Eating and Drinking in the Axarquia

Historic and cultural influences on the food, and drink of
Andalucia

EATING
The food of the Axarquia reflects the region’s turbulent history, diverse geography,
Mediterranean culture, its historic wealth and its historic poverty.
The Phoenicians around 1100 B.C created the first Andalucian city of Cadiz, planted the first grapevines near Jerez and introduced the olive tree to Spain. The Carthaginians developed olive production throughout the region in the 7th century B.C., and Andalucia later became the primary source of olive oil for the Roman Empire.
The Arabs invaded the region in the eighth century. Eight further centuries under Islam would see Andalucia rise to a pinnacle of civilization and tolerance that would shine a beacon of light into medieval Europe, benighted as it was by Christian superstition and ignorance. The Moors designed and built the irrigation systems – the ‘huertas’ of Andalucia, creating great irrigated farms and cash crop systems that are still evident today. They introduced an array of foodstuffs and spices, making a huge impact on the Spanish diet. For example they successfully introduced and cultivated rice and durum wheat (the basis of pasta) later exported to Italy. Oranges, lemons, aubergine, almonds, dates, peaches, apricots, quinces and, of huge significance, coffee, were all introduced by the Moors. Their impact on the culinary traditions of the region can also be seen in the number of Spanish dishes flavoured with black pepper, cumin, saffron and other exotic spices.
The Moors were expelled after the fall of Granada in 1492, the dark age of Christianity finally enveloped Europe, and the Spanish ‘Golden Age’ began as Columbus set sail. The Spanish Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, made one great contribution to Spanish cuisine and that was the promotion of pig as the meat of first choice for the faithful. This was done to ensure that the now persecuted Moslems and Jews could never return to the region and eat meat. Although pork has been reared in Andalucia for at least 2000years, pig eating now became a sign of adherence to the true faith. Today the ritual matanza or slaughter of pigs still takes place each year on 11th November, and the skill and inventiveness of the cooks and butchers is said to use every part of the pig, leaving ‘nothing but the squeak’.
It is said that Columbus’s ships, as they began the voyage that would discover America, passed the ships containing Jews and Moslems on their way to exile. His botanic discoveries had a great impact on the Spanish diet. The conquest of the south Americas after 1492 brought many more staple products to the Spanish kitchen including hot and sweet peppers, yams, tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes and avocados.  Tobacco was also discovered. The fortunes of the cocoa bean, thought to be a useless currency token, were transformed when Cortes brought back Aztec machinery in 1528 that could turn it into chocolate.
These are the great influences on Andalucian cuisine that have contributed to its richness and diversity.  However, the Andalucian kitchen owes a lot not only to the Arabs and geography, but also to the weather and the lack of firewood. Homes did not have indoor ovens because it was too hot, and most cooking was stove-top. Kitchens usually had a poyo, a stone counter surfaced with tiles, running along one wall with inset hornillas or burners and an ash box underneath, there being no chimney to take smoke away. Very little firewood existed so fuel sources often consisted of olive pits, dried grape twigs, or picón, a pencil-sized charcoal made by smouldering bush branches which burns relatively free of smoke. Andalucian preparations simmered on these dying fires for long periods of time.
The poverty of the great majority of the people is also a significant element of Andalucian cuisine. The rich soups, stews and paellas found all over Spain today began as the staple diet of peasant communities, surviving on home grown vegetables and meat bones stewed for hours to eke out very ounce of flavour. Today the Axarquia is the fruit basket of Andalucia, and the coast its frying pan. The distinctiveness of its cuisine is the result of a combination of the superb quality of its raw materials and great economy, resourcefulness and inventiveness in their use.
Spanish cuisine owes much to the past poverty of its population, most recently the decades of extreme deprivation suffered by millions under Franco’s repressive regime.

