29. Almonds

If almonds were not called almonds they would be called by another name that would sound the same. Almond, amande, almendra, mandorla, amendoa … A nut that is exotic and desirable, pure white when stripped of its coverings, sweet but sometimes bitter, capable of killing – a femme fatal of nuts. Mediterranean and Middle-Eastern. North African, too. But not of the cold northern climes: she leaves those to the oily walnut and the hazel.

High on the dry southern slopes of El Hierro the almond trees are the first, with their cousins the apricots and the nectarines, to blossom. Sometimes as early, individual teasers, as New Year’s Eve, but normally in February, and thousands of almond trees dress El Pinar in white and pink.

A snowfall of petals from almond trees. They blossom before the leaves appear.

These trees were once essential to the subsistence economy of the area but today the harvesting of almonds seems to be undertaken only by romantic old traditionalists: shelled almonds from California are bigger and quite cheap in the supermarkets. But what can you expect, a cake or praline made with your own almonds tastes so much better – I’ll swear to that!

Beating the almonds from the tree.

The almond tree doesn’t give up her precious fruit so easily. The almonds are about ready for harvesting in September when the husks start splitting open like clams to reveal what remained hidden for so long. Of course, you could spend all month gently picking the fruit one by one, but she likes to be beaten with long sticks. This causes a shower of hard green lumps the size of big plums to pelter the children gathering them off the ground underneath and, at the same time, prunes the tree of dry and dead twigs. Next the husks have to be prized off the hard shell of the nut – if it’s too early they stick and if it’s too late they are too hard and dry. 

Even my little grandaughter does her bit. Although
she prefers shelling the nuts to husking them as
she is doing here.

Then the nuts in their shells have to be dried in the sun to avoid fungus during storage. Later, when you want to use them you have to crack open the hard shell without breaking the kernel inside. The little girl in the photo does it perfectly every time – except when she wants to eat one! Finally, most recipes call for blanched almonds stripped of the brown skin that covers the kernel. You do that by putting them in boiling water and then taking each skin off one by one. 

Curiously I know of no specifically local recipe that uses almonds predominantly. But if you're in Valverde go to the people that make "quesadillas". They make some spectacular "almendradas" - almond cakes similar to those coconut ones we all know but incredibly better.

28. Aging Rockers Never Die

When I’ve invited friends to come and stay with us on the island, several have expressed fears of a third world medical service. Understandable but unfounded. The Spanish public health service is one of the best in Europe – so much so that the government recently had to take steps to curb “medical tourism”. The Canary public health service is one of the best in Spain and, obviously, includes the service we on the island receive, both residents and visitors. Despite bad press engendered by highly visible protests by some of the sector’s professionals, many patients I have talked to have experienced an improvement in attention and general efficiency over the last few years.

There is, however, a protocol you have to follow, whether you like it or not. You have to go to your local centre of primary attention. You will be seen by a general doctor who, in most cases, will prescribe treatment. If they deem it necessary they will refer you to a specialist. On occasions, the patient will be gently bundled off in an ambulance to our hospital in Valverde. Yes, the population of the whole island is less than that of a small town anywhere else and yet we have a beautiful little hospital with resident and visiting specialists in all areas, state-of-the-art equipment, operating theatres, laboratory etc … If, at the hospital, they think it advisable you’ll be whisked off in a helicopter to the main general hospital in Tenerife. It sounds interminable, doesn’t it? But this year, two young women I know suffered strokes in the village. Within a couple of hours they were being operated on by neurosurgeons in Tenerife. One has almost completely recovered and is leading a normal life, the other has had several more operations and is in rehabilitation.

I, for my sins, suffer from a rather nasty condition. My sister, who works in a hospital in England and has something similar to my illness, was surprised by the barrage of tests I had had and the short waiting time for each. I have had two successful operations on my eyes and I continue to see the specialist in neuropathy in Tenerife. The last time, he ordered an electromyogram and NCS as soon as possible. I went to the desk to book the session. The man taking note was probably misled by my appearance after an early flight – unruly hair, haggard face, bristling moustache and braces holding up my jeans, accompanied by a fashionable young woman – for he finished his paperwork and looked at me with a smile saying “Aging rockers …”  I completed his sentence with “… never die!”
“Not if we can help it!” he added. We laughed and I got my test immediately.

Our hospital, Nuestra Señora de los Reyes, built on the only bit of flat land in Valverde.

The medicalized helicopter from Tenerife touching down in order to evacuate a patient waiting in the ambulance.

