Inside the Tortilla: Recipes for Living Another Life: Radical Routes Series, #2

INSIDE THE TORTILLA:

Recipes for Living Another Life

by Paul Read

Inside The Tortilla: Recipes for Living Another Life

Book 2 in the Radical Routes series

Copyright Paul Read

Originially Published June 2012

"2rd Edition Text and Images 2015

Published by Craving Distraction Ltd

Granada. Andalusia. Spain

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Paul Read has lived and worked all over Spain for the last 20 years. At present, he writes, teaches and rejoices in remaining both geographically and linguistically lost wherever he travels. Read other books in his Radical Roots Series - find out more at the end of this book.

What Other Authors are saying about Inside The Tortilla: 

I'd recommend this to anyone visiting Spain regardless of whether they are going to discover the country or to turn red near Malaga; at worst it made me feel a more authentic tourist. At best if helped me see a country. 

MARK A RADCLIFFE: AUTHOR OF GABRIEL'S ANGEL AND THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

As well as a cultural expert, the author's a dab hand at political commentary too, offering a summary of the Spanish political scene which is as informed as it's entertaining. You will have surmised by now that this is not your typical expat handbook.

MATTHEW HIRTES: AUTHOR OF GOING LOCAL IN GRAN CANARIA

If you are looking for a genuinely interesting book about one man and his dog and their efforts to truly embrace life in Spain you should enjoy this. Inside the Tortilla isn't a `how to' guide or cobbled together memoir, it's a well written and entertaining book oozing with charm, personality and wit; it's a book about culture, community and fitting in. Add to all this, the unique writing style, the meticulously researched historical and cultural references and you have a winner.

ALAN GANDY: AUTHOR OF 101 IMAGES OF SPAIN AND WALKING THE CANARY ISLANDS

Those who don't know about living in Spain can get an introduction into what the country is really like when you step away from the microwaved version of the country found along the coast. 

CAROLINE ANGUS BAKER: AUTHOR OF THE SECRETS OF SPAIN TRILOGY

You will laugh, learn and be deeply touched. Not just a journey through a region of Spain, this is a journey through life.

THE ASPIRING ARCHEOLOGIST

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

INSIDE THE MEDITERRANEAN GHETTO

Departure: Journeying: Travel.

INSIDE THE TORTILLA TOWN

The town: Mortgages: Building works: Waste and Recyling.

THE HISTORY OF ONE TORTILLA

History: Cinema Roles: Roof Dogs: Indignados: Revolutions: Republics: Clams.

THE HISTORY OF THE FIESTA

Fiestas: Semana Santa: Incensarios: Corpus Christi: Street life: Flamenco: Sangria.

HEALTHY INGREDIENTS

Heat: Summer Survial: Summer Food: The Mediterranean Diet: Smoking: Blood Tests: Tomato Salads: Autumn Relief.

COMMUNICATION MATTERS

Learning Spanish: Excuses: Language Exchanges: The Coffee Test: Teaching: Local Accents: Octopus.

THE LANGUAGE OF COLOUR

Theft: The Guardia Civil: Lettuce hearts: Reporting a crime.

THE IMPORTANCE OF STORIES

The Blue Legion: The Super Judge: The Man in Red: The Exiles: Gazpacho: The History of Election Posters.

THE RIGOURS OF RESIDENCY

Cardboard: Plastic: Paper.

THE RETURN JOURNEY

Going Back: Being Back: Getting out: Breakfast.

COMING DOWN TO EARTH

An Ariel Perspective: The Tortilla.

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

"Pronto llegará la hora, 

que la tortilla se vuelva. 

Los pobres comerán pan, 

y los ricos mierda, mierda."

IT'LL SOON BE TIME

La Tortilla

The tortilla is a uniquely Iberian version of the omelette. It was not too long ago, that it was prepared by chopping and slowly frying potatoes with onions, asparagus, peppers or mushrooms, and then coating everything in an eggy-mixture before carefully slow-cooking both sides.

Nowadays, Spanish tortillas are readily available in all supermarkets pre-cooked. The tortilla has adapted to the 21st century and prolonged its presence on the dining table of life. But it has, in the process, lost something of its identity. The taste has become diluted, the varieties have become reduced to a simple with or without onions and the classic chunky shape regulated to a Frisbee-sized mould. In short, the tortilla has been reduced to an instant, microwaved tapa.

Sadly, on the Mediterranean coast, the practise of serving microwaved versions of food has been embraced so enthusiastically that the model has now been wholeheartedly extended to all aspects of daily life. Coastal living has become a product like any other on the shelves of a large supermarket.

