It's a sunny, peaceful autumn day in Álora. It's a verano de membrillo (a quince summer). It´s hot for the time of year.
I've just stacked up a load of olive logs in the wood store ready for the colder days to come.
Up in La Plaza de la Fuente Arriba the cafe-bars are doing a roaring trade in cafés, tostadas, churros, bocadillos and ice-cold beer. It´s chockabloc up there. Outside Cafe-Bar El Madrugón an impromptu bit of flamenco has just broken out.
Not what you'd call a 'flash mob' but a reminder that Álora is an Andalusian town - even though some of the drinkers up there are necking beer from litre (2 pints) glasses. (grandes)
This alien 'Costa' custom has now reached inland Andalucía.
The locals don't get it. In temperatures of 35 degrees Celcius a litre of beer in full sun will heat up quite quickly, and warm lager tastes like piss. That's why the Perotes (people from Álora) drink their beer in tiny cañas (small tumblers) or tubos (tall thin 'highball' glasses). The empty glasses are kept in the freezer too. Perhaps these lads think they are getting a bargain by buying beer in bulk - or they may just like drinking piss.
Round here they like their cerveza with a lot of 'espuma' (foam) on top, - the more the better, and the glass is not a standard measure, as it would be in Inglaterra. Believe it or not, the locals would be fighting over who gets the frothy one on this tray of cañas.
A few years ago I tried this old gag in Bar Lo D'Antonio ;
'Can you put a whisky in that caña for me?'
'Certainly'.
'Well if you can fit a whisky in it, you can fit some more beer in it, mate. Fill it up!'
(Puzzled looks all round).
I keep getting caught out by a freezing cold glass of red wine. Because it gets so hot here, they keep the red wine alongside the white, at near freezing temperatures. It soon warms up in the summer heat but they forget to take it out of the fridge when the weather gets cold (cold for here, that is). From November to June you've got to ask for your red wine 'del tiempo' (room temperature) if you don't want to get a shooting pain up your teeth as you take your first sip of Rioja or Ribera del Duero.
Last Saturday we had the annual Día de las Sopas Perotas in Álora.
Every year, on the First Saturday in October, Álora throws its doors open and welcomes people of all nations and gender orientation to a day of gastronomic challenge. Our signature dish, Sopas Perotas (it´s not soup) is celebrated in style.
Apart from Viernes Santo (Good Friday), it´s the only time the ayuntamiento (town hall) admits that there's another vibrant and picturesque plaza in Álora... La Plaza Baja de la Despedía (The 'Bottom Square'). Thousands of people were lured down from the´Top Square' by the promise of a free plate of nourishing and piping hot sopas (with some olives), served to them by our distinguished new alcalde (mayor), Snr. Francisco Martínez.
I've tried very hard to like it. It´s all right if you´re hungry.
Here's Señor Martinez ('Humillo' to his pals) dishing out the stuff to the hungry, starving masses. On his right is Susana Díaz who is taking a bit of chance. She came last year when she was the President of Andalucía and was booted out a few weeks later.
The only way is up.
After queueing for two hours in the hot sun you might well be hungry...if you're still standing.
The ambulance stationed outside our door was doing good business too. The day was really hot.
There were lots of wonderful stalls, many selling food which is produced locally.The local beekeeper, Antonio told me he sells 1500 kilos a year of his honey to a man who has a stall on The Bullring Market in Birmingham.
As usual, only a small number of estranjeros (foreigners) turn up for the event. Those who do, insist on calling our distinguished delicacy 'soup'.
It's NOT soup.
It´s true that sopa means soup, but sopas is the word for what you see above. Does it look like soup?
Sopas
'Aunque se denomine sopa, no es un plato con caldo ya que el pan lo absorbe, aunque si que se toma con cuchara.'
Aunque la mona se vista de seda, mona se queda.
(Even if a monkey is dressed in silk, it's still a monkey)
I'm glad we've cleared that up.
It's one thing knowing what it's NOT, but quite another knowing what it IS. (rather like BREXIT). At least you can see what Sopas looks like.
It´s actually made from stale bread, potatoes, green peppers, tomatoes, hot stock and oil. Mmmm.