27. San Borondón

The Canary Islands from West to East, or left to right if you are looking at a map, are El Hierro, La Palma, La Gomera, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote. Some people add La Graciosa and Isla de Lobos, but these are really tiny. None of our modern maps, however, show the island of San Borondón. I don’t think this is because of military secrecy or anything like that, it’s just that every time some geographer establishes its exact coordinates it goes somewhere else. This has not always been so. Way back in the sixth century some intrepid sailors made the crossing to San Borondón. As was the habit in those days, on landing they stuck a cross and a flag in the sand and claimed the island for some king or other. The island didn’t like this and immediately submerged. The sailors just managed to get back to their boat before that too went under – they had tied it to some rocks – but for one unfortunate man who couldn’t swim. He was condemned forever to live on San Borondón, above or below water, and as soon as someone sets foot on the island he appears, chops off their head with a his cutlass and feeds their body to the fish.

A small boat for so many!
Saint Brendan on Jasconius, perhaps.
University of Augsburg, Germany 

The name, San Borondón, comes from Saint Brendan, an Irish priest. He, like another famous and earlier Irishman, Bran, mythical and most likely Celtic, set out from Ireland in about 520 A.D. to find the Blessed Isles with seventeen others in a currach made of wattle and leather. If, in fact, they did reach the Canary Islands, and many of us believe they did, the isle of the dog may well be Gran Canaria; the island of blacksmiths and the volcano sounds like Tenerife; the isle of sheep, El Hierro, and Jasconius perhaps the coming-and-going island later named in honour of the Saint.

In those times the ocean was crowded with huge sea creatures but we have hunted them to near extinction. Recently, monsters like those drawn on ancient maps have been washed up on our shores to the amazement of the press and the laboratories. A leviathan whale or a colossal squid could easily destroy a leather boat like Brendan’s. Those sailors believed. Even though the chances were they would not be coming home, they believed. And so do I. It’s necessary to believe even if it’s not rational. Perhaps you believe in Heaven or Asgarth, or that a road accident or a terrorist attack can’t happen to you, or that your husband will never find out. You may even believe in the boon of the EU. But we have to believe in things. I believe in San Borondón, in unicorns and in quite a few things you might scorn at.

Way out on the horizon you can see mountains rising above the cloud. I can swear there is no land there today
and there wasn't any yesterday. This is my last sighting of San Borondón, from my garden looking southeast
on 15th June 2016.

26. Apañada at San Andrés

San Andrés is more or less in the centre of the island. Three times a year, country people came to sell or barter their animals at the fair held there. There would be cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys and mules, pigs and even chicken. What was particular about this fair was that once a deal was struck there was no going back on it and for this reason these three fairs were known as ‘apañadas’. ‘Apañar’ is one of those numerous curious words in the Spanish language that for English speakers should really be two words that have almost contradictory meanings. ‘Apañar’ means to solve a problem, manage to get something done but it also means to do something dishonestly, deceptively.

The story goes that a man had a donkey that had found the way to avoid work. As soon as the lightest weight was loaded onto the pack saddle she would collapse to the ground and refuse to get up. At the fair he met another man with a donkey and they agreed to exchange their animals. The second man asked if there was anything wrong with our man’s beast.

“Nothing!” he said, “She’s the most intelligent animal I’ve had. As bright as my daughter! What about yours?

“Intelligent, you say! What do you know about intelligence? Mine will run circles round all of you. OK, my friend. You need a bit of luck! Here you are …” And they exchanged tethers. Back home, our man loaded his new donkey with a couple of sacks of maize and, pleased as Punch, started off down the path. It was all right when he led the animal but as soon as he tried to walk beside or behind it, the donkey left the path to move in a wide uncertain circle, tripping over roots and stones and bungling into bushes. The poor creature was blind in one eye!

About a generation or two ago the island evolved rapidly from a subsistence to a consumer economy and the apañada lost its original raison d’être. It was transformed into a general agricultural fair held once a year on the first weekend in June. The sale of animals was replaced by competitions, and representatives of firms selling oenological supplies, fertilizers and farm machinery had stands to exhibit their wares. There were also stands of local produce and handicrafts as well as promotional exhibitions run by the local authorities. Horse races and similar events were also held outside.

Because of the crisis in recent years the fair has again adapted to popular tastes and needs. The organizers program many workshops for adults, youngsters and small children – traditional sports, handicrafts etc. There is an exhibition under cover open to artisans, wineries, cheese makers, market gardeners and so on, and, outside, a host of events including horse dressage, Canary wrestling and, this year, “arrastre”, an ancient Canary sport in which a yoke of bulls pull a sled carrying up to a ton or more of weight.

