Luard - The Flavours of Andalucia

The Flavours of Andaluca

the Flavours of Andaluca

ELISABETH LUARD

GRUB STREET LONDON

Published in 2017 by

Grub Street

4 Rainham Close

London

SW11 6SS

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Text and illustrations Elisabeth Luard 1991, 2017

Copyright this edition Grub Street 2017

First published by Collins & Brown Ltd, 1991

Cover and book design by Daniele Roa

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978-1-910690-48-2

eISBN 978-1-911621-62-1

Mobi ISBN 978-1-911621-62-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Introduction

T HE A NDALUZ ARE BLESSED with alegra , that measure of contentment reached by having enough sunshine, a bit of good bread to fill the belly, an olive or two for the pleasure of it, a glass of wine to soothe the spirit, and a chair in the shade from which to watch the world go by. It all adds up to happiness. Happily, Andaluca was my home, and that of my growing family of four children, for twelve years.

The landscape holds the key. Here are golden hills lapped by silver seas, pearl-white valleys combed through with emerald vines, ochre-veined cliffs studded with pale-trunked cork-oaks and ebony-dark olive trees. And Andaluca, Spains southernmost territory and the last area to be added to the kingdom of the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand and Isabel, is romantic with its gypsy frills and haunting oriental music, its curved white arches and rainbow tiles, painted and brocaded wooden Virgins and black-hooded penitents.

It is always easier to be content when the sun shines and the land is fertile, but life in Andaluca has not come easy. Poverty there was and, in lesser measure, still is. Greedy landowners and the ravages of war have seen to that. But with a patch of vines and a herb-scented hillside to scour for wild asparagus, a clutch of chickens to scratch in the yard, and maybe a chance, in the warm shallows of the shore, at landing a scoop of shrimps or a haul of sardines, the warm evenings are still a time for savouring the good things of life. Theres time for the old men to set up a game of draughts in a corner of the caf, and, in anticipation of supper, to fill the nostrils with the rich scent of garlic-laced stews which floats out of Jasmine-fringed archways.

Theres even a chance of an assignation, as the young people take their evening stroll around the square. Time for old grannies to sit, fingers flicking the crochet hook, and savour the time when they themselves were the stars of the twilight paseo. Time for the young matrons, one eye on their be-ribboned, lace-trimmed babies asleep in their prams, to settle down at a pavement table for a gossip, a glass of straw-pale wine and a slice of salty ham; or, perhaps, for a cup of hot chocolate and a sticky almond-flecked meringue, with a cone of sunflower seeds for the children to nibble.

Children, particularly small children, open all doors in Latin countries, and my four soon attracted attention. Our neighbours took pity on our urban ignorance and from them we quickly learned how to harvest our own tomatoes and peppers, how to spread the household linen on the grass so the sun and the chlorophyll could combine to bleach it clean as it dried. We were also told where to buy the best bread, who kept bees and would sell us honey, where and when to gather wild mushrooms and edible leaves, and how to collect the tiny summer snails which are so delicious simmered with Moorish spices. And instead of telling us what day the rubbish was collected, a small red piglet was installed in the rehabilitated pigsty at the end of the garden to recycle the households vegetable peelings and leftovers. Some nine months later, the same neighbours turned up to guide me through the emotional process of turning piggy into hams and sausages.

Meanwhile, there was the market to tackle. To my urban eyes, the rings of stalls under Algeciras domed marketplace were not a bit like the big-city supermarkets to which I was more accustomed. Poultry was only available on the hoof forty years ago in this corner of Spain, no housewife worth her sea salt would have trusted a dead chicken as far as she could chase it.

Nor was a young bird necessarily preferred: an old hen, past her laying-time, was reckoned the best meat for the slow-simmered one-pot stews which remain the mainstay of the Andaluz table. And I was taught that young birds, lacking in flavour what they gained in tenderness, were to be well garlicked and cooked with plenty of olive oil and sherry. Ive never looked back its amazing what a heavy hand with the garlic can do for a bland supermarket bird.

The meat stalls were the most alarming of all. Lumps of unidentifiable meat either sliced into thin escalopes for frying, or sold in muscle-dictated hunks for adding to stews. Large slabs of grey unprocessed tripe and snakes of slithery black pudding were piled on white marble counters. Buckets of orange-coloured lard seemed to be sold by the scoop. Strung along a pole at head-height were those assorted bits and pieces that turn committed carnivores into vegetarians: liver and lights, kidneys and lungs, long pale torsos of milk-fed kid and furry rabbit and testicles, of course; the butcher took much pleasure in explaining their function and location to curious lady tourists.

Andaluca bien bebida y mal comida Andaluca well-wined and ill-dined I had been told in Madrid and Barcelona and Valencia. But I did as my neighbours did, took advice and learned my lessons and you eat very well in Andaluca, just so long as you go with the tide. The fish stalls were the most exciting: you never knew what you would find. Todays star attraction might be a giant swordfish or a fine pink-fleshed tuna, sliced into thin fillets to be slapped on the grill (broiler), and reckoned as good as steak. Tomorrow there might be a haul of emerald-flanked ruby-scaled mullet, glittering sardines and a fine trawl of prawns and shrimp every purchaser would shove in an enquiring finger and lick it to see if over-brining betrayed too long a wait from ocean to slab. The children found the spectacle fascinating, a kind of endless street-theatre. In one corner there was usually a bucketful of sea urchins with an attendant small boy, no older than the eldest of my children, whose task it was to scoop the top off the prickly creature, and offer its orange interior as a restorative for exhausted shoppers.

The fruit and vegetable stalls were easier to decipher: piled high with whatever was in season no flown-in lychees or out-of-season mangetouts here. From the first strawberries of spring to the last juicy oranges of the winter months, we never lacked for dessert. Not everything was familiar: there were creamy-fleshed custard apples with ebony pips, shiny-stoned loquats and persimmons, tart-pipped pomegranates, sticky green figs with scarlet flesh, passion fruit to be sucked from the skin, furry-skinned quince to be made into a thick opaque jelly for Christmas. And my neighbours showed me how to choose the special little round marrows for stuffing; which thin-fleshed peppers were perfect for frying; how to pick out the best tomatoes and the sweetest garlic; how to fritter the firm-fleshed aubergines and deep-fry the tiny artichokes, stalks and all; how to stew young broad beans in their pods.