Spain has a great coffee culture. Coffee does not have such a central place in daily life as it does in Italy, but there can be no doubting its importance. When in Spain, I normally like a strong coffee with a small shot of hot milk. I usually ask for un cortado doble. On a cold winter's morning, when, with my shotgun over my shoulder and my gamebag hanging from my waist, I am about to stroll across some finca in search of partridge or hare, then I favour a carajillo - a black coffeee with a shot of hard liquor. I like brandy, but you can add whatever takes your fancy. Of course, I was only kidding about going hunting. I would barely know which end of the shotgun to point at my prey. I have only ever been hunting once and that was with a couple of Bulgarians, when Cheryl and I were living in Bulgaria. I seem to recall that two shots were fired, resulting in two animals being killed - a hare and a pheasant - and that was it for the day. As these were people who needed a cheap way to add protein to a somewhat impoverished diet, I had no problem with the episode.
To go back to coffee, a carajillo can often benefit from a sliver of lemon peel thrown into the cup. The opposite end of the coffee spectrum is the iced coffee. If on a hot day, you are struggling to come round after your siesta, then a Spanish style iced coffee is just the thing. If you take it with sugar, remember to add the sugar to the hot coffee, as, once you have cooled it down by tipping the hot liquid over a glass of ice cubes, then you will have a job dissolving the sugar. If you don't have to go back to work after your siesta, you could always opt for a cold beer, which in my experience, has a similar reviving effect.
Anyway, I was going to add a further piece about tapas today, inspired by watching Gordon Ramsay last night. One of the restaurants featured was a Spanish restaurant in London. The food seemed to be excellent, but it was the spirit of the place that seemed to be at odds with the real tapas bar experience. Surely tapas are best enjoyed standing at the bar of some little place you have stumbled across, but which might not look too promising from the outside, but which upon ordering, becomes some kind of gastronomic temple. I am talking about places with paper strewn floors and harassed waiters, where the number of people standing at the bar is a better indicator of quality than any review in a guidebook. The original tapas experience was one that came at no cost, other than that of the drinks. This mutated gradually and now most places charge for them. There are still places where the tapas are free, but they sometimes feature an over-reliance on the cheaper cuts of meat from the pig. Having said that, I know a couple of places in Avila where even the free tapas are a work of art, although, the price of a glass of wine may well make you cough. My point here is that a posh restaurant that produces elaborately wrought tapas in surroundings featuring immaculate white table cloths, pristine glasses and waiters decked out in what amounts to full evening dress, is a somewhat less than authentic take on the real thing.
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