Lorenzo Diaz, sociologist writer and journalist, author of books such as La radio en España and La España Alegre (Ocio y Diversión en el siglo XX) has also written books on gastronomy.He collaborates regularly on the radio and in the daily press.

DELICIOUS AND AGE-OLD CUISINE

On coming accross a sea-bass cooked with dill or a fish mousse, those of us spaniards who have experienced a culinary "perestroika", yearn for the dishes of our childhood. Because, as Grande Covián maintained, it is easier to change ones religion than ones culinary tastes. Now that the fashion is for Nouvelle Cuisine, which in most cases consists of technicolour sauces that cover up stingy portions of food, those of us whose tastes were formed after the war, long for the lost flavours of our childhood. Free range chickens which scrabbled about in the dirt and lived on tomatoes and scraps; savoury porridge, Lenten stews, fricassées, cuttlefish with broadbeans, tomato with onion and green pepper salad, etc.

Nestor Luján talks of Andalucian cuisine as being one of the great unknowns, hidden by the clichés of the romantic travellers, who didn't waste much time on describing the rich variety of Spanish food. From La Lozana Andaluza by Francisco Delicado, a real Baroque pantry of traditional food, to Juan Valera, great literature is full of descriptions of the food of the middle classes and high bourgeoisie of the South.

Almerian gastronomy forms part of this distinctive cuisine, tasty, full of ancient flavours, created on cortijo stoves, in fishing villages and small towns. I remember my childhood in the Guardia Civil barracks near Pulpí and the meals which we enjoyed: migas almerienses stirred with a fire poker, fresh wheat stew with meat, home made sausages and salamis. etc.; esparragus hot pots, vegetable stews with leafy greens, usually spinache or kale, potatoes "a lo pobre" ( potatoes fried in olive oil with green peppers and onions). The proximity of the sea meant that we enjoyed squid, red prawns, clams, red mullet, galanes (similar to red mullet), saltones (a silvery little fish the size of an anchovy).

There were many variaties of stew. I remember eating stewed clams with turnips, bread stew, artichokes, etc., and sublime puddings like "plato del paraíso" and little sweet rolls, eclairs, etc. May you enjoy all of it!

LORENZO DÍAZ