Why there are no pies in Spain.
Our annual Día de las Sopas Perotas was a big success last Saturday. Thousands of hungry visitors poured through the narrow and picturesque streets of Álora for a free bowl of our tasty and nourishing signature dish, las sopas perotas.
This year Susana Díaz, President of the Andalucían Junta came along for a bowlful. This was such an important event that it was mentioned in the popular ex-pat weekly Sur in English. Here she is with our alcalde whose name you will know by now. I don't know who the bloke on her right is but he was obviously expecting something better. He was probably expecting a bowl of soup made from perotas (female Aloraneans). He's going, ´WTF?´. No wonder. Even the Sur newspaper doesn´t know the difference between sopa and sopas. Look at it. Does it look like soup to you?
sopas; feminine plural. pieces of bread (plural) soaked in soup, coffee etc.
Oxford English-Spanish Dictionary
Here they are later, passing our front door. The poor chap looks ready to throw up, doesn´t he?
Why there are no pies in Spain.
Apart from in Mallorca, I have not yet come across a genuine Spanish pie. You sometimes see those little pasties filled with tuna or sweet potato and you can get the Brit version in Iceland in Fuenguirola. But they don't go for the meat pie here even though I did bring a few down to Álora once, hoping they might catch on. Even Manolo, the enigmatic owner of Cafe -Bar El Madrugón wasn´t impressed.
Manolo not being impressed by a Melton Mowbray.
Why does a population that consumes millions of tons of pork a year and loves pastry not go for a pork pie?
I have, at last, found the answer and it goes deep into Spain´s history and religious life so if you´re not interested in History or religion you´d better skip the next bit and go to Bar News.
Tariq ibn ziyad on a Gibraltar £5.00 note
In 711 AD Spain was being ruled by King Roderick and the Visigoths who used to go about in black clothes with their faces painted and looking fed up all the time.
Goths
They could never live up to the reputation of the Romans who had built aqueducts, roads and wore long cool white robes. They never really wanted to rule Spain or anywhere else and found the summers too hot and the food greasy. They soon started falling out with each other, forming armies and fighting wars. Even that wasn't enough to cheer them up.
The governor of Ceuta, Julian, just across the water in North Africa, had a rift with Roderick and wanted to give him a good hiding for messing with his daughter so he asked his pal Tariq ibn Ziyad to go over into Spain with an army to give Roderick a biffing.
Tariq didn't need asking twice. He sailed across the Straits of Gibraltar which were named after him (jabal Tariq), killed Roderick and set off to conquer all of Spain, Portugal and some of France. He called the new country Al-Andalus.
Roderick was a Catholic but Tariq was a Muslim so he started building Mosques everywhere and making everyone speak Arabic and wear arabic clothes. Everyone got on really well for 800 years. Catholics, Jews and Muslims prospered and Spain, particularly Córdoba and Toledo, became famous centres of learning. The 'moors' (a word used then and now to describe north African muslims) were responsible for nearly everything beginning with 'al' - algebra, alcantarillas (drains) alcachofas (artichokes) albondigas (meatballs), aluminium, albatrosses and alcohol even though their religion prohibited them from drinking it. Jerez was named after the Shiraz grape from Shiraz in Persia (now Iran).
Moorish alembic for distilling alcohol
All good things come to an end and the Northern European Catholics, egged on by the Pope, kept trying to 'recapture' Spain. After about 800 years they finally beat the moors at Granada. Fernando and Isabela became the Reyes Catolicos (King and Queen of Spain). This happened just as Columbus was 'discovering' a new sea route to India via Jamaica. (1492).
Ferdinand and Isabella (Los Reyes Catolicos)
Ferdinand and Isabella were fundamentalist Catholics and immediately began a programme of ethnic cleansing. They told all the Muslims and Jews to get out of Spain or convert to Christianity. The trouble was that the Jews and Muslims knew everything about everything.
Thousands of Muslims converted to Christianity and were called 'Moriscos'. Many Jews left Spain but many stayed as 'Conversos'.
Moriscos and Conversos
Casarabonela , just up the road from here was a town made up almost entirely of moriscos. They have a festival there ever year where an Inquisitor Trial is enacted.
The Catholic Church suspected that some conversos and moriscos were still practising their religion and customs secretly
so
they set up the 'Holy Office of the Inquisition' to catch out
transgressors. The Inquisition usually turned up without warning, hoping
to catch people out doing un-Christian things.
