Life in Culebrón

Spaniards seem to like napkins more than Britons. Now I'm not trying to say that we Britons don't like napkins or that there is something intrinsically right or wrong about using napkins. Go into a British restaurant and there will be napkins. They give you piles of them in McDonald's because, as the bun disintegrates, you will end up with a palmful of slimy hamburger patty, lettuce and ketchup and you will need them to clean up. If my family home was anything to go by the English use them only when we are being a bit posh; Christmas or when friends came to dinner. Normally though, especially at home, no serviettes, no napkins. Spaniards on the other hand put napkins out as naturally as they put out the cutlery and bread when they are setting the table and there is no Spanish restaurant, bar, barbecue, picnic or home without them. Order a beer in a Spanish bar and you probably won't get a beer mat - sometimes yes and more and more frequently but not usually. The bee...

We were going to try out the new Indian restaurant in Pinoso yesterday lunchtime. Maggie works till three and getting lunch around that time in Spain is absolutely standard. Nonetheless, on a slow day in a small town it's just possible that the kitchen will close if a restaurant is short of custom. I put my head around the door, to check. I was greeted in English. Open till six he said. It turned out that we'd had a bit of a communication problem. In fact they opened at six, not closed, presumably for we early dining Britons. I knew about the Taj Mahal from simply passing by. The other day though, when I was quizzing, as one does, a student about toppings on pizza, they told me that they preferred pizzas from el Punto to the ones from Riquelme. According to the student the shop was about 300 metres from where I work. I'd never heard of them, I'd never seen their soiled napkins dancing in the swirling leaves, never seen their pizza boxes abandoned on the floor. Their...

Egg and chips is a typical Spanish dish. Egg and chips is a typical English dish too. I wouldn't be surprised if half the world has a similar claim to egg and chips. Of course there can be lots of differences between one plateful of egg and chips and another dependant on the quality of the ingredients and the preparation. I like my bacon sandwiches in white bread with lots of butter and with crispy but cooled bacon. I know people who are appalled at the idea of butter and white bread and pour ketchup or brown sauce on theirs. So preparation, ingredients and personal taste all make a difference when we're talking food. Sometimes Spanish people ask me if I eat British or Spanish food at home. I suppose the question is whether I eat paella or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding because, most of the time, the stuff I cook is probably stateless. I might think it's chilli con carne or biryani but a Mexican (or is that a Texan) and an Indian wouldn't recognise it as such. And...

It's odd what you stop noticing. Because of her job Maggie talks to lots of people who are new to the area. One of her clients, let's call her Betty, was telling Maggie about an experience in a local restaurant. Betty asked for a red wine to go with her set price meal. She was was pleasantly surprised when the waiter left the bottle on the table. Lots of wine from around here is still not premium product, it's something for drinking, so leaving the bottle with the implicit offer to drink as much of it as you want, is still very common. I wouldn't have noticed. We went to a couple of posher than our usual style of restaurant last weekend. When I was telling a pal about the restaurants. I described them as "the sort of place where they take your cutlery after each course". I realised that the description presumed a little knowledge of everyday restaurant practice. Nowadays I would never think to leave my knife and fork at attention on the plate when I have f...