A Note on Paella, for example
It was the poor peasant people of the Valencian region who invented
Spain’s most famous dish, paella. The original recipe combined home
grown veg (usually green and broad beans) with off cuts of rabbit and
the short grain rice that was mass produced around the city of
Valencia thanks to the sophisticated irrigation system introduced by
the Moors. Even today this traditional Valencian paella can be found
in thousands of towns villages and isolated mountain pueblos
throughout the Spain. It’s cheap, full of flavour and filling - three
characteristics most sought after by those struggling to survive in the
terrible days of the Spanish Civil War and the isolation and poverty
that followed it. Regional variations in paella depended upon
what was cheap and easily available – usually vegetables, sometimes
snails, small game or fish. This kind of paella is a far cry from the
exotic dishes you’ll find down at the 'Costa'. However, good reasonably
authentic seafood paella can be had on a Friday at Bar Lopez in
Almachar. The dish is cooked in nearby domestic kitchens and
rushed, steaming, into the bar. In Cutar, paella is a fiesta food cooked
outdoors in vast pans over bonfires. Men mix the rice with shovels
while other hose them down to stop their legs from roasting in the heat of the fire.

Eating in the villages
Today visitors seek authenticity without the deprivation that produced it. In our region there are two sorts of eating experience - village cooking on the one hand and the restaurant food of the towns and Costa on the other. Village cooking is usually plain and simple but rises to great heights during fiestas when giant paellas, cakes, artisan breads and preserved fruits may be in evidence.
In the villages, the visitor in search of 'cuisine' may be disappointed. The food is straightforward, choice is limited, and the main meal usually eaten at lunchtime, so there is little choice of evening eating venues. However, the food is invariably fresh and seasonal, and the cheeses, cured and dried meat, fish and vegetables also available at local shops as well as markets and delicatessens, can stand for quality against any of the more pretentious European culinary traditions.
Moorish and African traditions are in evidence in village stews and soups. Main courses here consist of fresh simple ingredients that are convenient and easily available.
The main meal of the village day is lunch, which is followed by a siesta, so it's difficult to find evening dining in the villages unless there are enough tourists to make cooking worthwhile. Lunch is served in the bars, which function as canteens for the workers - usually labourers in building, servicing or husbandry. There is often no menu, so you will have to converse with the waiter as best you can and risk not quite getting quite what you ordered! Lunchtime eating is at about 2.30 pm though bars can often bring this forward to 1pm or 1.30.


















We would suggest you go out for lunch early in your visit. It is a loud, bustley; delicious and very authentically Spanish experience. See our suggestions below in 'recommended restaurants'.

Eating 'Del Dia'
The best value lunch is the menu Del dia (menu of the day). This usually consists of three courses and a drink, for about 7 euros (2006 prices). There is normally a wide choice at each course but the provision varies slightly from bar to bar.
You have:
Primero: This is usually soup, or a casserole, or pasta, (paella if it’s Friday and you're a Catholic and can't eat meat, or even if you aren't and you can!) or a mixed salad. Bread is always served with a meal.
Segundo: This is meat or fish course, the meat comes in a sauce or fried or grilled, the fish usually offered 'a la plancha' (cooked on a hotplate with garlic and parsley) or 'frito' (battered and deep fried)
Postres: Means 'pudding' - Spaniards find the English word hilarious. It could be ice cream, 'flan' (crème caramel), rice pudding or fresh fruit.

Non 'Del Dia'
If you eat off 'del dia' you order by portion size. as follows:
TapasTravellers will be aquainted with the southern habit of serving something small to eat with any alcoholic drink - even a small piece of bread. This is how tapas began, as a free complement to a drink. Today you pay for it - sometimes a vast selection of tiny dishes from which you can construct a meal of 'tasters'. Most bars will have a few tapas available, often in a long glass display cabinet. Choose a few for a light lunch.
Medio racion This is a half portion for which you pay half price. You may wish to sit with a drink, watch others eating and get a feel for the size of portions, which vary considerably and can be vast
RacionThis is a plateful, though no self-respecting Spaniard would regard it as a meal. It is not shameful to share a dish – in fact many restaurants have no problem giving you two or three plates and forks with a racion of food, which seems to mean a ‘measure’ rather than a single person’s portion.

