One of our neighbours invited us for a meal. He does not get much company so he pushed the boat out for us.
When we arrived he had a wood fire burning in a corner of his kitchen. Already bubbling away was an iron pot placed in the fire. Next to it, already on the fire, was a metal frame that one might use to cook burgers over a fire.
He poured us generous whiskies. He turned over the empty metal frame.
He gave us a small bowl of this year’s olives cured in water and sprinkled with sea salt.
He popped out and brought in from his garden red and green peppers that he placed whole on the metal frame.
He had a chard like vegetable which he trimmed. The leaves were cut very thin. The stalks were cut at about one inch lengths.
He put some oil into a frying pan on his gas cooker. He made a batter using flour egg and milk and a little salt. Once the oil was smoking he dipped the lengths of chard stalk into the batter and cooked fritters. He served fritters.
He also poured more whiskey.
He turned the peppers.
The pot bubbling on the fire held white beans and the ear of a pig and four whole eggs now well hard boiled. He gave us lots of beans each and a slice of the pig’s ear. He poured olive oil over the cooked beans.
He peeled the hard boiled eggs and gave us one each.
He removed the peppers and placed whole sardines on the grill frame. These were not tiny sardines that one might have in a tin but were fishes about seven inches long.
He peeled and deseeded the cooked peppers and sliced them into a salad with sliced home grown tomato and olive oil and vinegar.
By now his red wine from last year was open.
The remains of the batter mix and the thinly chopped chard leaves and added eggs went into the frying pan to make an almost instant omelette.
Once he served the sardines he put sliced aubergine, oiled and salted, on the frame.
We had therefore olives, fritters, whole sardine, some pigs ear, beans, egg, salad, omelette, aubergine, bread, and wine. It was all very tasty although I did not try the pigs ear.
He placed a whole cheese on the table but we were all unable to eat more.
Part of the fascination for me was that I had never seen food cooked on a wood fire. As we still have language inadequacy we had no idea what was happening until it landed on our plates or in our glasses.
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