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At their house, his partner Rosa prepares something very Catalan. It's what everybody eats in this part of Spain. The basic version is toasted bread with tomato, salt, and olive oil. But she's using roasted vegetables, sweet red peppers, onions, and oberines, all softened and skinned. Then she puts in a couple of anchovies and more olive oil. And that with a glass of dry cherry makes a very agreeable eleven's. Antonio though is making something much more substantial for lunch. A dish from his childhood. So what's it called? This Antonio.
This is called Favas Al Catalana. Raw beans on Catalan style. So this is a typical Catalan country recipe I guess. Absolutely typical. Typical mainly in the country because this is product of the farms you know fresh even the onion you know we are using fresh onions because if we have fresh the flavor is the aromatic so you used to be a rock and roll drummer why you I used to you used to ah because I don't know you know it's a mystery passion I mean cooking is an artistic thing. I cannot paint a nice picture but I can do something here full of color. But not only color, smell, taste, everything. Everybody must do that. Why not?
He bought the new season's garlic from the market that morning and he uses the green stem as well as the bulb. Now this is the ham bone. When you finish eating the American ham, you put this. This to me is very important because this reforms the flavor and give you the oldfashioned flavor like granny used to do. I remember when I was child and give this special taste. Put a ham bone. Now fresh broad beans. This is the centerpiece of his dish at the start of the season. They're highly revered and quite rightly I just love them and they go so well with ham and fatty bacon and some fresh mint.
So what's that? Is that going in now? The secret. And what is it? Uh this is anet. Oh yeah. That's a new one on me. And now stock. Chicken stock. How long are we going to cook it for then? Uh 25 30 minutes. Okay. They used to put piece of paper on top. Uhhuh. And this. And leave it minimum fire. Yeah. Chop for 25 minutes. 10 minutes before we put the sausage. And that's I'm finished.
Great. Chip chop. Antonio, while we weren't looking, puts in a couple of thin slices of belly pork. And now the black pudding, the moria. And he cooks it for a further 10 minutes. Finally, it's time, thank goodness, for lunch. It's time to drive into the very center of Spain. Well, I'm here in Lancha, and um most of the people I know that know Spain well just said to me, "Keep going when you get to Lancha. It's it's just somewhere unless you have to stop, just keep going." Um, but I rather like it because it's just these vast planes and I think there's something rather magisterial about big open spaces and also I think it's something that one has to experience if one's really to take on
board the real Spain mainly because of Donkeyote because of course this is where the book was written about and what I like is everywhere you go in La Mansion there's reference to Donote as if he was a real character, but to me it gives it makes it live because I've read the book and it is an essential part of Spain to me. But also, I'm quite impressed. I've only been here a day or so, but I've tried the wines and they're really good. And when I arrived in Lancha, I kept seeing these look like giant water bottles lying everywhere and I just thought they were, you know, for irrigating the land. But then I discovered that they were the old way of making wine, big concrete vessels. and it was al always cooked.
But now they've leared to make the wines using refrigeration. They're really good. For years, Lancha produced largely cooked wines. In those stone vats, it overheated in the sun, so it tasted almost stewed. Virtually all the grapes were tempano for red and aren for white. But now they're growing other varieties like Cabernet serving, which goes really well with tempano. We're not talking about highriced wines here, but good wines worthy of anyone's consideration. I've come to meet up at the Campo Decryptana vineyards with someone who knows about these wines, Haimey Bua, who's a wine writer from Madrid. right
now uh being the largest vineyard in the world as it is uh it was about time that some uh curious people or people with passion said no I'm going to make good wine here and here they have something that is unique is you have all the sun that you can get you can achieve that and this has been like this for 400 years the main producer in Spain is the core of Castillia the core of Spain and the core of Spanish wine. You speak really passionately about lancha and you obviously not only care about your wine making but also this country where you live. What does it mean to you?
