Spanish views from a small town

Yesterday was a very blue day, and when eight o'clock rolled around, I still had no idea what to write, except the refrain going through my head. The news about contagion was also depressing, and nothing new. And that wasn't at all interesting. So, I left it for today. An article this morning, in the blog  Thoughts from Galicia, Spain, on the British scions of the sherry trade in southern Spain kicked off a memory. The article mentioned a mix of sherry, egg yolk, and sugar that was given to children once, a long time ago, in the area of southwestern Andalucía, in the area where sherry is produced. It was (and still is) called candié , a corruption of the English candied egg . But this brew goes back quite a ways.  It was mentioned in a dictionary from 1729 as a way to season meat. But sixty years later, it was no longer mentioned as a seasoner, and simply a delicious drink. What is its possible origin is that it was thought up as a way to use left over egg yolks from sherry m...

I talked to my daughter about drugs, alcohol, and tobacco when she was around five years old. Some have called me a brute for doing it so early. But I used language she understood and she took the lesson very seriously. In effect, I brainwashed her, because what we are taught at that age we remember for life as fact. Many parents prefer to wait until the kid goes to high school at twelve, or even prefer to leave it to the school. I suppose each parent knows his child best, but, in my opinion, if the subject is brought up, it should be broached and not stuffed away in a closet to wait "until they understand." Hopefully, there should be a lot of talking going on in a lot of households these days. Unfortunately, at the expense of a young girl's life. A young girl whose parents probably thought it was too early to talk about these things.  In San Martín de la Vega, just outside Madrid, young kids got together last Friday to celebrate Halloween with their own kind of party. ...

Drugs and alcohol. Substances first found in nature by man which made him feel good. Taken in larger quantities they made him see God. Literally or figuratively. Either too much was taken and the taker died, or enough was taken to create hallucinations which made him think he was seeing a hidden, magical world that was beyond this humdrum existence. At any rate, drugs became something to be used in rituals that marked the milestones of life. Alcohol, as well, though this substance eventually became commonplace, more antiseptic to drink than water. Also more pleasant. But man isn’t good at knowing where to draw the line. So, some people eventually abuse something that is really meant to be used on special occasions. Because it makes them feel so good and forget all their pains. And it’s nice to withdraw into a magical world where they can become demigods. Or to escape from a life that offers no happiness. In my father’s hospital room there is a patient also recovering from pneum...

One could say alcoholism is a scourge that has plagued mankind since the first beer was created in Egypt, or the first wine in the Caucasus mountains. Not everybody falls into it, but those who do create a hell on earth for those surrounding them. My mother's father was a victim of that scourge. It has always been normal to drink wine from childhood in Spain. Every household in every village has at least one grape arbor that will make at least one barrel of wine. Until the last fifteen or twenty years every household picked their grapes and made their wine between September and October. Now, though, wine drinking has fallen and not everyone makes wine. Those with better vineyards sell their grapes. Others have taken them down. But it used to be the norm that everyone drank wine, even the children. Children would get a few drops in the bottom of their glass which would be topped by water or gaseosa , a soda similar to Sprite or 7Up. However, drunkenness has always been looked down...