Meat is murder. Tasty, tasty murder.

I'm linking here to a blog entry about being a vegetarian in Andalusia. There's no disguising the fact that it's tough. I eat meat, and love it, but even I find the ubiquity of pig flesh round these parts a bit much at times. There's no problem if you're self-catering in a lovely property like ours, with a nice big fridge, excellent cooking facilities and some decent chef's knives (not something you can bet on in the average holiday rental). The availability of wonderful fruit and veg, delicious fresh eggs and an excellent variety of pulses, nuts and dairy make meat-free cooking easier even than in Northern Europe. The problems start when you eat out, and for most visitors, eating out is a major element of a holiday.

The problem is that barring a few classic dishes like pisto (something like ratatouille) and pimientos de padrón (fried baby peppers, above), Spaniards assume that the addition of a little meat or fish is necessarily an improvement to anything, for everyone. So although soups, tortillas and salads may look harmless and veggie-friendly on paper, there's always a high likelihood that some ham or tuna will be strewn over the top, or some meat-and-bone-based stock will have made its way in at an early stage of preparation. It doesn't even always help if you say you don't eat meat: "no como carne" means "I don't eat meat", but to an Andalusian it kind of means "I don't want a rare steak right this moment". They won't think you mean ham, or black pudding, or pork fat.

Then there are tapas, without which a visit to Spain would be unthinkable to many, including those who reject animal flesh. In most provinces of the country, you pay for and specify what you want when you get tapas. Not in these parts. Here in Granada they're free with your drink, and you get what you're given. It might be snails, it could be cod, but the chances are it'll be something that used to be part of a pig.

All is not lost, though, meat-dodgers. Every bar will have some cheese, olives, eggs. And they'll be happy to give you a tapa without meat. I suggest you learn how to say you'd like a cheese or egg tapa - la tapilla ¿puede ser de queso? should do it - and remember that you have to specify it as you order your beer or wine. Otherwise it'll be too late, and it'll be black pudding.

Great headlines of our time

A headline worthy of The Onion today at Trevor apSimon's freshly redesigned, BCN-based Kalebeul site. It's Spanish woman academic dresses according to stereotype. In the post, Trevor quotes Manhattan Dreaming thus:

"Our eminent Andalucian visitor had obviously just come straight from a “Let’s See Who Can Look Most Typically Spanish Whilst Abroad” contest. She had that frizzy tobacco-coloured long hair that shoots off at 45 degrees making a cone out of her head; a black woolly blouse, a grey box-pleated miniskirt and black tights. I couldn’t see her shoes, but looking under the table to see what lecturers are wearing isn’t a course of action likely to further my academic career. The one thing she lacked was the gold-chained Dolce and Gabbana handbag that seems de rigeur for Spanish girls domiciled here. Our progress through the [subject under discussion] was somewhat laboured, and as I drifted in and out I was trying to recall the formula for the volume of a conic section so that I could at least leave the lecture having practiced a bit of maths and with an estimate of the total volume of her hair."

I see what he (she?) means with the black and grey clothing, but I can't say I'm familiar with the conical hair. Down our way there seem to be three styles; loose and straight with sunglasses perched on top for sexy young things, long, greying and Alice-banded for conservative professional ladies, and the ultimate Andalusian helmet-hair for older rural matrons, this latter being a brittle carapace created with industrial quantities of lacquer and available in tints of blue, burgundy and pink. I'll try and find an example of the helmet and post it here - perhaps accompanied by the classic square-shouldered cornflake-packet blouse.