The word 'Sopas' is another 'false friend' like;
actual (it actually means 'currently')
asistir (not assist, but attend)
constipación (a cold)
embarazada (pregnant)
vaso (a drinking glass without a stem)
suceso ( an event)
ropa (clothes)
and this one...
It´s a foot clinic!
Pie = foot
¡Qué decepción!
Yesterday I bumped into an old friend in Mercadona (Álora's 'out of town' hypermarket complex). He told me that he's leaving Spain before the end of October.
Julio and his wife are worried about being refused entry into Britain if the UK leaves the European Union on October 31st.
Julio moved to England from Italy, aged 16, in 1962 when immigrants to Britain were welcomed. He worked there continuously for 45 years. He married an English rose, raised a family and ran a pizza bakery until retiring to Spain 15 years ago. His grown up children and their families live in England. There had never been any question about his right to return to live in England until the forced repatriations under Theresa May's 'hostile environment' policy and anti-European Brexit propaganda gave many people like Julio reason to fear for their future.
Letters to the UK authorities asking about Julio's status have not been answered or acknowledged.
Buen viaje, Julio. We'll really miss you.
The olives on our trees have started to ripen. In just over 3 weeks we'll be heading off to Olivar Caicunes with our nets, poles and rakes to hacer la cosecha. Our Liverpudlian migrant workers have already booked flights out and Mrs. Sánchez and I have no broken bones (so far) this year. All volunteers are very welcome to come and give us a hand. The pay is not good - well, there's no pay- but you can eat all the olives you want.
We pick all the olives by hand but the proper farmers use machines that shake the branches. We don't need those contraptions because our migrant workers are from Liverpool which has some of the best pubs in Britain and they already have 'the shakes'.
These machines cost about 1000 euros and make a noise like a chainsaw. Where's the fun in that?
You may have noticed I slipped in a Spanish refrán (proverb) up there.
The Spanish are very fond of proverbs - there are 100,000, apparently - I have a book with 1000 of them in it. I can honestly say that I have tried using lots of them but not once has anyone understood one.
I think someone made them all up for the book Most of them make so sense at all.
Here's a few examples to try out if you want to impress the girl in the frutería in the Top Square. See if you can think of an English equivalent:
'En casa de ahorcado no hay que mentar la soga'.
(When you're in the house of a hanged man, don't mention rope.)
'Quien da su hacienda antes de la muerte merece que le den un mazo en la frente'.
La rodilla de María García que más me ensucia que me limpia.
(The knee of María García makes makes me dirtier rather than cleaner).
Answers on a postcard, please.
Another General election is coming up in November. The parties are busily slagging each other off and at the same time trying to cobble together alliances in order to win a majority and form a viable government. (sound familiar?).
Pedro Sánchez (no relation), prime minister and leader of the PSOE party dealt himself a stunning blow last week when he referred to Jamón Ibérico as Jamón Serrano. Gasps of horror went up as he committed this gaffe of gaffes.
Gaffacious enough, it seems, to lose him the election. His error was gleefully reported in all the national newspapers.
Jamón (ham) is probably the most popular food item in Spain. As everyone knows, it´s made from the legs of dead pigs which are soaked in brine, hung up for years, sliced into the thinnest of slices and served with little bread sticks called picos.
Athough some very tasty and high quality Serrano (mountain) hams (if you like that sort of thing) come from places like Teruel and Trevélez, they are made from 'white' pigs.
In Extramadura in the west of Spain they have 'Iberico' pigs which have black feet (patas negras), wander about a bit and are fed for a time on acorns (bellotas).
Jamón Ibérico Bellota is the Rolls Royce of the ham world. It's very expensive, too. It's often just called 'pata negra'.
Teruel Serrano Ham (102€)
You can see why they slice these hams so thinly. They even have a national a competition in ham slicing and you can do a PhD. in Jamonología at Spain's most prodigious university in Salamanca.
Only well-heeled Spaniards can afford to buy the best hams, but you can get good Jamón Ibérico as a tapa at many of the bars in Álora. If you´re in the right place at the right time you may even be able to beg a bostin' bone from a bar. They are great for soups and stews. I'm not going to tell you which bars to beg in.
However, co-incidentally, jolly joker Antonio Gil who now runs the bar called 'La Jamonería' has closed his bar for a bit.
The notice reads
'Shut until it´s open again'
Juanito Sánchez October 11th. 2019
