Posts Tagged ‘fiesta’

Today is martes de campo (country Tuesday), a holiday for those of us who work in Oviedo. It was in early May last year and it was chilly… this year it isn’t.

The UV index around midday was 8 (in the UK I thought it only went up to 5… ah well, maybe I’ve got my data from a different scale). The sun was a little fierce so I kept to the shade as I wandered with my camera. In Parque San Francisco, in the city centre, people began queuing for bollos preñados (bread baked with a chorizo inside) and wine… the traditional picnic fare for today. There was a bigger queue at the Saturn van (Saturn is a big electronics retailer, think Dixons) for their free straw hats.

Bands of pipers marched through the streets, followed by bands of other stripes, cuban, jazz and the like. The sun made a big difference.

I sat on the grass watching the goings on, with a bottle of cider (if I’m going to have a bottle to myself, cider is a better choice than wine), practicing my pouring and munching on chorizo-y bread.

Days off are lovely.

Despite all of the religious processions and the solemnity of the Easter week happenings in León, what attracts many people there, according to our students, is the San Genarín parade. This is rather the opposite of the hooded penitents.

According to wikipedia  In 1929 on Maundy Thursday night, a poor alcoholic called Genaro Blanco was run over by the first rubbish truck in León. The procession consists of a march through the city bearing Orujo at the head of the procession; at the spot by the face of the city walls where the man was run over…

The procession has three main figures, el Genarín himself, in the photo, followed by death and finally a prostitute. After them comes a crowd of drunks piling round the city following the old feller’s example (I din’t see any rubbish trucks though). I took this shot at 12:40 or so, the cathedral square was packed, despite the showers, and the drinking continued in the old part of the city until the bars closed at five.

We had been thinking of going to León to see the processions for Easter, but lethargy and basic lack of will meant that when we looked at the buses and trains, they were all full for the days we wanted to travel. “No problem,” said one of Liz’s students, “We’re off to León, we’ll give you a lift.” That left one little problem.

No hotel, and a lift there on Thursday, back on Friday.

The processions at Easter are a really big deal, more in the South than the North, but the processions in León are classed as ‘of international touristic importance’ or some such. The ones in Oviedo are rather smaller (Asturias is a bit less religious than Castilla y León).

Never mind, we thought, we’ll just stay in bars, the last procession starts at midnight so that’ll be no problem (the verb for that in Spanish is the title of this post).

So that’s what we did. León is a lovely little city, lots of bars and restaurants, and we spent a day wandering and having the odd corto (a very small beer, between 15cl and 20cl) with which they always give you a tapa (according to one friend, people never eat at home in León).

We saw the processions. There are dozens over the Easter week, different brotherhoods of penitents, each dressed in different robes carry big tableaux (up to 70 people carrying the bigger ones, called pasos, which show scenes from the passion). The hoods originated in the middle ages, when people needed to do penance but didn’t want to be recognised (oooh look, there’s that Juan Fernando Ramirez Rodriguez again, what’s he done this time).

By 6am we were reduced to waiting for the chocolate shop to open so we could get warm, with chocolate and churros for brekkie, then off to find a good spot to watch the early morning Good Friday procession. We overheard one lady saying that she had been at the corner we eventually parked ourselves at for fifty years running. It was a good spot, facing a narrow street that the pasos only just fitted in. The procession went past us for almost two hours (thanks to my catholic upbringing, and the stations of the cross as an altar boy (monaguillo in Spanish) I could identify all of the scenes. The pasos are huge, incredibly ornate and gothically concerned with protraying anguish and suffering. I’ll be posting a few images on flickr over the next few days.

The robes do, however, put me in mind of various things ranging from Fremen (see the original covers of Dune), Ming’s troops in Flash Gordon, the klan (who stole the designs from Spain) and wizards. And makes me wonder, how come Ireland, which was pretty darn catholic, doesn’t have this sort of thing?

