February - Almond Blossom and Matanzas
by Emma Illsley
My favourite February walk takes me up and around the back of the village. I take the track up past the olive mill, skirt around a half crumbled shepherd’s hut and then turn left across a terrace which must have more than fifty almond trees. Anyone who knows the Alpujarras knows that February means almond blossom. It’s still early February and the first flowers on this particular terrace appeared just over a week ago but this morning I noticed that more than half are now in flower including the largest tree which must be well over a hundred years old. At first sight it looks all but dead with its lowest limb broken across the track but if you look up, its’ black twisted trunk reaching up like a young child’s charcoal drawing , the upper branches are now topped with daring crown of white blossom.
The Alpujarras, with their great flanks of rugged mountains and plunging rock, always seem an unlikely backdrop to the arrival of the almond blossom.. The tiny white, pink flowers emerge infinitely delicate at first, tentatively – as if aware of the still real threat of icy wind or even snow (which this year proved very real…) and, for me, watching the arrival of the blossom each year seems to encapsulate the great pagan struggle in the crossover between winter and spring. A few warm days and the advancing tide of white pink flowers, and hence Spring, becomes unassailable . Everywhere you look you are treated to what seems an absurdly beautiful layer of lace on what is otherwise the coarse earthy green-brown fabric of the mountains. Maybe it is an unexpected sprig bursting out from behind a bare fig tree or, as you turn a corner, the heart- somersaulting view of a tree silhouetted against the blue sky but you can’t help smile at the (clichéd I know) sheer perfect beauty of it. And far, far down in the valley the fields around Ugijar are dotted with what look like tiny puffs of smoke which are in fact the almond groves.
Today there were real plumes of smoke in the valley as well. But not a result of the winter clearing of terraces but rather the farmers diligently burning the waste of the olive harvest as they are required to do. The broken twigs and leaves which come down with the tree-bashing, together with the prunings, provide a handy breeding ground for a wood –eating beastie, .so must be burned as soon as possible. The verdict is that it is a poor harvest this year with so many of the olives lost to winds and rain, but now the sun has come out the villagers have been out collecting them even though they are resigned to the idea of a disappointing crop. Many people have a new fangled machine which acts like a manual lawn mower which as it’s pushed along flicks the ground olives up into a bucket. Others rely on finger picking which is as boring as it is relentless. But, naturally non-wasteful, the villagers somehow can’t bring themselves to give up entirely on a whole year’s harvest..
Yesterday my path crossed with Jose and Angeles walking down the rocky track to their patch of land, clutching a water bottle, long sticks and a cloth holding what I assumed was food. The bundle of plastic sacks tied to the sticks were to fill with whatever olives they can glean from the now muddy terraces.. For years I’ve seen them heading off to their land which lies a good couple of miles away right on the border of Mairena’s limits They must be in their eighties now and as they walk they sway slightly, arm in arm, seemingly affectionate but more likely linked together believing four frail legs working as one are somehow better than two. Sometimes they accept a lift if I’m passing in the car but often refuse saying it’s only a chispe back to the village, conscious that the effort of getting themselves in and out of the car with their tools and load is probably not worth the effort. But recently I was given a bit of a shock. With his thick lensed glasses it’s always been clear that Jose’s sight is pretty bad but , until someone else in the village mentioned it the other day, I hadn’t understood that that he is now quite blind. How he manages to do any farming I don’t know; perhaps he’s there simply to keep Angeles company, but even just getting to and from the fields seems a remarkable triumph. It’s not meant as a political statement, or even a glib nod to the rural idyll; but their example is simple proof of a what is to me an irrefutable fact ; the old people around here are made of unmistakable and utterly admirable sturdy stuff.
But its’ not just work in the campo that has a monopoly on hard work at this time of year. The winter pig killing or matanzas, represents an all hands to the deck mentality which tests a different kind of reserve. As Soledad , our cook, explained it’s so hard because, once started, you really can’t stop. You work pretty much from sunrise to late evening - a 14 hour day - for several days in a row. The rain this January means we haven’t seen many matanzas in Mairena this year and in truth, they are on the decline anyway much down to the local doctor Belen and her war on cholesterol. But as the sun came out this week Sole was persuaded into helping out her sister-in-law Conchi who, having missed the last two years (the only two of her 46 years when she hasn’t been involved in one guise or another) decided to rekindle the tradition.
