Spanish Bars

Fried Intestines at mirador de san isidro

The waiters stand behind a bar, without a mobile phone in hand or pocket, also tortillas, decorated with raw onion eyelashes. Four cured ham legs, hung from the tendons, thick legs, one sliced with a long thin knife. Under the cream fat its red meat, salt and air.

These men, white hair and morning stubble, white shirts and black waistcoats. As children they dressed this way for school, church, now as grandads that earn a living at a bar. Sports papers folded in half lay at the bar, along with crumpled napkis, plates, crumbs. One of these men buys the papers on his way in, along with tabacco, a lottery ticket.

He takes my order, goes to a sponsored ice cream freezer and pulls out a beer glass. He moves at his own pace. I’m in no rush. I came here by choice.  Television rapid Spanish blares from a channel of football results. From the bar I can see the kitchen, a black woman in a hairnet peels onions into a red plastic bowl, from a corner I couldn’t see a man in white appears. He washes his hands, says something to my waiter and opens a drawer underneath one of the fryers. I spy three. The baby lamb intestines are dropped into oil. The lid is placed back. My frosted glass is less than half. It was mid Febrary, brilliant blue day, the sun hotter here than where i’d come from. This was my Madrid morning. I’d waken at 4 to take a bus, train and plane. I don’t eat food from airports. This hungry is how food critics should be when they go to write a review. Pampered and paid to the point of indifference, spoilt. No wonder the reviews read like an obiturary. Another beer.I hadn’t had coffee. Hadn’t checked in to my hostel.

I watch him salt the gallinejas, cut the bread, stuff them in, lay them on a white plate and hand it to my waiter. Slow motion. La bruit: gambling machines, tv, coins dropping, coughs, snorts, frying, hot water hissing, clanks, it stops at the first bite. The taste of fried suckling lamb intestines between bread is better than the the last ten meals I’ve eaten or cooked. Is it hunger, the experience or both? This moment of meat between bread had happened before and happens again and its new and old, familiar and unfamiliar, the setting changes, the people, the prices, the taste.