CUISINE OF GUÁJAR ALTO

Although Guájar Alto is a small village it has four bars, three of which serve not only tapas but also three-course meals and the cuisine has such a good reputation that people come from far and wide to dine here.
Every province of Andalucia has its regional specialities but Granada is different because many of its traditional dishes are influenced by the nazarí, the last of the Moorish rulers who occupied Spain for so many centuries. Also, the quality of the food produced in the province is outstanding and as well as the fertile vega (plain) of Granada, the Costa Tropical, with its favourable climate, also yields a huge variety of crops and exotic fruits which can’t be grown anywhere else. In Guájar Alto, which is situated at the head of a fertile river valley, the good climate which we enjoy means that we are also able to produce a wide range of fruit and vegetables. Olives are the main crop, just as they were in the time of the Moors, the first inhabitants; almonds, too, are important and, like the olives, do better in the higher zones. Lower down, alongside the river, avocados, chirimoyas (custard apples), vines, figs, citrus trees and nisperos flourish.
When you dine out here, the first dish to be brought to the table is a mixed salad, followed soon afterwards by a big tureen of soup. In winter, because the nights can be chilly in the mountains, these are hearty and warming. Although the recipes, handed down from generation to generation, are secret the main ingredients tend to be pulses (usually haricot beans), pieces of ham, baby clams and seasonal vegetables. These soups, which are meals in themselves, are a far cry from those which are generally served in restaurants and a visit to our village is worth it just to sample them. In summer, these soups are replaced by home-made gazpacho which, made from locally-grown tomatoes, cucumbers and the village’s own vinegar, is superb and probably better than that which any professional chef can come up with.The next course is a meat dish and there is a choice of pork, chicken, rabbit, lamb or choto (young goat). The latter, I’ve found, can be rather bland when I prepare it myself and I think only a Spanish woman knows how to cook it properly, using a good deal of seasoning with a touch of picante. A leg of lamb done very slowly in the oven, according to a traditional Andalucian recipe, is deliciously tender.
Served with the meat course are patatas a la pobre (poor man’s potatoes) which consist of sliced potatoes, onions, garlic and peppers fried in olive oil in a heavy-based pan on a fairly high heat so that the vegetables don’t absorb too much oil. The success of this dish depends on the quality of the potatoes and I’ve found that those which are locally grown are infinitely superior to those bought in supermarkets.
The deserts, made on the premises, are light and creamy natillas; my favourite, which is exquisite, is the one made from avocados. Because the Spanish adore sweet things, these deserts are accompanied by home-made biscuits or doughnuts flavoured with a hint of anise and sometimes there is fig bread, which is a kind of paste made from figs and almonds and, again, flavoured with anise. Or, perhaps, you’ll be served slices of goats’ cheese spread with local honey or membrillo, a pink jelly which is made from a fruit resembling a large, furry apple.
The locally baked bread is of a particularly high standard because the baker is French and learned his trade in Paris; typically, the loaves are crisp on the outside but very light on the inside. There was a time when, contrary to what many people believe, the Mediterranean diet was very poor because it consisted mainly of bread and is is for this reason that many Spanish recipes contain bread or breadcrumbs as an ingredient.
Our neighbour keeps a herd of goats from the milk of which his wife makes the most superb cheese. I’ve sampled a good deal of goats’ cheese during the years I’ve lived in this country but I have to say hers is the best; it’s smooth, creamy and with just the right amount of added salt.
Pork is the meat most often consumed in Spain, a custom which harks back to the time of the Spanish Inquisition who encouraged the people to eat it because they reviled Jews and Muslims to whom, of course, this meat is forbidden. In Guájar Alto, pigs are reared and then slaughtered in an almost ritualistic manner at what is called a matanza; you can tell when one is about to happen because the smell of the onions being prepared by the women permeates every corner of the village. When the blood has been drained from the animal, the herbs, spices and other ingredients needed for making morcilla (black pudding) are added and the strongest man in the village plunges his arm up to the elbow into the big cauldron to give everything a good stir. The mixture is put into a sausage-making machine, forced into a casing and then boiled. The woman use the offal to make a rich cazuela (casserole) while the legs are sent to the high Alpujarras, where the finest hams are produced, to be cured.
The climate of Guájar Alto, with its hot summers and cool winter nights, is ideal for olive growing which means that the quality of the oil produced is superb; the olives have a rich, nutty flavour and when they’re preserved they remain firm and succulent. I do mine the following way: firstly, so that they won’t be bitter, I make a slit in each olive; next, I cover them with a fairly strong saline solution using water from the village fountains, which is very pure; after four days I change the water, rinse the olives, and repeat the process, four times in all. Usually, the olives are preserved in a saline solution but I’ve found they last longer if they’re preserved in olive oil. I add mountain herbs, bay leaves, green peppercorns and a few little chili peppers.
I think the avocados grown in this area are even better than those produced on the Costa Tropical. The perfect avocado is ready to eat five days after it has been picked from the tree; this means that the fruit has absorbed sufficient oil to give it a characteristic, rich, buttery flavour which is never found in exported avocados. Before I came to live in Spain, I always considered them a luxury but here they are so plentiful that I take them for granted and eat them almost every day. Something else that I’ve come to take for granted is the abundance of citrus fruit which we enjoy in Guájar Alto; it begins to ripen in December and lasts until the beginning of summer. There is nothing more pleasant first thing in the morning than a glass of freshly-squeezed orange juice from fruit that’s just been picked.
Every year, the sampling of wine from the abundance of grapes which are produced in this village is a very serious business indeed. The vines flourish here in rampant profusion, the most common being the muscatel which is particularly rich in antioxidants. I prefer to drink the wine when it is young and sweet because, as it matures, it develops a stronger, quite musty flavour. Either way, although it looks and tastes very innocuous, it has a strength which can take the unwary by surprise!
The favourable climate enables the gardener to have a supply of fresh vegetables all year round. Culinary herbs, such as basil, parsley, coriander, oregano, mint and dill are very easy to grow while thyme, rosemary and fennel are found in the mountains. I often use all these herbs together, plus a bay leaf or two, to add to spiced cider with which I marinate rabbit meat. When I cook the dish the following day I throw in a few nisperos and prunes as well. In this part of Spain rabbit, partridge and jabali (wild boar) are often on the menu in restaurants.
In the towns and cities more and more people, especially the younger ones, are being wooed by the supermarket diet and the fast food outlets which have sprung up everywhere during recent years; in villages such as Guájar Alto, where populations tend to be much older, the traditional ways of cooking are still employed and it’s well worth making an excursion to sample our delicious cuisine.