It is curious how the real craftsmen are disappearing and are being replaced (if at all) by what I call pseudo-artisans. A few years ago we still had men who made real pestle-and-mortars of mulberry wood, baskets of wicker softened in the sea, wrought iron tools, fine Canary silver-handled naifes (pronounced 'knifeys'), pack saddles of hay and leather ... . Such things were inevitably expensive. Today we have cheap knick-knacks made in China, fly-curtains made with bottle-tops and the occasional craftsman from another island. It is as though the modern world, in the form of the bulls of the arrastre, is chasing the craftsmen out of the picture!
 

 
However not all is lost! This year I was surprised to see the stand of two luthiers who have a workshop on the island. They will be the subject of future post.

25. Our Wines

 A good wine is best kept in the memory.

Don Vicente’s wine was like a beautiful woman. Elegant and refined, its unblemished complexion pure pale gold, its aromas those of maturity with suggestions of a persistent springtime and a promise of sensations never to be fully known. Maybe our memory has magnified its virtues, maybe our memory falls short, but my wife and I often recall that day forty years ago in Don Vicente’s house in Sabinosa. He had made that barrel of wine sixteen years before, sixteen years untouched, peacefully evolving in the cool darkness of his little cellar.

You are unlikely to find a wine like that today. Don Vicente, one of the last really traditional winemakers, has left us and, like all the others, took his knowledge with him. So today’s winemakers have no tradition of generations behind them. They are, so to speak, still learning their craft, and their products suffer from a malaise typical of our times: they lack identity. They may be very good, but there is rarely anything intrinsic that tells you they come from El Hierro. Nevertheless, things are changing. Some of the winemakers have realized the possibilities this open situation offers and perhaps quite soon more really distinctive wines from the island will be on the market. Another advantage is that some unique pre-phylloxera varieties have been conserved on the island. Among the red varieties are Baboso Negro and Verijadiego Tinto and, among the whites, Verijadiego Blanco, Baboso Blanco and Verdello. Look out for these varieties on the labels.

Our young white wines are fresh and lively and compare favourably with any within their category. The reds have improved substantially in the last few years as the winemakers have experimented with our endemic varieties. As far as I know, there are no aged wines on the market. It’s up to you to try the wines and find those that you like best. In any case, remember these general rules:

        -    Whites: during the year following that of their harvest
        -    Rosés and Carbonic Maceration: during the first six months of the year following that of
             their harvest
        -    Reds: during the two years following that of their harvest
        -    If you can, get the advice of someone who knows what he/she is talking about

I personally believe that one of the most promising futures lies in sweet aged wines somewhat similar to ports and sherries. Our Atlantic location, our climate and varieties of grapes and, from what one reads in the accounts of visitors in centuries gone by, such wines may well mirror the real tradition of El Hierro, as Don Vicente’s did. In fact one such wine, “Salmor”, has won several awards but today it seems difficult to find.

The other day I went to visit a neighbour who has been making wine for perhaps only ten years, or less. He proudly gave me a glass of red wine: it was exceptional! Not only the best red wine from El Hierro I have ever tasted but distinctive, too. So by the time you come to the island, perhaps it is on the market and you will have found the treasure you were looking for.

Meanwhile, if you read Spanish you may like to look up our Designation of Origen site

An informal winetasting event presided over by the President of the Denominación de Origen de los vinos de El Hierro.

24. History, Part 1 : Bimbache

The Canaries are somewhere people come to but not somewhere people go from. Today we come for holidays or to retire, or to run away from something, but very few islanders leave ... voluntarily. Some time two thousand years ago, or perhaps a little longer, it was just the same. The original inhabitants came from North Africa, the part we call the Maghreb. Perhaps they were fleeing the Punic Wars or the Roman occupation, or famine or religious persecution – nothing much has changed! But they brought sheep, goats, pigs and dogs and seeds, so they were coming to stay. They probably came in different expeditions over a relatively long period of time and, given their probable agricultural origin, they most likely hired the services of professional seafarers to make the voyage. Of course, a trickle of stranded seamen, adventurers, misfits and refugees continued to come and mingle with the established population throughout history, just like today. (See my post KILROY.) There was not much ethnic or genetic variation among the aboriginal populations of the different islands in the archipelago.

