Just last week I was holidaying in Santa Susanna on the Costa Brava with my daughter, son-in-law, and my grandson of 11 months. The location was my sisters idea, who also joined us with her husband. The holiday was a ‘take your mind off things’ interlude, as I had spent the previous 4 years looking after my wife, who unfortunately lost her painful battle with cancer five weeks before.

After a few days of hotel food and holiday bar drink, I yearned to feel Spain beneath my feet and so set off exploring the hills leading away from the coast. A couple of summits later, overconfident by my discovery of an ancient tower fortification, I made the mistake of attempting a more direct descent back to civilisation. As is often the case, ‘Nature’ chastised me by leading me to a dead end overlooking an overgrown ravine, but only after a 45 minute hazardous descent. Retracing my steps and making a more conservative descent by road I found myself in Santa Susanna Pueblo, a one horse two bar town. Suitably ensconced outside one of the bars I remembered I had not eaten for some time. A lack of English speakers in the vicinity provided me with an opportunity to demonstrate how enthusiastic, and hopeless, I was in Spanish. An initial order of ” cervaca grande por favour”, which arrived with a tapas of tortilla, provided me an opportunity to think. A sign in the window provided an easy way out and I embraced it. Menu del Dia it would be. The offering which came with ‘bebido’ of water or half carafe of vino rosso, was ‘cocido de garbanzos’. Presumably then, ‘menu del dia’ must translate as ‘this is what I have on the stove, have or don’t have it, please yourself’. I had it. No idea what it was going to be, but the law of averages was on my side. One adventure that day had already humiliated me, surely a smaller one, into colloquial cuisine, would not follow suit. Happily when the plate arrived accompanied by a basket of bread and the wine (that had been the easiest decision all day!) I found it to be eminently palatable. I was even more content when ‘la quinta’ arrived and requested a mere 6.20 Euros.

Now for the point of the story. Although a teacher of mathematics by trade, I have a love of cooking, and so determined to reproduce the dish when I arrived home. A google search for the recipe directed me to YouTube and some demonstrations of the stew being prepared. An ingredient common to them was ‘hueso blanco salado’. Google helpfully translated this as ‘white bone salt’, and after a subsequent search escorted me to a myriad of articles on ‘white bone china’. Refusing to accept defeat, I tried googling the Spanish expression, and there you were, on the first page of results with an enlightening experience from your own Costa Brava sojourn. I now know what ingredient I need, but sadly not where to obtain it. But thanks again for the article it was an interesting read and a big help. I suppose the last word has to be…….back to google!

Regards
John Bentham
Liverpool
England

Congratulations on the book, godspeed in going East, and keep in touch. We’re in town till May 20, when we leave for Europe–back on July 1.

Abrazos
Cristina

And I love the one-legged milking stool. My uncle would have done so too,