Food Bills Plummet as Temperatures Soar
August 2006 - Andalucia
And the campesinos say 'there's more to come!' (that's lettuces AND heat we assume)
It's really difficult going for walks safely in and around our village. It's not to do with running the gauntlet of excitable local dogs, avoiding tractors phuttling along our one street or even dodging the speeding motorcycles of our resident jovenes (youth). It's all about getting there and back without being over-vegetabled.
Ever since we arrived in the village last October (having stayed here on many occasions over several years, so got to know numerous local people), we've been inundated with seasonal vegetables and fruit from neighbours' land. Bags hanging on our gate, boxes tucked into the courtyard, handouts as we trot along the village street. This is a constant source of gastronomic pleasure, a lesson in the value of eating seasonally and a key language development tool as friends from the village first of all taught us the vegetable vocabulary then tried to explain their own particular way of cooking Vegetable of the Week/Month. Quite an incentive to getting the understanding spot on. Getting your picado (minced) mixed up with your picante (spicy), your lechuga (lettuce) muddled with your lechuza (small owl), your jamón (ham) confused with your jabón (soap) or indeed your morilla (morel mushroom) mixed up with your morcilla (blood sausage) could lead to some strange gastronomic experiences!
Habas Wars
Not so many months ago we nearly started Habas Wars, with several neighbours vying for the accolade of providing the most delicious broad beans. There we were one evening, innocently strolling along the track between the huertos (allotments/small fields) of several villagers, when the first of them pounced. Marido Querido (dear husband) is a bit further behind with his Spanish lessons and he couldn't make head nor tail of what our elderly assailant, well known to us, was sounding off about. Arms waving in his usual dramatic style, Buen Vecino (Good Neighbour) spewed forth a torrent of emotion, apparently berating me for some as yet unclear crime against humanity and/or the Universe. Now we consider there is much mutual affection in our relationship with this campesino, so Marido Querido became increasingly alarmed as the tirade against our heinous wrongdoings continued.
'It's okay', I was able to assure Marido Querido at last, 'I just had to confess that we neither of us had plastic carrier bags in our pockets and he's incensed because it means he can't send us back with quantities of habas'. We only got away with it by my promising to return after our walk with at least three carrier bags for the habas he would pick for us, two of the bolsas were to be for our own consumption (after blanching and skinning, frying in loads of garlic, olive oil and red wine was the only way he considered the beans should be cooked) - the third bag was to go to the very nice English woman who lives two doors along who gave him a lift into town the other day. And we were never, ever, ever to go out walking again past his huerto without carrier bags.
So it was that I staggered along the track somewhat later, laden with many, many kilos of broad beans, only to be accosted by another would-be habas donor. Horrified that I had already been provided with so many (and they were bound to be inferior because he fertilized with mules poo whereas clearly a mezcla (mixture) of goat urine and chicken shit was the secret to the best broad bean). Instead, this neighbour scurried back to her plot and pulled me a brace of those delicious over-sized spring onions or cebollitas. Promising to drop me round some of her sundried tomatoes later, she explained how to recreate the scrumptious cazuela de habas, broad bean stew, which I'd enjoyed at her house a few days earlier. The best way to prepare them. Obviously.
Lettuce Mountain
Given that it's now high summer as we write this, we're currently struggling up the lettuce mountain. (Apart from lettuce soup and the inevitable salads, has anyone got ideas for something different with lechuga?) That's in between grappling with increasing amounts of tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumbers, courgettes, sweetcorn, melons, watermelons, figs and basil in cantidades industriales. And probably by the time you read this, we'll have moved on to a different Vegetable of the Week. We haven't bought fruit or veg for weeks and weeks and our food bills have plummeted.
There is no hint of complaint in any of this, we hope you understand. Everything we're given is lovingly prepared (or in extreme overstock emergency, shared with other friends who don't have land on which to grow produce) and these greatly appreciated contributions are enjoyed con mucho, mucho gusto. Flavours are phenomenal. The freshness is unquestionable. And even if fellow villagers see us as a charitable project for produce-parcels, we're very willing recipients of such horticultural charity.
Engulfed
Perhaps it's the extreme heat, though, because it's all beginning to invade my nights as well. One night recently I dreamed I was standing in the steep concreted acequia (irrigation channel) near our house. Someone had opened the compuerta, the sluice gate, at the top and there was that familiar rumble as an immense volume of water cascaded down unchecked. I panicked, knowing the force of the water would knock me flying; I lost my footing and was desperately trying to scrabble to the edge when the torrents hurtled round the last corner and I was engulfed in a tidal wave of ... vegetables! Perhaps it's something I ate?
Jeni y Dave y Chip
August 2006