Tortillas de Camarones: Picos 23

Like the notorious oyster, it is said, the flesh of the sea urchin has aphrodisiac properties. This accounts for the knowing look with which the mother of mankind offers Adam his spiny little gift and the smug face of the serpent. And possbly the phallic thrust of the lighthouse behind them ... but let's not get too excited too soon (it's never happened to me before, honest ...).
chirigota infantil on the palma stage

The validity of such claims is the subject of much learned, not to say prurient, study and debate. It has been found that garlic contains a chemical similar to one secreted by the human body at peak moments of excitement and another guaranteed to render the user repellent, and not only to vampires. However, parsley is said to contain the same stimulant chemical alongside one which has breath-freshening qualities. This is surely a far better demonstration of nature's innate balance than the proximity of dock leaves to nettle beds. So go on, my dear ... have a bite of my garlic and parsley sausage ...

Whatever the case, there is no doubt that belief in such effects can itself serve as a stimulant to thoughts of love. To a celibate chappie like myself, the thought of la casucha being surrounded by thousands of notoriously raunchy gaditanas in a hormonally-enhanced state, was enough to bring on the cold sweats. Locking doors and windows and shutting myself away with a supply of chocolate biscuits and Smiths CD's seemed the best response.

Unfortunately, I remembered a promise to meet up with three fellow strangers in this strange land at two thirty in Calle San Felix, a whole block away. Well, surely it couldn't hurt to have a peek at things early in the proceedings? To be honest, there appears to be some quality, probably an aura of purity, that radiates from me and ensures that every woman I meet is dedicated to assisting me in maintaining my chastity.

In short, nobody was likely to get that desperate, even if they'd had more urchins than the cast of Oliver.
not urchins - avid spectators

And then there's your reporter's dedication to the cause of fearless investigation and bringing you, gentle reader, the low-down on whatever might be of interest in this sun-kissed city. And sun-kissed it was. While snow was general all over England, the shirt and tee shirt ensemble was almost too much for this Englishman, out in the mid-day, out in the mid-day, out in the mid-day sun (as Mr Coward put it).

However, the locals, for whom such tiempo felt decidedly frio, were already out in force and warmer garments. The local main man was finishing his opening address and the first coro was coming on stage. I allowed the lovely Veronica to sell me a beer from Jose's bar and wandered the streets just soaking it all up.

Everywhere were tables piled with every type of shellfish, imaginable and otherwise. Dominating the scene were the 'guests of honour'; what looked like stacks of dark green koosh balls but were in fact the eponymous urchins.
a pile of hedgehogs I wasn't going to try one. Not yet, anyway. This had nothing to do with any desire to remain unsullied. The point was that I had never eaten one before and had been warned that they had a rather strong flavour. Even with the kind of robust constitution engendered by years of Nottinghamshire school dinners, the risk of turning up for a lunch date and promptly throwing up all over the sofa was not worth taking — and the day was yet young.

After a very pleasant lunch the four of us hit the now heaving streets. Bottles and plastic cups lay everywhere, all the stalls were doing a roaring trade and any patch of wall between parked cars was being used as an impromptu unisex urinal while, at the far end of Virgen de la Palma, coros and chirigotas were singing their little Spanish hearts out. I dare say somebody was listening.
The strangest phenomenon was that the piles of Spiny Normans seemed bigger than ever, despite plentiful evidence of carnage in the overflowing waste bins. The fast-breeding Tribbles of Star Trek sprang to mind, conjuring up fears of having to wade home knee-deep in a sea of twitching pom-poms, all awaiting the right moment to wreak their terrible vengeance ...
Which, oddly enough, didn't happen. What did was an encounter with the owner of a fine bar, El Garbanzo Negro (The Black Chick Pea) and a peripatetic lager frenzy of detail-blurring proportions.
typical Cádiz fishmongers (they're both blokes) The very lively, good natured and, let's not deny it, totally pissed-up atmosphere does linger in the mind, in an impressionistic kind of way. Various faces from the past year flashed before me, like the end of Goodbye Mr Chips, kissing my cheeks or shouting ¡Hola! ¿Como estás? ¿Acuerdeme? (Hi! How are you? Remember me?) and disappearing, all before what was left of my brain could generate any form of response.
But I must be getting old. After a mere twelve hours of drinking, I announced that I was ready for a good lie down. And only when adding that I meant alone and for the purposes of sleep, did it occur to me that, despite being handed various snacks during the afternoon, I had still failed to sample a single hedgehog of the sea.

When I tell you that, next morning, the streets of La Viña were once again, como la plata, free of litter and hosed clean of their marine and human waste, you might guess that it was not the quietest night in which to sleep one's way to a hangover. Believe me, after enough beer, that's no problem.

[This dashed-off article replaces the commissioned report on the gustatory and amatory properties of Paracentrotus lividus, which has been postponed until next year.

The author acknowledges with gratitude the support and funding received from the Wellcombe Institute, MPW Restaurants Ltd, Anne Summers plc and Mr Michael Winner but regrets that he cannot refund any of the donations on the grounds that he has drunk them.]