Morning walk in Seville, October 1990

English – Español

The steam from the little churro kiosk rises through the cool morning air. Pink marble and stainless steel. Large open windows all around. The man is busy with his gleaming equipment beside the park next to the old hospital that is being converted into the Andalusian Parliament. He turns long levers with red plastic knobs at their ends. The machine presses out a long strand of white dough into the simmering oil. There it forms a fine spiral in the broad, shallow pan.

The churrero carries himself with a proud bearing despite his heavy waist, and every movement breathes self-confidence. When he takes hold of the metre-long wooden paddles, one in each hand, raises them and then lowers them into the boiling oil, he does so with the same grace as when a banderillero lowers his banderillas into the bull’s neck. Involuntarily, one murmurs, “¡Olé!”, as the man turns the half-metre-wide spiral of fried dough, now firm and crisp.

Early-morning friends stand in a small group around him, their hands thrust deep into their jacket pockets. It is ten degrees this October morning in Seville. Our picador rocks on the soles of his feet, enjoying being the centre of attention, stirs the oil, straightens his back and raises his chin. Gestures with his arms, rubs his hands together and wipes them on a towel.

Now he lifts the beautifully golden-yellow spiral from the oil, lets it drip, and with the help of his long crossed wooden sticks passes it to his woman, standing beside him in the kiosk, dressed in black with a white lace apron and a golden diadem in her hair. Cheap reproductions of La Virgen hover above her head. With energetic cuts she chops it into suitable pieces, folds cones from thick paper, fills them and throws them onto a scale. Reads the weight and takes the money. Quickly, efficiently and without interest.

A woman stands in the queue in a blue checked dressing gown and red felt slippers. Newly awakened but eager schoolgirls converse animatedly while waiting their turn. A middle-aged gentleman in a dark blue cardigan and with an important appearance pushes ahead, stretches his arm across the counter and waves a coin while impatiently stamping his foot. Nobody pays any attention to him, but he manages to gain precedence anyway. One begins to worry that he will lose his job if he does not get his churros and arrive at work on time. But once he has his filled cone, he walks calmly into Casa Manolo across the street, sits down at a table against the wall and orders coffee.

Now he has all the time in the world.

Our own breakfast finished, and our greasy fingers wiped on tissue-thin paper napkins, we step out into the street to cross La Ronda, the ring road around the inner city. It is already pulsing with orange buses, black-and-yellow taxis, mopeds, motorcycles and private cars. People on their way everywhere. We wait for the green light and weave between honking cars towards Caesar’s old city wall, passing through the Macarena Gate with the church on our right. Now it becomes a little quieter, and we wander into the narrow, winding streets on our way towards the meat, fish and vegetable market.

In one of the narrow alleys, until a couple of months ago, stood one of the city’s most picturesque, forgotten and inconspicuous restaurants. Two small marble tables and a black-and-white television. Behind the worn but solid bar counter of heavy wood, a young man held sway, and in the one-square-metre kitchen, his mother.

The speciality of the house: grilled quail.

I myself had never eaten quail before, but I was eagerly encouraged by my companion, Carmen. She enjoyed being my cicerone, and so I patiently ate the little head on its stalk-like neck, although I did not find the crunching sound entirely appetising. The rest tasted wonderful, together with fried green peppers and plenty of red wine from Rioja.

And so we approach the market and emerge onto a small square. A pair of long, tall, white buildings house this gourmet cathedral. Outside, fresh, glistening and crawling snails are sold from a little stall beside another selling women’s underwear. A doctor in a white coat has a small table in front of him with a blood-pressure monitor and offers his services beside the flower stall. The egg shop stands opposite the costume-jewellery shop.

Inside the temple, on the white marble counters of the fish section—which alone is as large as a church—prawns, mussels, squid, sardines, flatfish, swordfish, tuna and trout glisten. A dozen different olive preparations slosh in large bowls in the passage to the meat section. White, furry-looking tripe to be prepared with chickpeas, oxtails, cows’ feet and pigs’ trotters, plucked and unplucked birds, blood sausage and garlic sausage, lard and pork rind, cured hams from black-hoofed and white-hoofed pigs, dried fish, cheese in oil, mushrooms, kiwifruit and grapes. Chestnuts, bananas and melons, sweet potatoes, gourds and peaches.

A murmur like no other, echoing beneath the high vaults and between marble counters and white tiles.

Knives flash, aprons become bloodstained, and the vegetables spread a wonderful fragrance. Cherimoya, pomegranates and mint, lavender, leeks and the blind men’s lottery. Rubbish, cardboard boxes and prams, flies, plastic bags and the largest St Bernard I have ever seen.

We rescue ourselves from all this sensual pleasure and step out onto Calle Feria, walking a couple of blocks towards the centre. Here too things have begun to stir.

Blas walks around sniffling, hunched over in a checked jacket, grey trousers and trainers. A face like an old, furrowed wolf. A cigarette with a long column of ash in the middle of his mouth. He wipes beneath his nose with the palm of his hand and, with dragging footsteps, almost ritually lays out whatever he has come across during his nightly search through the city’s rubbish bins.

On a plastic sheet protecting against the morning dew of the street, he places a few stapled detective novels, a year’s worth of the magazine War Machines, a broken radio, a door lock with a key which he absent-mindedly turns without anything happening, an old car radio, a lamp…

A silver-grey Citroën glides past, sounding its horn demandingly. At the wheel sits a fat man sucking on a thick cigar.

It is eight o’clock in the morning and the Thursday market on Calle Feria has begun.

Across the street, on folding camping tables, they sell genuine American contraband cigarettes from Romania, razors, soaps, batteries, Dutch cheeses, toothpaste and butter in tins.

One man has a small piece of cardboard in front of his feet with five knives on it. Someone sells pirated cassette tapes and has already, with the help of a car battery, begun spreading music across the street. Copies of old black-and-white photographs of famous matadors, a knife grinder sharpening a pair of scissors, hats and berets, zips, yarn and sewing thread, a homemade set of weightlifting equipment, a little green window with iron bars.

At Plaza de Monte-Sión, where antique furniture is sold, we step into Casa Vizcaíno, where bottles of anisette, cognac and ponche stand ready on the bar, waiting to drive the sleep and cold from the blood.

Here we park ourselves for a while, contemplating the slowly growing crowd outside the open façade.