Lancha is dry, is flat. Lancha is a place that is very far from the mountains, very far from the sea, but very close to the sky. And you see that we have sky all over. That's our main weapon. We have the sky and the sun and this flatness and with that possibility then the only thing you have to do here as a way maker is to tame the sun and this has been like this for 400 years. Haimey talks about taming the sun. By that he means the pickers start at 5 in the morning and finish before the sun reaches its height. Then they'll start again when the grapes are cooler. So if you're going into a supermarket back
home and you want a good deal, you want something that's really good value, lancha every time. Castillia, I often wonder about the ingenuity of mankind when it comes to food. Who'd have thought that the stammans of this little flower could enrich the dishes of the world? They call it the red gold of Lancha and the harvest takes place in October. Usually it's carved up by family groups. Sometimes there'll be three generations and each family would hope to get something like 8 lbs of pure saffron a season. That's worth its weight in gold.
More in fact. The stammans are dried very gently over an ordinary domestic heater and then they're ready to use in such classic dishes as fabada. And where would pyella be without saffron? Another culinary icon of lancha is manego cheese made from used milk. Traditionally, the cheese was eaten by the shepherds to sustain them. The thing about manego is that it's amazingly tasty and keeps for a long time. Anyone from Lancha disdains elaborate accompaniment with their prize cheese only membing the shepherd Donosio Sanchez about growing up in Lancha and what he ate as a child.
Basically, he said in the morning they'd have hot, which was slices of potatoes fried in olive oil. Then at night it would be beans cooked with chito and bacon. This would be on the stove gently cooking all day while they were out with the sheep. Oh, and wine. So to those friends who told me to give Lancher a miss and head straight down to the coast, I say unto thee, I think you've got it wrong. This place is utterly magical, and it fits the Spanish love of myths and legends. With halfclosed eyes, you can see why the courageous but slightly mad Doniote thought these were giants. Of course, they're giants. What do you think they are? Windmills?
I can't think of a fictional character more important to a nation so loved and cherished and understood by all that at the very mention of his name over here a knowing almost loving smile appears on the face of whoever you may be talking to at the time. I like this. This is what first greets you when you come into the inn. The sun began to usher in the mourn when Don Kiotei salied out of the inn, so well pleased, so gay, and so overjoyed to find himself kned, that he infused the same satisfaction into his horse, who seemed ready to burst his girths for joy. In the book, it was the landlord of this tavern who nighted Donkeyote while he was very, very drunk. But the famous novel is peppered with culinary anecdotes because food
played an important part in the conversations between the knight and his fat squire. Kiote said, "While I'm eating, I know nothing, but when I finished eating, I begin to understand." One of the most famous dishes mentioned in the book is Pisto Manchego, a dish of fried vegetables in a sauce topped with a couple of fried eggs. Well, I really don't think Lancha would be La Mancha without Doniote and without Santi's enormous imagination. I mean, I feel we all feel very personal about Spain. I mean, I was just watching all these Japanese tourists going through here and there was they Well, do they know that it was a work of fiction? Do they know
that this in was only a fictional idea of where a donkeyote received his knighthood? They probably don't. I don't know. Does it matter? Because I think sort of Spain to me, my Spain is the same sort of place as Doniote Spain. It's a sort of lost world of idealistic people, of innocence. I mean Doniote himself was gentle, was idealistic, was altruistic and he was lost. I mean he was mad and he was deluded. But somehow that has enormous strength to us all really. I think we we yearn for a world where those values existed and sadly it's vanishing from Spain today. What I really like about making these programs is so obviously we have a bit of an, you know, schedule and places to go. But what I really like is just
finding people by chance, just as I did down in the square in Trillia just now, a New Zealand couple called Chris and Lindy who said, "Oh, you've got to film this guy Victor. He makes really good MGAS, but he's got this really old a lotment just under the castle walls." He said, "There's no other there's none left like And I just come up here and it's just wonderful cuz because he actually he's almost self-sufficient in fruit and vegetables and I sort of walked through into this sort of Aladdin's cave really. I mean it's like the ultimate shed and he's cook now cooking these migas for me and Migas are legendary in Spain. Anyway, after frying garlic and peppers, Victor puts in strips of cured belly pork. And
