What's a chumbo?

Chumbera (Photo: Vicente Palacín)

You've seen them everywhere, those pinky yellow fruits at the top of rows of cacti along the side of the road, or dividing one field from another. They are the chumbos, sometimes called prickly pears; delicious to eat, but very difficult to pick and prepare to eat. The chumbo grows on a chumbera (as an higo, fig, grows on an higuera - Spanish conversation classes starting next week, people!) Below is a how-to item that will interest our more daring readers:>>>

Wild mushroom cookery book to be distributed tomorrow

JIMENA To coincide with the opening of the XIII Mycology Workshops (see full programme here), the Council is to distribute a cookery book with some of the municipality's restaurants' favourite mushroom recipes. Titled Setas y Fogones (loosely translated to Mushrooms and Cooking) and only in Spanish, its aim is that it should be used as a tool for tourists. The booklet contains recipes from Restaurante Cuenca, Hostal-Restaurante El Anón, Restaurante La Tasca, Restaurante El Ventorrillero, Restaurante Las Rejas, Hostal-Restaurante Los Arcos, Restaurante La Vía, Restaurante Mesilla de Los Ángeles, Restaurante Cacholla and Restaurante La Estación, both these in San Pablo. Look out for it at any of these establishments and, please mention you saw it here first!

Holy Weeks cooking: croquetas de bacalao

Spanish tradition, and Church exigiencies (more in the past than the present), required that meat be avoided on Fridays in general, but absolutely on Good Friday. When cod was less of a luxury item than it is today, it was considered a food that ‘levelled’ the rich with the poor (according to Harriet Gilmour) and so it became traditional fare for this holiest of holy days. Croquetas de bacalao (cod croquettes) is one of many ways to prepare it. This is the traditional recipe:>