TEMPLE BAR'S IDEAS ON SPANISH STEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 172, 14 July 1876, Page 15

TEMPLE BAR'S IDEAS ON SPANISH STEWS.

++— — It is "Hail, fellow, well met" in this country ."especially among the peasantry ; and you are heartily welcome to a' share of the poor man's stew.

" No hay olla sin tocino l»i sermon sin Agostino," says the Spanish proverb. (" No stew without bacon : no sermon without a quotation from St. Augustine.") And, in this refrain, you have the key to Spanish cookery — stewing and salt meat. Another proverb says : " Every Spaniard knows how to stew ; " and this is true. In the prisons of Spain it is not the cook who becomes the cook, but the man who conducts himself well, it being taken for granted that he is able to cook. The cookery of the poor is on this fashion : In the cottage is a brick shelf with two little holes, each one about a foot deep and half a foot in diameter ; these are f called the ornillas or cooking stoves. The charcoal is placed in the bottom of these, and is fanned into a flame by the shaking to and fro of a wisp in front of the outlet from the ornilla, opening to the front. On the top of the two ornillas ars placed the two earthen* ware pots, or pucheros, which contain the viands to be converted into olios, or stews. French and English stoves have hardly found their way, as yet, into the Spanish kitchen. In the best houses you will constantly see the cook fanning her charcoal fires, and the two little brown pots simmering over the blue, flickering flame, while the quails and decoy partridges chirrup and chirp as the savory scent fills the air. "Roasting, boiling are all but unknown; everything must be stwed. Without a stew our stomach cries aloud ! And if to a stew the Andalusian peasant can add a dish of snails so much the better. But, poor fellow, he rarely can do so. Meat is, owing the drought, sold at one shilling and sixpence per pound, and bread at six farthings per pound. In Spain, in the markets and among the poor, the whole account is reckoned in cwrtos, or farthings ; and so the English buyer will be puzzled to be told that he owes fifty-nine farthings ! The cheapest stew, that which is eaten by the very poorest, is called pota, or pottage — the veritable red pottage of the ancient sacred story. It is composed as follows : Oil, salt, red bird pepper, and water to the brim, are mixed together and poured into a brown jar half full of haricot beans, or garbanzos or potatoes ; the whole goes on simmering upon the fire until it turns to a kind of thick soup, when it is eaten, with bread, by the whole party out of the self -same open dish into which it has been turned to cool, the family, sitting around, each with wooden spoon in hand, and each dipping his spoon in the dish for his portion with marvellous regularity. But this is the fare of the poorest of the pcor. Another dish, also common to the very poor, is the sopa de ajo, or garlic soup. This is made of garlic, shredded hard crusts of bread,(oil, salt and water ; and, as garlic and oil are cheap as dirt, and the bread is bought three days |old, it costs hardly anything. — • Temple Bar.'