This week was carnival. Unsurprisingly they do things differently here: no Jif lemon day for a start (mind you that’s not a major problem because you can get pancakes most places). Instead they do carnival, and not just on fat Tuesday either, they spread it out so in Avilés it was on Saturday, in Gijon on Tuesday and in Oviedo yesterday. We went with Maria Jesús and Covadonga to Avilés last week for the early part of the evening, a parade of floats combined with a lot of foam. They said that pretty much everyone is in fancy dress and they weren’t kidding. It’s unusual to see so many adults in costume without the aid of alcohol. The yoot turned up in waterproofs and had fun in the foam and water cannons, then went home and changed into their costumes.

Oviedo is said to be much tamer, although they too had a parade of floats (sans foam this time) and folk in costume. There was a drumming nun troupe (silver habits and faces, I don’t think any of them had actually taken holy orders and there was the group of non-politically-correct burka-wearing folk (whose burkas were fashioned from vyleda mop material…

Then later, in the street, there were hordes of yoot again in fancy dress, again without the support of excess alcohol. We saw doctors, nurses, mini mouses, Jasons, Princes Valiant, Spider men, hippies, TV heads, cats, dogs, cowboys and girls, cross dressers and chickens… all doing what they normally do on Saturday nights, only in costume. I did feel a little craving for some Jif lemon though…

Walking around the city the last few days I’ve seen various preparations going on. Bars are suddenly sprouting extra outdoor bars, plazas are getting stages built in them, the park has a new children’s play area. All of this is for San Mateo, Oviedo’s big annual fiesta. It runs from the 12th through to the 21st and, despite my students rubbishing the lineup, I’m quite looking forward to it. Every day there’s kids stuff in the park, there’s theatre, there are concerts, both free and not free. I read in the paper that the council is being very serious this year about the noise pollution, and that the live music will have to finish by 2:30am on weeknights and by 5:30am at the weekends.

Among the artists playing the free gigs by the cathedral are Tomatito, Estrella Morente and Amaparanoia (all of whom I’d pay to see). On the 19th it’s the Day of the Americas in Asturias and the flags are being hung right now. There’s going to be a big parade. One of my students said that I should try the bocadillos (sandwiches, but made with crusty bread) especially the calamares. She was chuffed to learn the alliterative squid sandwich translation.

The photo is from the opening speech/fireworks/Asturian anthem/holding up of a chicken in which the dean of the university gave a speech which basically went like this:- Oviedo, it’s great, we love it, aren’t we lucky to live in such a great city, I mean it’s bloomin fantastic, and when we do this again next year let’s hope that Real Oviedo are in the second division (that would be an upwards move, and that got the biggest round of applause), viva Oviedo, viva San Mateo.

The holding up of the chicken made the front page of today’s paper, I have yet to read it to figure out just what that was all about.

We were in a cafe (what’s new) the other day and Liz saw in the paper that this weekend was the sardine festival at Cándas. So of course we had to go. Cándas is a small seaside town that used to be a fishing village and now is a tourist town with a smattering of hotels and a good few bars. Every year (for the last 40 or so) they’ve had a festival to celebrate sardines.

We wandered up to the fiesta and had a good look round, there were five stalls, each run by a different local restaurant or bar. According to the paper they would each be grilling 5000 sardines each day of the festival. We could smell it from some way off. We picked our stall based on two things… one we knew the restaurant and two there were the shortest queues. So we went for the dozen sardines and a bottle of cider, for the tradition is to accompany the sardines with cider. A very friendly chap behind the bar gave us some pointers on more advanced cider drinking, apparently you have to pour it down your throat, rather than gulp it down, you have to be smooth (mas suave he said). After that he sold us on the corn bread rather than the white bread, and he was right, the slightly sweet corn bread went really well with the sardines. Liz asked for cutlery only to be told to use her hands and to be given a small demo on how to eat grilled sardines with your fingers. Oh my they were delicious, absolutely fantastic, and as we dug in, a couple of the folks behind the bar, including the grill chief, came over to see how we found them (muy ricas, we said). Friendly guy behind the bar kept pouring the culetes of cider, he was trying to get us smashed I’m sure. In the middle of all this a few dozen vespa riders came past in formation and we ended up chatting with a few of them, they got free sardines for being part if the parade but they were from Madrid so they didn’t know sidra, and we all ended up drinking a fair amount as we polished off the fish (and I cannot stress enough… they were absolutely gorgeous, there was much finger licking (a mix of lemon, cider and sardines mmmm). Then the friendly chap forced us to pour our own… Liz’s expression is a mixture of frustration and cider fuelled giggles.

