I suppose it is because I don’t know my way around the corpses of rabbits (especially dismembered ones) as well as chickens that I made my mistake.
For someone as well brought up as myself, taught from his earliest age to be ‘tidy’ in the way that he ate his food, the ‘hands on’ approach of the Spanish people to their food is somewhat liberating.
During one family meal in my grandparents’ dining room when I was very young, I even attempted to eat crisps with my fork, ensnaring each individual crisp between the tines of the implement. This tortuous way of eating continued until my uncle remarked after a guffaw that he had previously only seen the very drunk attempting what I was doing!
So, both hands on my food is a very liberating experience. Toni’s sister Laura bucks the Catalan trend by being very fastidious with the eating of her food and using her knife and fork with the dexterity of a trained surgeon, but I don’t have the patience to emulate her.
Chicken is perhaps at the edge of genteel cutlery accompaniment: it is possible to strip the flesh from the bones with implements without leaving surplus. To attempt to do the same with the altogether smaller remains of cooked rabbit is much more problematical.
I started on my rabbit with garlic with knife and fork but soon realised that the civilized approach would be counter productive in terms of the amount of flesh in my mouth as opposed to the amount left on the bones. Both hands were a necessity. So both hands were used.
Teeth nibbled assiduously and effectively, though from time to time thumbs were used to prise off some succulent titbits. One such titbit having been devoured with gusto I then noticed its proximity to a tiny set of perfectly formed teeth and realised that I had just popped and eaten its eye! At least it was well cooked!
Today has been an odd selection of weather styles: from the morning when we both defiantly lay on the beach in spite of the overcast conditions and lowering darker clouds on the horizon to when we finally gave up and went out to lunch which of course produced clear blue skies and bright sunlight!
The late afternoon saw yet another change and produced a sky of that particular cloudy dark blue much regarded by Dutch landscape painters. It filled the sky down to the low horizon formed by the sea and looked very dramatic, but it was not conducive to successful sunbathing!
The evening was presaged by rumbling thunder, rather unimpressive lightning and very impressive torrential rainfall.
Unlike Britain we can assume that we will have reasonable weather tomorrow: Catalonia does not have the spiteful quality of inclement climatic conditions that we Brits have come to expect as part of the joy of living in our green land.
The proof of the pudding will lie in the lazing on the beach tomorrow.
I hope.
For someone as well brought up as myself, taught from his earliest age to be ‘tidy’ in the way that he ate his food, the ‘hands on’ approach of the Spanish people to their food is somewhat liberating.
During one family meal in my grandparents’ dining room when I was very young, I even attempted to eat crisps with my fork, ensnaring each individual crisp between the tines of the implement. This tortuous way of eating continued until my uncle remarked after a guffaw that he had previously only seen the very drunk attempting what I was doing!
So, both hands on my food is a very liberating experience. Toni’s sister Laura bucks the Catalan trend by being very fastidious with the eating of her food and using her knife and fork with the dexterity of a trained surgeon, but I don’t have the patience to emulate her.
Chicken is perhaps at the edge of genteel cutlery accompaniment: it is possible to strip the flesh from the bones with implements without leaving surplus. To attempt to do the same with the altogether smaller remains of cooked rabbit is much more problematical.
I started on my rabbit with garlic with knife and fork but soon realised that the civilized approach would be counter productive in terms of the amount of flesh in my mouth as opposed to the amount left on the bones. Both hands were a necessity. So both hands were used.
Teeth nibbled assiduously and effectively, though from time to time thumbs were used to prise off some succulent titbits. One such titbit having been devoured with gusto I then noticed its proximity to a tiny set of perfectly formed teeth and realised that I had just popped and eaten its eye! At least it was well cooked!
Today has been an odd selection of weather styles: from the morning when we both defiantly lay on the beach in spite of the overcast conditions and lowering darker clouds on the horizon to when we finally gave up and went out to lunch which of course produced clear blue skies and bright sunlight!
The late afternoon saw yet another change and produced a sky of that particular cloudy dark blue much regarded by Dutch landscape painters. It filled the sky down to the low horizon formed by the sea and looked very dramatic, but it was not conducive to successful sunbathing!
The evening was presaged by rumbling thunder, rather unimpressive lightning and very impressive torrential rainfall.
Unlike Britain we can assume that we will have reasonable weather tomorrow: Catalonia does not have the spiteful quality of inclement climatic conditions that we Brits have come to expect as part of the joy of living in our green land.
The proof of the pudding will lie in the lazing on the beach tomorrow.
I hope.
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