Now just imagine that you and your family, with four or five other families, are the first to arrive here in El Hierro. It’s a desert island. Literally. There are no people, a lot of birds but no edible animals (except for some huge lizards). There’s a lot of rock, sand and volcanic badlands. There are dense forests in some places where it seems to rain all the time, although there is no rain in the clearings. Worst of all there are only a few miserable springs and seasonal streams. Later you discover your bronze or iron tools are the only bits of metal here. You remember seeing at home some things made of flint and the way old craftsmen knapped that material, but you cannot find any flint or even any workable stone like it.

There are things that you brought with you that you and your contingent are unlikely to change. Firstly your language. But even that evolves. By the time of the conquest in the fifteenth century, your vocabulary, pronunciation and syntax has changed enough to make it difficult for someone from Tenerife to understand you although you and his people have the same origin. You could say the same for your myths and religious practices, the seasonal festivities, your social behavior and so on. Your socio-political organization remains pretty much that of the village you came from. One romantic member of your group hammers into a petrified lava flow a jumbled collection of petroglyphs like those near the village back home, most likely without knowing what they represent. At the same time you have learnt to capture and conserve fresh water. You make the basic stone tools, crude but efficient enough, from basalt. You catch fish with a line and gorge and you eat vast amounts of limpet. You have learnt the properties of the local plants, their fruits and poisons. Notably you have adapted to your environment and in doing so you have simplified your material culture to the minimum – a few tools, mostly wooden, some elementary pottery made of poor quality clay – just enough to satisfy your basic needs as you move around the island’s pastures with your herds. No need to build hovels or carry tents: there are plenty of caves. You are no longer a proto-Berber resident on an island. You have become a Bimbache, or Bimbape, the prehispanic inhabitant of El Hierro.

Regrettably I have never had the opportunity to take a photo of
a Bimbache. But we can easily imagine her feelings of despair
and frustration when, however beautiful she may have thought
the evening colours, she saw almost at arm's length away the
silhuettes of  Tenerife and La Gomera above the sea of clouds.

There is one thing that intrigues newcomers to the Canaries today. Their prehispanic inhabitants, including those of El Hierro, had no means of travel by sea. They made no boats, canoes or rafts of any sort. One intrepid Guanche is supposed to have swum from Tenerife to La Gomera using inflated kid skins as waterwings - but I bet no-one from El Hierro did the same! The prevaling winds and current would have been too much even for an heroic Bimbache!

That’s about all we know of the island’s earliest people. We have very few of their artifacts, a few skeletons and all the rest is pure speculation. We’re not even sure that they called themselves Bimbache, since the contemporary chroniclers did not bother to tell us. We do have a lot of revealing place-names, though. But more of that in a later post.

23. Wild Mushrooms

A forest with no wild mushrooms is like a pond with no fish. It has no magic and is pretty useless if you’re hungry. I presume the term “wild mushroom” suggests interest in the edibility of the thing whereas if I were more scientifically interested, I would have used the title “Mycology”. We have both kinds, edible and inedible, in abundance, in fairy rings around twisted old trees, brackets climbing up pines and colonizing tree stumps, small toadstools squashing underfoot in grassy clearings … but only for short seasons.

I have three favourites. The first two, the dotted stalk bolete (suillus granulatus) and the saffron milk cap (lactarius deliciosus), appear in autumn after the october rains. The first, if harvested young, has a marvelous taste. I have found it is better if you take the trouble to remove the damp skin of the cap and the tubes under the cap. The saffron milk cap is my wife’s choice with its nutty taste and served with meat. Both of these are found in the wet grass in clearings in the pine forest. My third favourite is the morel (morchella esculenta) which grows in the evergreen forest after the spring rain in March or April.

Field mushrooms of different sorts grow in the evergreen forest. But I have learnt to be careful and I no longer eat them unless I am very sure. There is one sort that is only distinguishable from the really edible ones by its stalk which is thinner. When you fry it, it has a slightly inky smell and can upset your stomach. I have found really nice field mushrooms high up in the grazing fields of Nisdafe in late autumn.  Another type of field mushroom sometimes fruits at a lower altitude and I collect them on our property.

There must be many edible mushrooms for the taking but I don’t know them. I have seen presumable parasol mushrooms, several different russules and pleasantly perfumed little puffballs. Luckily most of the local people don’t even have my limited knowledge of the matter! The only one they seem to be enthusiastic about is a sort of cross between a truffle and a puffball, white and smooth like a new potato and of that size, too. They call it “nacida” – the new-born one. I find them somewhat tasteless but we have sometimes used them together with potatoes in a stew where they add an interesting texture.

Morels collected yesterday, cleaned and cut in half. We'll have some with pasta for lunch and freeze the rest. The grandchildren who come in summer love them!