After tolerating years of such culinary and cultural homogenisation, my taste buds demanded a return to flavour. I had heard there were still places that cooked a real tortilla. It was rumoured that certain bars away from the coast, still made their food rather than shopped for it. Perhaps it was just an urban legend, but I had to find out.

1: 

INSIDE THE MEDITERRANEAN GHETTO

Departure: Journeying: Travel. 

THE FINAL STRAW

Another country lay ahead

Tourism is an intriguing concept. Place it in a bowl alongside one small Mediterranean town, add a sprinkling of urban development, marinate some wild fantasies for golf courses and yachting marinas, then stand back and watch what happens.

==

It seems everyone these days loves motorways. They are curvy and long and when freshly tarmacked bring a distinct smartness to carbon-fuelled travel. Of all the towns that love motorways, it is the small coastal town that is most enamoured for it believes these black serpents will bring in coaches full of summer short-stay visitors or long-winter third-age residents.

Such an increase in traffic, however, has devastating effects on the local area. The luscious fruit valleys encircling the town are bulldozed and turned into golf courses, public squares get dug up in order to construct underground car parks, and parking meters appear on pavements where before there were newspaper kiosks or trees.

Then, insidiously like a scorpion darting in through a door left ajar, the Estate Agents and Chain Stores appear and overnight local shops and traders begin to disappear. Rented flats become suddenly unaffordable to locals, as everyone suddenly becomes a customer.

Not just the politicians succumb, it's an epidemic. Bars begin to cut back on the tapas, increase their prices and treat you as just another face on the turnstile of tourism. Value, local identity and meaning are tossed out in the frantic race to attract the largest number.

Over the years I spent working in tourism on the coast of Spain, I witnessed this process as each town changed from a home, into a service industry.

But the coast is so pretty, my friends would say as they visited for a few days. Yes, the coast is pretty - or was, I would reply. Yes, it is warm and blue and winters are bearable and short. But these are in themselves shallow reasons to live in an otherwise vacuous environment.

Then one day I woke up and realised I could no longer endure the taste of microwaved food. I needed to go in search of other recipes; recipes that followed the change of the seasons; recipes that required a slow flame; recipes that would once again reorient me towards the flavour of an authentic tortilla.

INTO THE FOREST

Perro que no camina, no encuentra hueso 

 (If you don’t look, you won’t find)

The search would not take too long. Once I had broken away from the serpentine shopping mall that is unaccountably still called the Mediterranean, another country altogether could be found; one where the Iberian character had yet to succumb - or had yet to be tempted with - the fool's gold of tourism. It reminded me, as I zigzagged up the Carretera de Cabra, and over the mountain roads of Granada's tropical valleys, of those prophetic words once uttered by Laurie Lee: Other than war, tourism had done more to damage civilisation than anything else during the 20th century.

We travelled further on - my faithful Hound and I - through the lunar landscape that bridges the Sierras of the coast with Granada's wider, fertile plains; leaving behind those jagged peaks and arid lands that ran down to the blue waters beyond and fixing our gaze on that which lay ahead.

==

I stopped at the side of the road on a ridge between the Mediterranean Sea and the pine forest before me. The Hound needed to stretch his legs and mark the last outposts of his old territory. Something moved above and I glanced up. Catching the last breath of the coastal winds, the parasitic nests of the processional caterpillar swung eerily amongst the evergreen branches of the pines. The temperate climate of the coast had its downside. We drove on.

Some while ahead, I caught the first glimpses of the city of Granada, the last kingdom of the Moors in Spain. It was on this very spot that Bobadil had reputedly pulled over centuries before, after being evicted by the Catholic Monarchs. I sighed. I too knew what it was to be evicted by conquering armies. I too had lost my battle with the microwave. I too was in search for a place to call home.

We lapped the outskirts of the sprawling smoggy city of Granada, stopping where my attention was caught, or where my trusty van found a pleasant curb side to pass the night.

After half-dozen inter-changeable places, we nestled one midsummer night above a small town in the 'Poniente' region, west of the city. At first sight, it appeared no different from the other small-to-medium satellite towns I'd visited, yet I would ask myself often over the years that followed: Why did I choose this town? Why did I move to the urban heart of an inland province, when the call of the sirens from the silver-blue waters of the Mediterranean were still so temptingly close?

2: 

INSIDE THE TORTILLA TOWN

The town: Mortgages: Building works: Waste and Recyling. 

INTO THE TOWN

Real pleasure is found in not knowing.

If you only ever use the GPS, you may never wander off to explore where paths lead. You may never again stumble upon an Aladdin´s cave or find yourself lost in unmapped terrain like a Shaolin monk kicked out of his monastery.

