In my century-old Baedecker’s Spain and Portugal guide 496 pages are given to Spain and 82 are dedicated to neighbouring Portugal. This may seem a touch unfair, but given that the population of Spain in 1900 was around 18.5 million and Portugal 5.5 million, and given that Spain is 5.5 times bigger than Portugal, one could argue on the fairness of this distribution. The simple fact is that, despite its brilliance and culinary delights, Portugal is smaller and has less to see.
Read moreSherry days in Jerez.
The word ‘sherry’ conjures up in the mind a menagerie of wrongs. It is usually thought of as a sickly sweet dessert wine that grandma drinks at Christmas; pouring a little dram out of the bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream that has been sitting there for years, the alcohol all evaporated off and with sugar crystals sticking the cap on. This is not the sherry that confronts the visitor in Spain.
Read moreFeasting in Bulgaria’s Thracian Lowlands!
Bulgaria is not a name that conjures up the idea of European gastronomy. One leaves that to France, Spain, Greece, Turkey. The Balkans alway brought to mind a people between Slavic and gypsy and Mediterranean. An area of wars and power struggles; from the Ottomans to the struggles in Kosovo. An area where there used to be a place called Yugoslavia. The last thing on anyone’s mind was ‘oh, but the food!’.
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