When you ask a Spaniard if they are hungry, they look at their watch instead of their belly.
There is a certain charm, and logic, to this. The underlying motive being: we all sit down and eat together. Bonding over food is one of the many beautiful Spanish customs, arguably the bedrock on which all other social values are built. But how close does their adherence to horarios and normas come to being an obsession, a kind of collective neurosis? ----------------------------------------------- As a native of England, a country renowned for its reserved conservatism, I'd imagined that moving to Spain would present a different way of life: more liberal and joyous, less rigid and pompous. In Granada, at least, I have found that people are, in fact, more obsessed with customs and regulations than they are in England. For example, if a pedestrian is crossing the road without using the traffic lights, the oncoming driver is likely to speed up, like a charging bull, to show that the law is on their side, winding down the window to pass comment as they go. When the Spanish masturbate, they don’t look at pornography, they read the Constitution! Facetiousness aside, there is a worrying trend of sexual repression creeping into Spanish society. There is no sexual energy on the streets anymore. No furtive little love glances. No flirtatious conversations. No attempts, from either sex, to coquetear. Nowadays, if you wish to find a partner, you must either ask an in-law to introduce you to a friend of a friend of a second cousin, or resort to online dating and hours of SMS pleasantries before moving onto civilised chit chat over coffee and cakes. The Spanish try to dress and eat and schmooze like the Italians, but it all seems somehow watered down. Instead of the ferocious joy of the true Mediterranean, there is posturing and watch-checking, faux-leather and Carbonara without the eggs. But make no mistake about it, compared with the English, the Spanish are experts around the dinner table. And society is much healthier for it: engaging with family, learning to make new friends effortlessly, knowing where one's food comes from, immersing oneself in the joys of consuming it, the political conversations, the forming of strong social bonds - all of these customs and pleasures seemed to have excused themselves from the English dinner table over the last century. ----------------------------------------------- Throughout the world, if you ask someone why a particular rule exists, it's not uncommon for their reason to constitute a reiteration of the rule itself, or else they offer the emptiest of reasons: es lo que hay, it’s just the way it is. As with everything in life, it seems there is a good balance to be found, between knowing where one's food, and rules, come from, and immersing oneself in them fully, for the good of society as a whole.
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AuthorEnglish teacher from the UK. Living in Granada. Currently working in Doha. Archives
February 2022
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