Literary gastronomy

The olla (stew) was..... an almost solid mass in which the spoon could stand upright, the little lump of black meat which might have been that of any animal from a camel to a lamb.... The unknown fish, always tasting like boiled calico....

Happily we could always have excellent coffee and equally good bread. Butter had better be forgotten as it was sold in apothecaries as an ointment....'

How things have changed, albeit slowly. Visitors to Spain in the middle part of the last century could possibly recognise some of the dishes described by Mrs H, and certainly meat was a luxury.

In Andalucía there was beef or pork, cooked and served within hours of leaving the slaughterhouse, tough and unappetising. Coming (usually by car then) from northern Europe, the best option was to buy lamb in Aranjuez's market and freeze it at the destination.

A recent theme of Onda Cero's weekly gastronomic discussion programme was how Spanish cuisine is rated outside Spain. Minimal research on international trends showed that this bears a direct relationship to the number of a country's restaurants in foreign urban centres.

To support my theory I started counting up the number of Spanish eating-places in London, but gave up after it got to high double figures. I remember when Martinez's in Swallow Street was the only one, and outside the capital there was the 'Andalucía' in Rugby. I don't think anyone these days would rate this country's cuisine other than outstanding.