SPRINGTIME IN GUAJAR ALTO

This year, spring was exceptionally lovely in Guájar Alto. The weather was unusual and a warm, mostly dry, January encouraged the almond trees to blossom earlier than usual. There were some very warm days in February, too, but March brought rain and cold winds which continued into April. It grew very warm indeed in the second week of May and the combination of spring rains and hot days brought forth an abundance of lush vegatation. Cascading down the steep sides of the ravines were cistus bushes covered with flowers of pink and white; phlomis, often seen skulking at the back of herbaceous borders in England, ran riot with masses of pale pink flowers. By both night and day, the singing of nightingales echoed through the valley and the bee-eaters, who arrived from Africa in April, trilled overhead, the blue and yellow of their exotic plumage flashing in the sunlight. At night, the elusive Scops owl could be heard uttering its strange, sonar-like call and the hundreds of frogs which had taken up residence in the water reservoirs began their noisy summer nocturnal chorus.

The superabundance of wild flowers would have delighted the botanist, especially the orchids. Bee orchids are the first to appear in Guájar Alto, normally as early as December but, because of the dry weather, there weren’t as many of these as usual. The later flowering varieties, however, benefited from the March rains and flowered in unusual profusion. The sawfly orchid, which has luscious, pink petals is one of the most beautiful and this spring I discovered a lovely butterfly orchid with large, wing-like petals of glowing magenta. Bordering the pine forests are colonies of yellow orchids as well as mirror orchids with their strange, blue, opalescent speculums which the Spanish call ‘Venus’ looking glass.’ In the mountains, growing in concealed places where only the keen-eyed botanist would spot them, are dense-flowered orchids. They are rather dull in appearance compared to the other varieties but are of great interest, nevertheless, because of their extreme rarity.