An accusation would lead to interrogation, torture and confiscation of property. Conviction could result in being burnt at the stake at an 'auto da fe'.
An Auto da Fe
Moriscos and Conversos took to eating pork ostentatiously to 'prove' that they were true converts. Lamb was avoided because it was used widely in Arabic cooking. Converso Jews were often caught out by not showing chimney smoke on Saturdays, having white tablecloths and candles on Friday evenings and making dishes on Fridays that could be eaten cold on Saturdays when cooking is forbidden in the Jewish faith.
'Other typical Sabbath dishes included aubergine fritters, fritadas (omelettes with vegetables) and empanadas and empanadilla (pies filled with minced meat or fish). Jews were known for their frequent use of minced meat - to make meatballs and as stuffing for pies)'
'The Food of Spain'
Claudia Roden
The use of olive oil was associated with Jewish cooking too, so pork fat was used by everyone, just to be on the safe side.
And eating pies could get you into serious trouble, especially on Saturdays, even if it was a pork pie!
So that's why you still don't see pies in Spain.
Well, that's my theory anyway.
Bar News.
It's always a pleasure to announce the opening of a new bar in Álora. Bar El Tapeo has reopened under new management on Calle Cervantes next to La Casa de Cultura.
If you're prepared to make the journey to Casarabonela try the menú at Tomate Algo.
Mrs. Sánchez perusing the menu at Tomate Algo
Juanito Sánchez.
14th. October 2018
A Little Quince Summer and War Without the Shooting Breaks Out in Álora. (warning: may contain explicit images).
Membrillos (quinces)
Tomorrow will be the first day of October and it looks like we'll be having a 'veranillo de membrillo' (a little quince summer) again with temperatures touching 30 degrees C. It's also called 'el veranillo de San Miguel' in Spain because St. Michael the Archangel's Special Day is September 29th and not just because a lot of Spain's most famous beer is drunk during the hot weather.
In England and the USA it's called an 'Indian Summer' but nobody knows why, including people from India and 'Native Americans'. Quinces are usually ripe about this time of year so Veranillo de Membrillo makes sense even though nobody knows what to do with them when they're ripe except for making carne de membrillo (membrillo meat) which is not meat at all but a hard sweet jelly that you only ever eat with cheese. They sell it in the shops as 'dulce de membrillo'.
carne/dulce de membrillo
A little of it goes a long way and we are often given a bowl of it by one of our lovely neighbours.
We had a quince bush in our garden in Birmingham a few years ago and made some wine from the fruit. It was drinkable.
The popular British breakfast conserve Marmalade used to be made from quinces before oranges were invented. 'Marmelada' is Portuguese for 'quince preparation'. Some well-intentioned people will tell you that the word 'marmalade' comes from the French 'Marie Malade' (sick Mary) along with some load of old cobblers about Queen Mary the something eating it when she was poorly. Honestly, the things they tell you in school!
Also, don't let anyone tell you they don't sell marmalade in Mercadona. It's with all the other mermeladas (jams) with an orange on the label.
Anyway, Indian or San Miguel, everybody here has had enough summer for one year except, of course, people on holiday. Our olives are shrivelling and the reservoirs are starting to look dangerously empty again.
Napoleon Bonaparte famously stated, 'England is a nation of shopkeepers' and if Álora is anything to go by, Spain is a nation of shop closers. Shops and bars here seem to be opening and closing faster than bedroom doors in a Whitehall farce (weren't they hilarious?). If you go away for a few weeks, as we do, you never know where anything is when you get back. The pescadería (fish shop) has just moved across the top square, our favourite frutería (greengrocer) has shut down and three more have opened down Calle Cervantes. The charity shop run by Cudeca (care of cancer patients) has closed down along with Lola Decoración next door (which had a vending machine selling sex toys and chewing gum).The two shops will be replaced by a Día % supermercado.
Unlike in England where high street businesses close down and are replaced by charity shops, the reverse is true here. Where are we going to take all our junk, buy paperbacks, DVDs and 'Sur in English' now? Supertodo which even opened on saints' days and sold everything from pan scrubs to panceta has closed its doors too....but the biggest shock of all is the demise of Comercial Rebollo- Alorá's only 'department store' 'por jubilación' (owing to retirement).
