All day breakfast

Sam and Dave, the British first couple not the soul duo, had plato alpurrajeño when in the Albaicín the other day. This hearty dish is not unlike a good British breakfast. It consists of at least black pudding (morcilla), fried eggs, and potatoes stewed in oil with green peppers (papas a lo pobre). In addition, there will be chorizo, lomo (fresh pork loin) or ham, or a combination of one, two or all three.

You know when you've had a plato alpurrajeño, and I can't imagine SamCam would be indulging on a regular basis, although Dave might make it a weekly ritual, perhaps shared with the fluent hispanohablante Clegg. César, the owner of a restaurant near us, does one that's baked in the oven, but then César is originally from the Basque country, so what would he know? No, for an authentically alpujarran experience, the constituent elements of the plato must be fried in plenty of extra virgin olive oil, like everything else round here. Sadly though, the idea that alpurrajeños have been sitting down to this traditional dish for hundreds of years is unlikely to be true. It was apparently invented - like the Ploughman's Lunch in the UK - in the seventies, as an easy-to-make money-spinner for bars and restaurants. But if you've been working hard in the fields all morning- or perhaps assembling flat-pack furniture for you holiday house - the plato Alpurrajeño is just about perfect, especially with some rough red wine and a siesta afterwards.