Dining out
In the larger towns and on the coast, visitors can find a wide choice of eating, a variety of cuisine and plenty of evening venues. Very good fish restaurants are invariably available and also more comprehensive menus aimed at wealthier Spaniards. On the coast, tourist orientated menus appear in a variety of languages and as you move west towards Torremolinos and Fuengirola, Spaniards start to complain that they need an English phrasebook to order a meal. MacDonald’s is highly in evidence here.

Vegetarian eating
Vegetarians can find village eating quite frustrating, because vegetarianism is not yet very well understood. A mixed salad for example often has a tin of tuna stuck on the top and staff often do not understand the importance of removing it for vegetarians. Most tapas has meat or fish in it somewhere. A Russian salad, delicious and widely available, consists of potatoes, mayonnaise, onion, pimiento and egg - but check that it doesn't also have tinned tuna mixed in! Tortillas are wonderful and classically are just egg and potato. Other egg dishes include 'revueltos' - scrambled eggs with pimientos, and 'huevos de flamenco' - baked eggs in tomato sauce, but you can't rely on a consistent veggie menu. Potato tapas, 'patatas bravas' or 'pobre' are veggie. There are also soups. Gazpacho is a local speciality also 'Ajoblanco', the so-called ‘white Gazpacho’ - garlic soup special to the area and made with ground almonds, bread, garlic and oil.

About Breakfast
Breakfast eaten out is usually a simple affair. You can have bread in the form of long rolls ‘bocadillos’ or short rolls ‘pitufos’ and ‘barras’ stuffed with serrano ham, tomato, cheese, olives, anchovies, the inevitable tinned tuna - whatever you want. You may be asked if you want oil - ‘aceite’ or butter - ‘mantequilla’ on it. The word mantequilla doesn’t always distinguish between butter and margarine (on hand for foreigners) and you may find your roll awash with marge. You can have a ‘café con leche’ with it – fresh coffee with milk, served in a glass - or in a cup and saucer for foreigners. Café ‘solo’ is equivalent to black expresso. ‘Pan con tomate’ – bread with tomato - is a cheap, traditional and satisfying breakfast. Fresh white bread is rubbed with garlic, then rubbed with the inside of a fat ripe tomato and served with a flask of olive oil to dribble over it. If you breakfast in town you should try ‘Churros’ – the great testament to the sweetness of the Spanish tooth. Churros are long donuts of choux pastry squeezed into a long ribbed shape by a Churros machine and dropped into hot oil. They are eaten covered with sugar, accompanied by a cup of thick hot chocolate you can stand a spoon in. Unforgettable.