through an interpreter, I asked him about his love of cooking. Where did it come from? Amazingly, he said that he was left alone when he was only a little boy of 7 years old because his parents had to move cattle to the cooler lands further north. They went away for weeks at a time. He had to look after himself and it became necessary to cook things like migas and patatas braavas and other simple dishes. He also puts in charito and soon these strips of belly pork are cooked. Now the main point of this dish, the breadcrumbs, he splashed them with water and they go into the oil which has been flavored by all that garlic, peppers,
chero, all the strong flavors of Spain. What I like is the fact that he's got well in addition to those peppers and of course they're the local pimentoon peppers, lots of garlic. You never would have put as much. Lots of olive oil and then really fat belly pork and lots of spicy chara. I mean it's it's that combination. I wouldn't have got it. And also I got the breadcrumbs too small. They are quite chunky. They're not really breadcrumbs. They're just bits of cut up bread. So I can't wait to try it. This is the food of the poor. And like many dishes, it originated with the shepherds ages ago. Even Cantes wrote
about the joys of Migas or Mihas for the afficionados. It's probably the oldest dish in the whole of Spain. [clears throat] Well, this is Chris and Lindy who I met down in the square who put me on to this. I must say I'm very pleased. It looks great. It's a shame that most of us has lost the use of bread really, isn't it? It's all always regarded as a sort of bit of a ancillary whereas to the Spanish it's absolutely at the center of their cooking. I really surprised to see you down there because you know it seems so sort of remote here. I mean um what brings you so far away from the normal tourist track then for most people who live in other countries they think of Spain as being a bit like a polo mint
that there's lots around Losta. Very good. There's nothing in the middle with but there is lots in the middle. There's lots and lots of history, Roman history, wonderful architecture, wonderful people, and especially wonderful food. Natural food. Being Seville, I had to go to the most authentic Flamco bar I could find. Not one where all the tourists turn up in buses, but one tucked away where the true afficionados of Flamco go. My god, it's cramped. I have no clue. Not the slightest of what is being sung. It could be about a lost love or a lost cat. But I do know that Flamco is purely about melancholy, tragedy mixed with fury and passion.
The singer and dancer both take risks that expose their true innermost feelings. And when that happens, the audience shout o to show they've been touched by duende. Seville is a city of the night. They don't eat dinner till way after 10:00. And any good evening here starts with the allimportant Tapas. Well, there's no doubt that Tapas came from this part of Spain. And actually, this is the oldest Tapas bar in Spain. Founded in 1670. It's probably worth mentioning how Tapas came the word where it came from. And you can imagine this
is in Seville is really dusty and hot in the summer. And they just used to serve obviously glasses of cherry and wine with a little cover which might be a bit of bread and it was like the top the tapas and it grew from that for to start with just to cover it then you'd start eating it then you get a bit on top of the bread and so it became the tapas that we know and love today. I've come to meet Roger Davis a Welshman who fell in love with Ander Lucia and its food and now lives here full time. By far the most popular drink in pretty much all the tapas bars here is feno. A refreshingly cold dry sherry.
Here you go. Cheers, Roger. Very nice. Perfect drink in a tapas bar. Yeah. Excellent. Lovely tapas. A fantastic place. Is this your favorite? It's definitely I say one of my favorites. I mean you need fantastic. I mean look at these hams here. I know. You know, they've been buying the grandfather of the people who run it now started buying these hams from the grandfather of the owner of the ham factory in 1933. So they've been buying that for nearly 80 years. They've been working with the same producer. So that's incredible.
What really makes a bill for you then? What is so special about Well, it's I mean look at the atmosphere here. people. Is this like is it this like a normal Yeah. Look, every Friday, Saturday night, it's like this like people like to be out. People like to enjoy themselves. I mean, here you can be at home, a couple of friends call you and in half an hour you got a party organized and you'd be like, "How many like tonight if you were with a bunch of friends, how many tapers?" Well, we'd probably go to four or five different bars. We'd come here, we'd have a drink, a few tappers, and depending on what one we'd want to eat, we'd go from one place to another. See, that's what I think doesn't work about tapas bars elsewhere.