I had already watched the two olive wood bonfires a few days earlier outside Sole’s mother-in-law Encarna’s house.on which two vast cauldrons of an onion mixture (which forms the basis of the sausage making) were boiling. Encarna’s house is handily close to the village fountain with it’s cracked pale green and white tiles and picture of Mairena patron saint Santa Cristo de la Luz . This allowed them to set up a hose which ran past the washing place and meant swilling the great vats of cut herbs, onions and meat was made easier. I had also seen the carcass of the pig driven up from Ugijar , wheeled by unceremoniously in a barrow, it’s pink flesh half covered by a cloth disconcertingly human like as its great lump bumped past. But as a few days had already passed I’d assumed the work was pretty much over so, spotting Turka, Sole’s German shepherd sniffing hungrily outside the blue painted garage door guessed correctly that work was still underway. With anticipation I knocked and let myself in.
The basement of the house which had been freshly whitewashed was spotless and a cool wind was blowing through the wire meshed window . Round a central low wooden table stood Sole and Conchi and their two respective daughters, both in their early twenties, Belen and Monica. They were all dressed in bright coloured head scarves and aprons and were bent over a vast plastic basin of already minced meat on the table.. Conchi held what looked like a medieval contraption in which a wooden board pressed against her stomach against which she pulled to force the mixture through to a narrow pipe. Sole and Belen, with pink fingers themselves, were opening the tripe sausage skins for her to fill and Monica stood by with a needle to puncture the skin where any bubbles were forming. They seemed good humoured having just had their morning coffee and they laughed as they worked, the production line stopping once for Sole deftly to squash a large bluebottle buzzing in the patch of sunlight on the wall. But as I left they still had probably another ten hours work ahead of them.
Hearing another voice, Encarna the mother in law popped down to say hello and showed me proudly the scrubbed clean room she had planned for next year’s matanza where they could build a make shift fire and chimney in the corner and not have to work some of the time in the open air. A great fossil of a television stood in the corner screen to the wall having obviously been replaced with a sleeker model as well as a pile of Monica’s plastic shelves left over from her failed children’s clothes shop. They were incongruous somehow and seem to encapsulate the modern world brushing shoulders with the old. Encarna showed me the lovely oven baked clay bowl that would traditionally be used to house the herb, meat, garlic, pepper and onion mix rather than the blue plastic and conveniently light weight one they were using. She handled it dreamily as if full of fond memories of long hard work of the past but shrugged and smiled as if her tired muscles were happy to recognize the light weight plastic model had its benefits. Behind the chorizo makers (or to be exact the longaniza makers – another kind of sausage) stood the now immaculately painted and swept stall which for years, Encarna explained , housed the pigs they kept for each winter’s matanza but now…… rather fittingly judging by the amount of painting that had gone on - was full to the brim with a large collection of pots of white paint . And yes, I noted it was plastic paint not traditional whitewash. It seemed redolent of a recurring theme in the Alpujarra in which old traditions are losing the tug of war with the new. But that’s not saying anything new; all over the world, particularly in rural areas similar battles are taking place rather like the battle between winter and spring tugging over the almond blossom. And similarly the outcome is no surprise.. The tide of modernity is as unstoppable here as anywhere else. And a lot of it to be applauded. But watching the four women in their bright head scarves busy with an age old tradition that at least in this family had been reinstated this year, gave me hope. At least Belen and Monica will now be furnished with the family matanza recipes and can pass them on to their children if, following in the footsteps of their redoubtable mothers, they have the energy, determination and the will.
by Emma Illsley
My favourite February walk takes me up and around the back of the village. I take the track up past the olive mill, skirt around a half crumbled shepherd’s hut and then turn left across a terrace which must have more than fifty almond trees. Anyone who knows the Alpujarras knows that February means almond blossom. It’s still early February and the first flowers on this particular terrace appeared just over a week ago but this morning I noticed that more than half are now in flower including the largest tree which must be well over a hundred years old. At first sight it looks all but dead with its lowest limb broken across the track but if you look up, its’ black twisted trunk reaching up like a young child’s charcoal drawing , the upper branches are now topped with daring crown of white blossom.
