The world we live...

[replicant_008]

A irregular set of observations from the travels of Replicant...

Spain

Part 1: The Mediterranean Diet

The Mediterranean diet - olive oil, pasta, red wine, rice and paella - the secret to long life in the Iberian Peninsula. Yeah Right... Your average Spanish person, in my humble observation, relies on three major food groups - Caffeine, Alcohol and Nicotine during most of the day and maybe indulges the rites of the Mediterranean diet at dinner.

Maybe I need to start at the beginning. Madrid is a city roughly in the middle of Spain. It sits in the middle of a hot, dusty, sunburnt plateau. The sun beats down like a hammer on an anvil each day. It is a bustling, busy town with little time to help the aged or the weak where even the children have a hard look to them.

One of the focal points of the city is a place called Puerto de Sol - according to my mediocre Spanish - it means something like square of the Sun. It's full of beggars, pickpockets, hawkers, migrants, a tabacos which looks like a machine gun pill box and ringed by money changers, banks and tourist shops.

I wander out of the Hostal early in the morning - well early for Spain it's about 9am but yet most folk have not arrived at work and creating a busy throng in the many cafeterias around the streets. That's when the diet comes in. Nearly everyone is indulging in a heady, dark brew from the barristas, occasionally mellowed by milk (cafe con leche) but also the shot of liquer with the ubiquitous cigarette hanging from their fingers or lips. Everything in Spain that is bad for you is cheap.

This cocktail of strong coffee, cigarettes and shots of alcohol roughly continues to about 10am where everyone more or less wanders off to work.

But that's not the end of things.

Around 1pm, the cafeterias and bars are resupplied with patrons as 'Siesta' begins. This is accompanied by more liquified caffeine, more likely with the shot of liquor and punctuated by puffs of cigarette smoke between vigorous conversation.

After about a hour, everyone wanders off - presumably to sleep everything off but some folk hang around to about 3pm when they head back to work. And there they do whatever they can physically and mentally accomplish in the remaining 4 hours of work before wandering off at about 6pm or so.

This brings into play the Tapas Bar. This is the kind of place where you can order a small bowl of plate of Tapas or alternatively a bigger plate of Raziones. These range from olives (and there seem to be as many different types of olive as there are chips in the US), to shrimps to small plates of a peculiar cured ham called jambon. This is cured by burying a loin of pork into a large pit of salt for some months and leaving to hang. The resulting product is not cooked but resembles the texture of thick salami when ready.

It's also common to eat a plate of tapas and wander off to the next bar. Incidentally, it is also common that a measure is poured not with a measure but to the eye. In an old fashioned tumbler you are looking at about an inch of liquor.

Of course, with the heady amounts of caffeine and nicotine consumed during the day as well as a powernap during siesta - most spainards aren't interested in eating until 9-10pm in the evening. They then wander the streets sinking even more beer, wine and spirit until they finally decide to call it a night at about 3am, safe in the knowledge they don't need to return to work until about 10am the next morning...

Next Stop... El Prado, Palacia de Real and Real Madrid Stadium

[Oz]

Doesn't sound half bad! All I'd have to do is learn Spanish!