On food, music and enthusiasm.

I’ve been watching art critic Andrew Graham Dixon and chef Giorgio Locatelli on television in another series of Italy Unpacked. Last time they went to Sicily. This time they’re in the north of Italy, even popping in to visit Giorgio’s mamma. It must be a splendid way to make a living, driving around looking at interesting places and cooking and eating splendid food. They certainly seem to enjoy themselves enormously. One review I read of the series said that it probably provokes viewers to throw the remote control at the TV set in sheer frustration because the two presenters are obviously having so much fun. But I don’t think so; it wouldn’t be half so good if Andrew Graham Dixon didn’t so much enjoy the food presented to him and Giorgio Locatelli didn’t get so scruffily open-mouthed with amazement on seeing yet another bit of art work and learning something else about his country. 

During Friday’s programme the intrepid travellers visited a butcher’s shop and bought an amazing array of bits of pig, including the snout, the ears and a number of unmentionable parts. Giorgio went on to chop up a collection of vegetables, enthusing about the colours, the texture, the wonderful visual effect as he fried them in a heavy-bottomed casserole dish. He then added the various pork products and a good splosh of red wine to make the sauce extra rich. I was beginning to see some similarities between this dish and a famous Galician dish but it was when he added cabbage leaves, put the lid on firmly and left it to stew for a couple of hours that my suspicions were confirmed. 

 He called it “cassoeula” but it looked to me for all the world like “cocido”, the stew that you see advertised one day a week outside many a restaurant in Galicia. Giorgio Locatelli got all misty-eyed remembering how he would arrive at his grandmother’s house and smell it cooking before he even got through the door. Andrew Graham Dixon tucked into it with gusto, enthusing about how the cabbage leaves had absorbed all the juices of the pork but I can’t say I share his delight in eating pigs’ ears, even if he did shave them before they went into the pot. However I know many a Galician who would be just as pleased to eat “cassoeula”: the same ones who go out of their way to cook “cocido” as a special birthday treat for family members. Even the culinary world shows us aspects of small world syndrome. 

Here in the frozen North of England we braved the cold yesterday (the amount of snow lying here remains very minimal compared to what we have known in the past) and went off into Manchester to eat tapas with some friends at “El Rincón de Rafa”. I can heartily recommend their “espinacas con garbanzos”, a dish of spinach with chickpeas but then I like almost anything with chickpeas in. The “merlucitas”, little pieces of hake were also very good. 

As we sat around chatting and deciding whether to order coffee, the bill suddenly appeared without our having requested it. Apparently when our friend had booked our table it had been made clear to him that we would have to be finished by a certain time. Now, I can understand that this is a busy and popular restaurant but I was a little miffed at such un-Spanish punctual time-keeping. However, we were not going to let that spoil our enjoyment so we ordered coffee anyway and eventually made our way to the Bridgwater Hall where we had tickets for a concert of Spanish music. 

Having left the restaurant a little earlier than originally planned, we arrived at the concert venue in time to find the guitar player who was going to be the soloist in Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez later giving a free concert in the foyer. Most impressive! Australian (I think) Craig Ogden had been busy all day doing guitar workshops for young people and various other events. What a very hardworking and talented young man!