There are a few flowering species which exist only in this part of Spain, such as the lovely subspecies of common centaury which has clusters of large, bright pink flowers. These appear at the same time as the tall, blue iris which also abound in dry, rocky places. There are curiosities, such as the parasitic plant of the white-flowered cistus, which is small and low-growing, with wax-like flowers of brilliant yellow encased in scales of bright red. These were to be seen everywhere this spring as well as other parasitic plants, particularly broomrapes. These range in colour from inky-purple to pale, peachy pink and as they emerge from the ground in clusters they resemble bunches of asparagus. In the pine forests, in spring, is another strange plant, the dipcadi, which is not unlike a bluebell except that it has bells of a pale, reddish-brown which have the effect of making it merge into the background, almost like a camouflage.
Because of the spring flowers, we also see many species of butterflies, including two types of swallowtail and the colourful festoon, which is in danger of extiction. Our water reservoirs attract large numbers of dragonflies and damselflies and the surrounding woodland and grassland provides a habitat for a huge number of winged insects, many of which are very striking, such as the ant-lion and butterly-lion; most beautiful of all, though, is the fairy-like, thread lacewing which has long, distinctive tail streamers. In July and August the high-pitched, whirring and trilling sounds made by the crickets, grasshoppers and similar insects are deafening. Identification of insects can be quite difficult because there are so many in this country that one out of every three species has yet to be recorded.

The land bordering the river Toba, which runs through the valley of Los Guájares down to the river Guadalfeo, is lush with all kinds of vegetation. As well as avocados, vines and olives, there are nispero trees in abundance. The fruit is not unlike a combination of peach and apricot and is versatile because not only can it be preserved but also can be incorporated into a number of savoury dishes; there is another tree, the nispola, which bears a similar, but much larger fruit. The unusual weather pattern of this spring favoured the nispolas and nisperos and visitors coming into the village couln’t fail to be impressed by the spectacular combination of the bright yellow fruits, the big swathes of red poppies and the luxuriant, green foliage. Although growers welcomed the rain, and the wild flowers which it produced were lovely to see, it has, nevertheless, brought problems. The verdant greenery which covered the mountain slopes in spring has been parched by the hot, June sun so that it is now tinder dry and since it needs only one carelessly discarded cigarette butt to start a fire, it’s not difficult to imagine the consequences. In the mountainous province of Granada there are many pine-covered slopes which, in the dry summer months, are very vulnerable to fire and during that time it’s not unusual to see the little red and yellow fire-fighting planes buzzing to and fro with their cargo of water. It’s a dangerous operation and the pilots must be not only very skillful but also very brave.

My nearest neighbours are a pair of short-toed eagles. They have made their untidy, treetop nest near the ridge of a towering, declivitous rock and I often see them flying low above the house scanning for snakes, lizards and other reptiles. It’s a pity that so many people have an aversion to snakes because they are really quite beautiful in their way. My favourite reptiles are the big lizards which bask on rocks in the sun and dart away in a flash of olive green when they’re startled. I’m also fond of the geckos and enjoy watching them on summer nights; they position themselves close to the lights outside the house so that they can catch the moths which are attracted there.
As well as the wild flowers, the climate of Guájar Alto is ideal for the cultivation of garden plants, especially roses, which are in flower here for much of the year. Daturas grow quickly into attractive trees, hung with giant, scented trumpets and in spring and early summer there are gorgeous lilies in all the gardens. Jasmine - both summer and winter varieties - is everywhere and no garden is complete without the shrub galán de noche, the tiny, greenish-white flowers of which open after dusk, filling the summer nights with a sweet, voluptuous scent. I’ve been experimenting with summer annuals to try to find out which ones ‘do’ in this area and I’ve produced from seed some lovely cosmos daisies, annual dahlias, godetias and so on and my calendulas self-seed themselves and flower all the year round, providing winter colour. In the village, people fill their patios with green plants, the most popular being the aspidistra, to provide summer shade and pots of geraniums fill every window ledge.

The Moors who discovered the valley of Los Guájares called it ‘an oasis between the mountains’ and it was they who first cultivated the area. The fertile soil combined with the water from the river Toba, as well as the water which flows underground from the high sierras, enabled them to be self-sufficient. We still collect our drinking water, which is of outstanding quality, from the public fountains in the village which were made by the same, Moorish inhabitants all those centuries ago.

Most of the wild flowers have faded now but, thanks to the late rains, the poppies linger on in splashes of vivid red among the dried, waving stipa grasses, while wild delphiniums, of the same intense blue as their cultivated cousins, continue to flower alongside the stony mountain tracks. Although we’ve enjoyed an exceptionally lovely spring, whatever the season, whatever the weather, Guájar Alto is one of the most beautiful places in the province of Granada.