The gourmet's guide to Europe

Seville is the headquarters of Andalusian cookery, which has its own particular dishes. Sopa de cuarto de hora (soup of a quarter of an hour) has bread, onions, garlic, peas, mussels, pieces of fish amongst its ingredients. It is not a soup to essay until the palate has become attuned to Andalusian cookery. Sopa de Almajas (mussel soup), Sopa de A jo (garlic soup), and Sopa de Jamon Picado , a clear soup, with ham and hard-boiled eggs cut into small dice, and added to it are some of the Andalusian soups. The Sopa al Jerez, is a clear brown soup with sherry added to it. Of omelettes there are two kinds — one so light that it resembles a souffle ; the other a heavy omelette, to which potatoes or wild asparagus shoots are sometimes added. This omelette is not at all a bad imitation of leather. Eggs poached in hot milk, and Huevos a la Flamenca (Gipsy Eggs), are the best known of the egg dishes. The Gipsy Eggs have now become a common dish everywhere in Spain, but they were originally a Sunday dish at the Hotel de Madrid in Seville. No other kitchen in Spain had the recipe, and no one knows who gave it to the cook of the Madrid. Gipsy Eggs are cooked thus : a mixture of potatoes, boiled wild asparagus, boiled green peas, onions, a little garlic, ham, or bacon and tomatoes is fried in oil. The eggs are broken on to this mixture when it is well cooked and allowed to set lightly. The dish is served very hot. Fried fish is a Spanish delicacy, and nowhere in the world is the fish better cooked than in the fish-shops of Seville. It is the fashion after the theatre to buy 25 centimes worth of fried fish, which is wrapped in brown paper, taken home, and eaten with the fingers, a Manzanilla being the. best accompaniment. Reyes (a species of whitebait), Boccarrmes 290 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe (anchovies), Sardinas , Pescado, Pescadilla , Casson , and Calamares (octopi) are amongst the various fish fried. A halfpenny bunch of radishes bought from the old woman with a basket who stands outside the shop is a very usual accompaniment to the fish. Any one who would sooner eat his fish on the spot can go into a room attached to the shop and there for a peseta and a half he can sup on olives, radishes, fried sole, and Manzanilla. Of Andalusian fish-dishes, Corvina con Guisantes (a coarse fish, stewed, with peas and a rich sauce), Salmonete al Homo (red mullet baked with slices of onion and tomatoes, oil and vinegar), are two of the best. Torija , a dish chiefly eaten on Good Friday, consists of slices of bread dipped in sweet wine or sherry, fried in oil, and then covered with honey and water. Empanado de Jamon , another dish in which sherry is used, is less outre than the above. A slice of ham is put between two slices of bread and dipped in sherry, and the sandwich thus made is dipped in egg and fried. Chicken tripe (lungs, livers, and combs of chicken stewed a la Mode de Caen ) and the well-known Criadella , if not Andalusian dishes, are cooked to perfection in Andalusia. Menudo a la Flamenca is tripe and trotters and Chorizo, the sausage of the country, stewed together. Preserved fruits and various forms of Turron (sugar paste) are specialties of Seville, the best shop for them being almost opposite to the lion’s mouth letter-box in the Sierpes. Seville