humidity and mild temperatures. I'm sure that in the factories where they churn out tons of cheap non traditional sobrasada from old scrag ends - the stuff I usually eat – those conditions can be easily recreated.

There are lots of variations in the way that the real McCoy sobrasada is finally presented to the consumer. Sometimes it is removed from the skins and put into tubs (which stack nicely on supermarket shelves) at other times it is presented in thin sausages which are apparently called longaniza (the longanizas we have in Pinoso are a very different type of sausage). The stuff that I thought of as being traditional sobrasada is called semirrizada and that is presented as a sort of haggis shaped and sized sausage from which you scoop the fatty spread.

I'm sure you're not too interested in sobrasada. I'm not. In fact I'm slightly less interested since I learned that it's basically rotted meat. What did interest me though was that it was just yet another little thing that I didn't know about Spain. About something that is so commonplace that a supermarket chain wanted to know my opinions on it.