You don't have enough. You need lots of them. Exactly. You have to be able to walk from one through that. I mean, Cilla has got more than 3,000 tapas bars. Says it all, really, isn't it? And if you want to eat cheese, well, you go to this bar or that bar. If you want to have seafood, you go to another place. This one's ham presumably. Yeah. Here for ham, for a lot of traditional tapas, things like uh spinach and chickpeas, the cheeks from the Aarian pig, cotton tomato. They have superb cheese here. I mean, absolutely brilliant.
This place was immortalized by an English writer called Gerald Brennan, who came here having lived through the horrors of the First World War. He wrote a book called South from Granada, which turned out to be the inspiration for the couple I'm going to see, Chris and Anna Stewart. Chris was the first drummer in Genesis. But more important than that, he wrote an international bestseller called Driving Over Lemons, a book I love about living up here and being self-sufficient. I thought that was someone about to take a pot shot at me. It's so far off the beaten track. See you. Cheers. You're welcome.
Hello. Well, you must be Chris. And you must be Rick. Anna. Yeah, it's a big moment. This is a bigger moment for us than it is for you, really. But gosh. Well, I bought you some gifts from Lancho. I was just trying to think. Well, these people gave us loads of garlic. I mean, loads of garlic. I'm sure you've got lots of garlic, but um not this year. No, that's really Yeah, we've had a bad year. And that'll keep us going. That'll keep us going for a couple of weeks, I'd say. I thought I hear you're going to do us a while. Um stew are you? Is that right? Yes. Yes, we are. So we got some lancha wine as well. Oh, holy. So yeah, just the right thing for a wild boar stew. Well, I didn't realize it was
going to be quite so far away. I mean, I've read your book and I loved it, but um it is a really remote. There's something sort of rounchy and natural about it. We like it that way. Chris's lunch is going to start with a tablet made with bular wheat. Tabul down in Australia, tabul. [snorts] But today we'll have tabolet, I think. Right. So, what normally you do is you get a lemon. You cut it in half and you'd squeeze it through your hand like this.
Lemon squeezes are for wusses. Nicely using lemons because after all, I wouldn't want to see you cooking with anything bad. Absolutely not. No lemons, as you can imagine, are a big part of our lives. So, where did you get the inspiration for Driving Over Lemons? The title. It's a good title, isn't it? Yeah. Really good. And the book sellers will tell you the important thing about a book is the title and the cover. The stuff that appears in a book is not really neither here nor there. But it came because as you might have
noticed when you drove in through Tikola, the village, there's a lot of lemon trees overhanging the road. And after a wind when the lemons are ripe, hundreds of them fall on the road. It is it's like driving over a mat of lemons. And when I first came here, I couldn't bring myself to drive over them because a lemon in a British supermarket cost you about four bob back in those days. And so I would stop and go round each lemon until somebody said, "No, drive over lemons." And nowadays I do. I drive over lemons because there's just so many lemons about there. Great title.
You did crack it. Yeah. I think it was a good title. That Chris was worried about stealing my limelight as a TV cook, but I was overjoyed to watch somebody else do it. He seasons the wheat with salt and black pepper and then chopped onion from their garden and now tomatoes. He swears by these local tin ones because the wild boar can't get at these and the fresh ones aren't in their prime yet. So that's it. That's the tab she stands at the moment. And we just let her sit around and the bulgar wheat would now absorb the juice from his tomatoes and the onion [snorts] and the lemon juice. And then at the last minute, 5
minutes where you're going to serve, you chop up your mint and you chop up your parsley. And then you drizzle oil all over the top of it. And then and if you're really lucky, you sprinkle it with pomegranates. That's how we can do that. We live in pomegranate country. Not only pomegranates, but their own almonds lightly toasted and sprinkled with pimenon. And then the peppers deep fried in olive oil and served with sea salt. Here's a lovely salad with pine nuts, poppy seeds, and edible flowers. This is the life that his book describes. And I'm beginning to feel I'm part of it. But first, we start with a tablet with mint and parsley and those pomegranate seeds that shine like rubies. Peace.