DRINKING

The Tradition
Visitors to rural Andalucia often are looking for authenticity and tradition, yet what is authentic and traditional is often highly unfashionable. Sweet and fortified wine for example. Andalucian wines, those from Jerez, from Montilla-Moriles, Malaga, and Condado de Huelva, belong to a line of "old" wines that were born in the 16th and 17th centuries at the time of the great seafaring traders. Wines like port; Marsala and Madeira are the real ancient and traditional wines of Europe because they could be shipped across oceans without losing their qualities. They are wines rich in alcohol, vigorous and delicate, complex and full of subtleties. The finos and manzanillas, amontillados, olorosos, palo cortados and sweet Pedro Ximenez and moscatels provide a genuine definition of this region of southern Spain.
Andalucian wines are the most genuinely Spanish, and don't follow any outside model. They have a unique personality, imitated all over the world. Until modern times when the taste for dry wines became fashionable, the heavy sweet Malaga wine was legendary. The Moors granted themselves dispensation and drank it, classing it as ‘dessert’ rather than ‘alcoholic drink. Nelson’s sailors are supposed to have mutinied for it –forcing the fleet into Malaga port to load up with the wine.
Since January 1st 1996, only wines from the Cadiz D.O (designation of origin) have the legal right to use the word "Sherry". The dominating grape in this area is the Palomino. Other fortified wines are called 'vinos generosos'; sherry types made from the Pedro Ximenez grape. The best place to sample these great wines is in the so called 'Picasso bar' in Malaga (see index)
Local Wine:Locally in the villages you will find a white wine made from the muscatel grape, and a 'red' - actually brownish - wine made from the 'pasa' or raisin. You may be told that these are 'sweet' or 'dry' but believe me they are all sweet! The best of all is the 'Dama de la Vina' a delicious sweet wine best drunk very cold after a meal. You can get it in 2 litre flagons at the co-operative in Almachar (about 5 euros). The darker wine is called ‘Paseo’ because it is made from raisins or semi-dried grapes.
Table wine:Local people are enthusiastically experimenting to produce dry table wines. The Granada region has long produced good table wines. It's said that the vines need a kiss of frost to produce the right wine must, and the Almachar/Cutar region is too hot and low lying to do that. There are one or two local producers of table wine, but they sell direct to the bars. You will have to ask in local bodegas.
Supermarket wine: If you are shopping in a supermarket, look for the Tempranillo grape - a native Spanish variety found for example in the 'Campo Viejo' range of wines. Look out also for the new (2001) DO Sierras de Malaga label that makes red, white and rose wines using the Spanish Tempranillo and Garnacha as well as Cabernet, Merlot and Sauvignon. The Rioja region obviously produces great wine, but everything labelled Rioja is not necessarily good. Do not despise the name 'Tinto' meaning red wine. There are some good Tintos. Look out for the year 2000 - a particularly good European year.

Understanding Spanish wine terms
Quality
1. Vino de mesa
table wine without a geographic denomination
2. Vino joven
young wine, usually from a qualified DO region, sometimes with a bit of ageing, but not enough to be a "roble" or "crianza"
3. Roble
"roble" means oak, some regions allow this term on the label for lightly oaked wines that don't reach "crianza" standards
4. Crianza
aged 2 years, at least 6 months in oak
5. Reserva
quality wine, normally aged at least 3 years, at least 1 year in oak casks, 2 years in the bottle, made from top vintages
6. Gran Reserva
quality wine, aged at least 2 years in oak plus 3 years in the bottle, made from exceptional vintages
Other useful terms:
•Bodega = Winery
•Añejo = Aged
•Cepa = Vine or name of grape
•Cosecha, vendimia = Vintage year
Types of wine:
•Tinto = Red wine
•Rosado = Rosé wine
•Blanco = White wine
•Cava = Sparkling wines made by champagne method
•Espumoso = Sparkling wines made outside the "cava" denomination
Sweetness (whites, sherries and "cavas"):
•Dulce = Sweet
•Seco = Dry
•Semi-seco = Medium-dry
•Brut = Very dry
Sherries (Jerez, Montilla, Sanlucar de Barrameda):
•Fino = Light dry sherry
•Manzanilla = Very dry sherry from Sanlucar
•Amontillado = An aged "fino"
•Palo cortado = Dark, superior grade sherry (or Montilla)
•Oloroso = Dark, full-bodied sherry
•Pedro Ximenez = A dark, sweet sherry (or Montilla)
•Cream = Very sweet sherry
Don't forget the Denominación de Orígen label. It's your guarantee of the wines origins and content. The function of the Consejo Regulador (regulatory body) of each D.O. region is to insure the quality of it's wines.

Plonk
For those of you who, like us, use wine as a way of cheaply and swiftly slipping into a more comfortable dimension, you can always go to Lidl's and buy a six-bottle crate of cheap plonk. You can get very drinkable wines for under 3 euros. The following are recommended:
Valdepenas tinto reserva 2000 (red)
Carinena Crianza reserva 2000/1 (red)
Tempranillo 2004 (red)
Gran Reserva Tarragona 1998 ‘as good as a Rioja twice the price.’ ( Reviewed in the Independent  newspaper)
Vina Pati Rueda 2005 (white)

Drinking Spanish style
In Andalucian villages, all wine is drunk cold, including red, though the Spanish will dig out a bottle of warm plonk for their eccentric foreign guests. The drink of summer is 'Tinto verano', which is a spritzer made with red wine and lemonade or fizzy water. There is also an unspeakable variation made with Coca-Cola that I haven't tried. Though Spanish people will take alcohol at lunch and even at breakfast, it is drunk slowly and in small quantities, and it is unusual to see people drunk, even at fiesta time.