==

Some people, of course, want to know everything up front. They want to plot and plan and decide on details before leaving home. They map and scheme and SatNav their way across the town, the country and even the globe. Some people even SatNav their way back from the hairdressers. Others, meanwhile, do little else than make up a packed-lunch and set off in order to see what happens. They understand that real pleasure is found in not knowing.

I stumbled across the town, as you might stumble across a dropped coin in the street, and so with the van parked on a hill above the el pueblo, we drifted down into the still evening air, drawn by the sound of singing and the warm embracing light of the old town: el casco antiguo.

Turning one corner, The Hound began his wolf-growl as we spotted a crowd of foreigners outside a bar, but upon closer inspection, they held maps upside down, they had phrase books peeking from inflatable waistcoat pockets and were clearly lost and confused as they headed off into what appeared to be the gypsy quarter.

When I entered the bars and shops, no-one tried to communicate with me in English. The coffee was satisfyingly served in a glass rather than a silly ceramic cup and as I sat at a table in one bar that had welcomed The Hound too, the waiter brought me a drink and nodded to a sign on the wall. "Y de tapa? He asked. I followed his eyes to a notice above my head listing a half-a-dozen different foods. La tortilla," I replied, and then took a sip of my beer and The Hound and I strained our ears over the competing sounds of the TV and the amusement machines.

We heard nothing and exchanged a quizzical look. A few minutes later a plate appeared at my side with a steaming slice of tortilla in the middle, a piece of bread and a few olives. But no microwaved-ping.

Strolling back through the town I noticed there was a marked absence of burnt faces on the street, and nobody wore sandals with socks. I couldn't find a post-card on sale anywhere, and were I in desperate need for a blow-up dinghy or a Mexcian hat, I would have been sorely disappointed.

Having The Hound at my side in an urban environment meant I had an excuse to stand still as everyone around me continued to move about. Whilst The Hound sniffed and salivated, I could watch, and in the process of watching, I could absorb something of the dynamics and balance of life in a small town. Something felt right. Something about the place intrigued me, attracted me. Perhaps it was its normality.

I was tempted to stay.

ACCOMMODATION

Once all towns were fortified areas. In fact the word town derives from the German word Zaun, meaning fence. Fences, though, are not a common sight here, but walls are another thing entirely. Any hillside Spanish town worth its weight will have an abundance of steep walls dividing up the respective barrios, intersected by endless flights of worn stone steps with rickety handrails and slippery surfaces. It was in these higher regions of the town that I first went looking for a house.

Finding a rented flat was relatively easy, finding a flat that wasn't run down, and in need of decoration, re-wiring, re-plumbing and accepted four-legged tenants was a little more difficult. In the end, I took what I could, but set about looking for a cheap house to buy. The rental market was appallingly expensive, even away from the coast, and I knew my limited funds were in danger of rapidly disappearing. I needed a house. The Hound needed a garden. And in order to get one, I needed a mortgage.

INSIDE THE BANK 

Food and finance

ACT 1: IN WHICH THE COLUMNS ARE DRAWN

So, you would like a mortgage.

Yes please.

How much?

Well the house I've seen costs 85.000 euros

I see. How old is it?

A bit old.

Bit?

Well, old is a relative term. It's in the old quarter of town. In the upper part where everything is old - the streets, the people...even the bread tastes stale.

So, in the old part is it!

(The Bank Manager looks down and figures are scribbled in a notebook. Two columns are drawn up: A plus and a minus column. He pauses for a fleeting second, looks up and smiles before placing a bold tick into the plus column. Rates per square metre are high there.

ACT 2: IN WHICH WE TALK ABOUT FOOD NOT FINANCE

And you are a resident of Spain?

Yes.

You must like it here?

I do. I particularly like traditional cooking, old recipes. That sort of thing.

You do! What's your favourite dish?

"Maybe tortilla, with asparagus and mushrooms, pulpo a la gallega or gambas al pilpil. Then again it could be gazpacho, I´m rather partial to a glass of gazpacho.

His eyes darted over his shoulder as he put down his pen and lent towards me. "Have you heard of pipirrana?"

"Pipirrana? That's a salad isn’t it? Don’t you have a tortilla recipe?"

"Why go to all the bother making a tortilla, when you can buy one cheaply from the supermarket ready-made? Pipirrana is something special to us here in town. It is more than a simple salad; it is the substance of life. I still use my Grandmother's recipe that is a family secret, but as you are moving into the old part of town..."

He picked up his pen. (Another tick goes into the plus column.)

ACT 3: IN WHICH I BEGIN TO WAFFLE

So what about work?

Well, I stutter and start