The Alpujarras, with their great flanks of rugged mountains and plunging rock, always seem an unlikely backdrop to the arrival of the almond blossom.. The tiny white, pink flowers emerge infinitely delicate at first, tentatively – as if aware of the still real threat of icy wind or even snow (which this year proved very real…) and, for me, watching the arrival of the blossom each year seems to encapsulate the great pagan struggle in the crossover between winter and spring. A few warm days and the advancing tide of white pink flowers, and hence Spring, becomes unassailable . Everywhere you look you are treated to what seems an absurdly beautiful layer of lace on what is otherwise the coarse earthy green-
Yesterday my path crossed with Jose and Angeles walking down the rocky track to their patch of land, clutching a water bottle, long sticks and a cloth holding what I assumed was food. The bundle of plastic sacks tied to the sticks were to fill with whatever olives they can glean from the now muddy terraces.. For years I’ve seen them heading off to their land which lies a good couple of miles away right on the border of Mairena’s limits They must be in their eighties now and as they walk they sway slightly, arm in arm, seemingly affectionate but more likely linked together believing four frail legs working as one are somehow better than two. Sometimes they accept a lift if I’m passing in the car but often refuse saying it’s only a chispe back to the village, conscious that the effort of getting themselves in and out of the car with their tools and load is probably not worth the effort. But recently I was given a bit of a shock. With his thick lensed glasses it’s always been clear that Jose’s sight is pretty bad but , until someone else in the village mentioned it the other day, I hadn’t understood that that he is now quite blind. How he manages to do any farming I don’t know; perhaps he’s there simply to keep Angeles company, but even just getting to and from the fields seems a remarkable triumph. It’s not meant as a political statement, or even a glib nod to the rural idyll; but their example is simple proof of a what is to me an irrefutable fact ; the old people around here are made of unmistakable and utterly admirable sturdy stuff.
But its’ not just work in the campo that has a monopoly on hard work at this time of year. The winter pig killing or matanzas, represents an all hands to the deck mentality which tests a different kind of reserve. As Soledad , our cook, explained it’s so hard because, once started, you really can’t stop. You work pretty much from sunrise to late evening -
I had already watched the two olive wood bonfires a few days earlier outside Sole’s mother-
The basement of the house which had been freshly whitewashed was spotless and a cool wind was blowing through the wire meshed window . Round a central low wooden table stood Sole and Conchi and their two respective daughters, both in their early twenties, Belen and Monica. They were all dressed in bright coloured head scarves and aprons and were bent over a vast plastic basin of already minced meat on the table.. Conchi held what looked like a medieval contraption in which a wooden board pressed against her stomach against which she pulled to force the mixture through to a narrow pipe. Sole and Belen, with pink fingers themselves, were opening the tripe sausage skins for her to fill and Monica stood by with a needle to puncture the skin where any bubbles were forming. They seemed good humoured having just had their morning coffee and they laughed as they worked, the production line stopping once for Sole deftly to squash a large bluebottle buzzing in the patch of sunlight on the wall. But as I left they still had probably another ten hours work ahead of them.
Hearing another voice, Encarna the mother in law popped down to say hello and showed me proudly the scrubbed clean room she had planned for next year’s matanza where they could build a make shift fire and chimney in the corner and not have to work some of the time in the open air. A great fossil of a television stood in the corner screen to the wall having obviously been replaced with a sleeker model as well as a pile of Monica’s plastic shelves left over from her failed children’s clothes shop. They were incongruous somehow and seem to encapsulate the modern world brushing shoulders with the old. Encarna showed me the lovely oven baked clay bowl that would traditionally be used to house the herb, meat, garlic, pepper and onion mix rather than the blue plastic and conveniently light weight one they were using. She handled it dreamily as if full of fond memories of long hard work of the past but shrugged and smiled as if her tired muscles were happy to recognize the light weight plastic model had its benefits. Behind the chorizo makers (or to be exact the longaniza makers – another kind of sausage) stood the now immaculately painted and swept stall which for years, Encarna explained , housed the pigs they kept for each winter’s matanza but now…… rather fittingly judging by the amount of painting that had gone on -
Emma runs Casa Rural Las Chimeneas and the restaurant with her partner David as well as being kept busy by her two young boys
If you want to keep up with Emma through the seasons in Mairena follow the link:
www.alpujarra-