Beer
The art of binge drinking and throwing up in the street is of course from Northern Europe, and although beer is widely drunk in Andalucia it tends to be served, in the villages at any rate, in large wine glasses. If you want something a little bigger ask for a 'tubo' - a straight sided glass like a tube. Beer is available in village shops in litre bottles and you are sometimes charged a bit extra if you want it cold. San Miguel and Cruzcampo are the standard Spanish beers. Good German beer can be had cheaply at Lidl’s - for example, Perlenbacher premium pils, which comes in a six pack of bottles. All these beers are obviously of the lager type and served cold.

Spirits
Spirits seem to be drunk with the same moderation as all alcohol, a little going a long way. Spanish brandy is cheap and good, anise likewise. It is not unusual to see an agricultural worker, well into his seventies, take for his breakfast a piece of bread and a sliver of Serrano ham accompanied by a glass of hot Camomile tea with a half shot of brandy in it, before going out to the fields.

A brief history of Andalucian BRANDY DE JEREZ
The cultivation of grapes in Jerez goes back to at least Roman times but the Moors who followed and ruled most of Spain from 711 to 1492 were forbidden by their religion from drinking wine. Nevertheless, the cultivation of grapes continued in Jerez and the practice of distillation is known to have been introduced in the 10th Century mainly for the production of cosmetics, essences and antiseptics. The word ‘Al-Kohl’ is an Arabic term for the fine powder used in cosmetics which was a bi-product of the distillation process. In ancient Spanish the reflexive verb ‘alcoholarse’ did not mean to drink copiously, but to paint one’s eyes!
As the popularity of the wines of Jerez (‘Sherry’) increased, distilled spirit was added to fortify them for export and eventually the local wine producers must have realised what a wonderful evolution took place when these wine distillates were left to mature in the oak casks previously used for ageing Sherry.
In the 19th Century, an important export market with the Netherlands developed selling raw grape spirit (65% alcohol) matured in old Sherry casks that became known as ‘Holandas’. Once at its destination, this was either diluted and sold as ‘brandewijn’ meaning ‘burnt wine’ (brandy) or mixed to make different liqueurs.
In 1835 González Byass was founded and in 1844 the first alambics (pot stills) were installed. In 1845 in what was one of the earliest references to the sale of Jerez brandy, a shipment was sent by González Byass to Ireland. The following year, the Soberano name was selected due to the close friendship of the González family with the Spanish sovereign (‘soberano’ in Spanish). By the turn of the century, the principal export market for Soberano was the British Isles partly due to the successful business relationship with the Byass family who had been both agent and partner since 1855.
Now with the introduction of Soberano Solera Reserva 5 and the increasing number of English people who visit Spain for their holidays each year, sales are on the increase once more - up 30% in 2001.

Brandy Labels: Brandy has a rating system to describe its quality and condition, these indicators can usually be found near the brand name on the label.

Drinking and driving
Guests should note that the laws on drink driving in Spain have tightened up considerably in the last year (2006). The most usual reason for a foreign holidaymaker to be arrested is for being drunk in charge of a vehicle. Spain has strict drink driving laws, only allowing 0.5 milligrams of alcohol per millilitre of blood - stricter than the UK where the limit is 0.8. New drivers are effectively forbidden to drink and drive, with a very low 0.1 mg/l limit. The legal alcohol limit is now lower than in the UK and even a glass of wine is risky

The  full text of this  and other  web pages is available in hard copy at the Casa and the Casitas
To the campo to collect dinner
Making paella at the Almachar Romeria
Menu 'del dia' at lunchtime
Dining 'Al donkey'
The bar at Cutar
Artesan Bread at the 'Monfi' fiesta Cutar