One evening, hot and thirsty after seeing four ‘funcions’ at four different theatres, I was wondering what I could drink, when I saw a café in the Calle de Azenal that had a large advertisement outside, ‘English refreshments.’ I rushed to the door to read the list of English refreshments that was displayed on a card outside. I only read the top line, and that was enough.
This was the top line: ‘Zurzaparilla!’ One travels and learns. I never knew before that sarsaparilla was the national drink of the Briton.
I stayed at an excellent French hotel in Madrid, but I got tired of the French table d’hôte. I wanted to eat as the Spaniards eat. One evening I persuaded a Spanish gentleman to take me to a real Spanish middle-class restaurant, and let me taste the fare of the country. The Spanish are a frugal and moderate race. Two or three dishes and dessert—that is their dinner. There is no long bill of fare as among the French.
The restaurant was a quiet room on the ground-floor of a modest-looking house. There were one or two families and several single gentlemen dining. The women wore handkerchiefs on their heads and shawls over their shoulders. People dropped in, had a soup and a dish of meat, an orange and some nuts, and went away satisfied. Our bill of fare was more extravagant, but it created a sensation. The landlord and all the waiters came in turns to look at the extraordinary Englishmen who had such gigantic appetites.
Here is the exact menu. We began with olives and pickled pimientos and guindelias and chilis. These were the hors d'œuvres. Then cigarettes. Then we had an ordinary thin soup, followed by cigarettes; then came the great national dish, called cocido. If you have a good dish of cocido (pronounced cothido, because of the Spanish lisp given to the c before certain vowels) you have a good deal for your dinner. It is a savoury stew of chicken, potatoes, sausage, bacon, and white beans, all boiled up with pieces of beef. In most Spanish families this is the everyday dish. Of course the poorer classes have to leave out some of the ingredients, except on festive occasions. In Andalusia the peasants will sit round a huge panful of their version of this article. It is made according to their means, and often vegetables are plentiful, but the pieces of meat few and far between, and each man ladles it out by spoonfuls into his mouth. Plates are dispensed with.
The foreigner who is suddenly confronted with a huge dish of cocido and politely requested to help himself is in some difficulty. He takes a spoonful at hazard. The waiter still stands at his elbow. ‘The señor has only taken beans.’ Again you make a dash with the spoon and secure something else. The waiter stares, but does not move away. ‘The señor has only taken sausage.’ The señor, confused, requests the waiter to assist him; and then the process, though slow, is interesting. A spoonful of beans on the plate; then, selected with the greatest care; a piece of chicken; then a patient search for a slice of sausage buried under a mound of cabbage; then the cabbage itself; then a minute devoted to a voyage of discovery in search of the nicest piece of beef; then an exploration in search of a succulent morsel of bacon; then a spoonful of the potatoes; and then, over all, an extra spoonful of the beautiful gravy. I timed my waiter, and he took six minutes and a half to help me to cocido. When the dish passes down a table d’hôte it takes about an hour to go round. It is for this reason that the Spaniards help themselves all together at the same time from the common dish.
The cocido was excellent. Well cooked, it is a dinner for a king. I intend to introduce it into England upon my return. But I am afraid it will give rise to a good deal of ill-feeling in families. Somebody will get all the slices of the sausage, and then there will be recriminations and angry words. We have neither the patience nor the politeness of the Spaniards; and cocido is a dish that requires a good deal of both.
The next item after cigarettes was a Spanish salad. This salad is prepared in a peculiar way, and spread out upon bread into which the oil and vinegar have been allowed to soak. This, too, was excellent. Then more cigarettes; then a cheese made of honey and cream, and several other ingredients which require to be taken on trust; and then, after more cigarettes, some ‘angel’s hair,’ which is really a preparation of orange-rind very thinly shredded. More cigarettes; then an orange, raisins of Malaga, and almonds and Barcelona nuts, dried and salted, and delicious. I am so enchanted with these ‘almindras’ that I have made all my boxes overweight with them. The wines with this feast were Valdepeñas—a red wine made from grapes grown on the rocky plains around Madrid—and Jerez, which, of course, is sherry. I have been to Jerez lately, and, having seen the extent of the vineyards, I beg to add that, though Jerez is, of course, sherry, it does not follow that all sherry is Jerez—very, very far from it—often thousands of miles from it. And we wound up with more cigarettes.
To finish the evening in a real Spanish way, after going to a rather low Spanish café to see the real Spanish dancing, we had, before retiring to rest, ‘Dos chocolates con pica-tostes'; and that, if you please, is two cups of thick chocolate, with square fingers of bread beautifully fried in olive-oil. And we weren’t ill.