The upshot was, we were both a little tipsy and full of oily fish as we got on the bus back to Oviedo.

Martes de Campo Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

The local freesheet said that Tuesday had been marked on a lot of calendars since the beginning of the year. It’s called Martes de Campo (or La Fiesta de la Balesquida, or el Día del Bollo). I asked a student a while back what happened and she said that you go to the country and eat a Bollo, a bread roll stuffed with a chorizo, you drink wine or sidra and… well that was it really. At nine this morining there were some really loud rockets from the park two blocks away, that carried on every hour or so until 2. In the park the Balesquida was underway, this, I gathered is a form of skittles/bowling where the solid wooden ball is thrown underarm, high into the air, towards the skittles, which are in a set on sand. The ball is thrown with a spin and doesn’t bounce very much. It looked pretty hard. There was a lot of folk music, a few marching bands wandering round the park, the members of the Oviedo Balesquida club had a huge marquee and were dishing out Bollos and wine like there was no tomorrow. The paseo del Bombé (the wide French style boulevard in the park) was packed. Young and old were tucking into their Bollos, chatting away, having a fine time. And it’s only a holiday here in Oviedo. If you live here and work in Gijón for example, you’re out of luck… but you’ll get your holiday some other time.

The Bollo I had was lovely, warm and the chorizo juice was like blood from a fine rare steak… I needed paper towels for my greasy greedy chin…

I think, like Jorge said, we’re gonna need a thicker rope….

Fair’s fair Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

This weekend there are a few bits and pieces going on thanks to it being the ascension. In the cathedral square there has been an invasion from the countryside. There are stalls selling leather, silver, rides on donkeys and horses. There are cows being milked, horseshoes being forged, the sound of the pipes all over the place. All of the stallholders seem to be in traditional dress (which includes studded clogs: wooden ones with four great big studs like pillars… I saw someone in a field wearing them when I went to Quiros climbing with Jorge, studs are a good idea in the mud I guess). I wandered around with my camera, bumped into one of my students who was very pleased to tell me that now I had to speak spanish.

In the next plaza there were more stalls, only this time food. I wandered around trying all the stuff that my Asturias guidebook had mentioned, like the Buckwheat ‘escanda’ bread, frixuelos (pancakes), chorizos and cheeses from lots of different valleys. I ended up getting some lovely creamy cows milk cheese called uno de los caserinos and a boar chorizo which has a fine kick. I also tried something I’d seen mentioned in a couple of places, leche frita, fried milk. It’s sort of a set milk (like a custard but without vanilla) that’s then battered and fried with a sweet crunchy batter with cinnamon. It was one of those things you know you have to eat when you see it and it was lovely, soft and creamy and bad for the teeth, I had to wash it down with some sidra dulce (apple juice as far as I can tell).

Up above the railway station there was another big group of marquees, one of which was full of cheese sellers, and another which was put up by the Brotherhood of cheesemakers (I want an application form, they have cloaks and stuff). There was a lot of chorizo, a lot of cabrales cheese and some anchovy specialists looking out of place (I bought some, it was so nice, without being salty).

According to the guidebook there are seventy or so food festivals, which, as the mathematically astute will know, works out to more than one a week. Next week, for example, in Santoloaya de Cabranes they’re having the 24th festival of Arroz con Leche; that would be rice pudding… Not only that, it’s a three dayer, starting on Friday. There’s a €200 prize for the best pud, this is not Ambrosia country here… (have a look at www.cabranes.es if you like). It’s not just food, there’s a five day gold panning competition in July among other things.