Where is anybody going to buy televisions, mattresses, computers, washing machines, furniture, hair driers, mobile phones etc. now? On the internet, of course. I can't think whose retirement has triggered this bombshell. Sra.Rebollo lived in the flats opposite on Calle Veracuz and used to go across the road now and then to sit in the shop and do a bit of knitting but she must have retired years ago and all the staff there were quite young. There must be another reason. The shop was always busy and operated a curious retail arrangement by which all the staff sat behind a big L-shaped desk full of catalogues and you were invited to sit down, when a chair became available, and state your business.
There's a rumour going round that they've been bought out by Selfridges or MacDonald's. My theory is that the heir to the Rebollo fortune, Miguel Angél Rebollo, poet, economist and disciple of the Iberian 19th. century philosopher Chivas Regal, who was rarely seen before mid afternoon and hardly ever went in his shop, has decided to extend his studies and develop his role as resident 'philosopher/economist' in Bar Chismo which will be very demanding. Come to think of it I haven't seen him around for ages. Man in Álora will investigate.
........and apparently it wasn't Napoleon who coined the phrase 'nation of shopkeepers' after all, but Adam Smith, another philosopher/economist whose Institute is largely responsible for the British Conservative Party.
Adam Smith being pursued by angry young 'Corbynistas'
Good news..... a new tienda de comestibles (grocery shop) is opening at the top of Calle Algarrobo.
Sport is war without the shooting George Orwell
On the wall outside Bar Alegría, just above the poster announcing the opening of the new Tienda de Comestibles there has appeared an announcement of the annual football match between the Ayuntamiento (the
town council) and the Guardia Civil (the national paramilitary police
force some times know as 'La Benemérita' which has its cuartel
(barracks) on the outskirts of town on the road to El Chorro).
The match is held to celebrate 'El Día de la Virgen del Pilar' (The day of the Virgin of the Pillar) who is the patrona of the Guardía Civil and so it´s only fair that they should win the game, especially as they carry loaded guns. This year the Festival of Pilar is on October 12th. so all the shops will be shut, except for the Moroccan and Chinese Bazaars.
Guardia Civil 1st. XI
The idea of a footy match between town hall personel and the 'Civiles' brings to mind a (this time accurate) quotation from George Orwell's essay 'The Sporting Spirit (1945)
'Sport is war without the shooting'.
In Andalucía the the role of the Guardia Civil during and after the Spanish Civil War lends this 'annual event' a touch of irony.
When the war kicked off in 1936 with a rebellion against the Spanish Government led by a group of Army generals the majority of Guardia Civil contingents stayed loyal to the republican Government.
In Andalucía they already had a history of brutal repression of dissent, particularly in rural areas, which means pretty well everywhere. They weren't popular.
When the 'Nationalistas' captured Andalucía early in the war many towns and villages had town councils made up largely of republicans. The Guardia Civil, and the local 'Falangists' (fascists) would often put a team together to take on the local 'ayuntamiento team'.
After the whistle was blown the game usually kicked off with the Guardia rounding up the mayor and corporation and shooting them. Game over. They never lost a match. They had all the guns after all.
This happened not far away from here in Mijas. The mayor there, Manuel Cortéz avoided arrest and summary execution by hiding for 30 years in his own house. ('The Life of Manuel Cortés' by Ronald Fraser, Verso 1972)
And he lived to tell the tale. The 'Civiles' regularly searched the house but never found him.
Manuel Cortés
These days it's more of a 'friendly' game and I shall be reporting on it in the next Man in Álora blog.
The day after the footy match Álora will put on its 15th. annual Día de las Sopas Perotas (It's NOT soup).
Álora will provide the sopas, you the spoon'.
Mmmmm. Save some for me.
Pie news.
One of my readers in Liverpool, England clearly shares my affection and afición for pies to such a degree that he is producing 'images' which take the pie from its humble status as a 'hand-held gourmet savoury food item' to an art form. It's easy to see the influence of Magritte in the above image which uses a controversial juxtaposition of two quite distinct images of pies; one a Holland's classic meat pie and the other a rustic cheese and onion pie. The incipient grin detectable on the 'face' of the the C&O also references a classic Klee image and brashly symbolises the fusion between humanity and earth.
Paul Klee 'Death and Fire' 1940
If you send in more of these I am happy to introduce a new feature which we'll call:
'Pie Pictures'
See you on Saturday in Álora. Don't forget your spoon.
Juanito Sánchez 30th.September 2018.
Casarabonela , just up the road from here was a town made up almost entirely of moriscos. They have a festival there ever year where an Inquisitor Trial is enacted.
