Local transport in The Hague

Lots of bikes, not many chillies

I haven't found a lot about the history of the chilli or its consumption in my two days at in The Hague in the Netherlands. Having high tea in a nearby bakery cafe was further evidence on the other hand that bread is very big here, however, as the six different breads that came with the cheeses and the meats and salads, before the cakes, were a feature of the event. That was late in the day after the oliebollen - donuts - and the applecake (very delicious.)  Anyway the point of the high tea discussion was that the pumpkin soup in a glass that kick started the meal was light and delicious, and spiced up with chilli.

I am surprised there isn't a stronger chilli visibility here given the Dutch history of colonisation and trade in both the East Indies (where the chilli was being picked up in a flash from the Portuguese, around the same time as the Dutch were taking over) and the West Indies, where they still have a colony or so, very close to the original home of the chilli in Mexico.

 I'm sure there is actually a stronger chilli presence, but I am only here for a couple of days, and while The Hague might have once been known as the widow of the East Indies, these days the most obvious cultural qualities seem to be the bread, art museums, the International Court of Justice, and the community and commuter commitment to bicycling.

That's the most obvious difference here to me in a society in many ways quite similar to Australia. The number of non sporty serious every day child and shopping carrying bicycles is huge. It makes life as a pedestrian, and presumably as a car driver, quite quite different.

One might imagine a lot of people are pretty fit as a consequence. They look it.  Still the lack of bike helmets might impact on the health outcomes to some cyclists. And the smoking over beer and coffee, while fun for the smokers, might have a few health impacts to redress just a little the imbalance back in favour of big non cycling Australia.

chilli at high tea in The Hague

Madrid

final Patio. This one of Ainslie.

Culture - what we do around here

Culture

well the chilli world tour is over for another year. more or less. and it doesn't seem that the significance of the chilli and its ubiquity is celebrated as much as it ought to be. Even in Portugal, which is known to have spread the chilli around the world, we didn't actually run into my chilli in Portuguese cuisine, except piri piri sauce with barbecued chicken.

 An  interesting point that Grette found on a Yale site was that the chilli really came in to the USA via people from West Africa who were brought in as slaves (they had clearly been early adopters of the chilli when it arrived with Portuguese traders) rather than by encroaching over the border more organically from its indigent home in Mexico.

One of the joys of this journey was to kind of come to grips with how seriously married people can be to their food. Comparisons, which I am so inclined to make, are insidious. And I know that. Thoughtful rational view would remind me that the typical Australian cuisine is extraordinarily rich in its diversity which ranges from various immigrant communities keeping the faith with their heritage to the innovative fresh food fusion that draws on Asian and European ingredients.   And that the take away food culture is fairly common across the developed world.

But what I noticed in all three countries we visited was both a loyalty and pleasure that people we came across took in their food.  And in that context, while the Middle East and Africa and Asia in all its diversity embraced the chilli with gusto, the Spanish and Portuguese, who distributed the chilli world wide, didn't take it on in the same way; the occasional piquancy of patatas bravas of Spain and the kick in Portugal's piri piri not withstanding. Rather they just took what they wanted from the capsicum family  and made pimientos a feature of everyday pub food - meals, tapas and all that. ie Capsicums. Red and green. Lots and lots of them. Skinned red peppers with tuna. Whole baked green peppers with grilled meat and chips. Strips of red and green capsicums in all sorts of salads. Peppers stuffed with minced pork and prawns, or bread and fish. Chillies in a sense, but not as we know them.

This 2013 leg of the chilli world tour has been big  in terms of culture: the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Berbers, the Arabs and the Catholics; leaning and hearing different languages; social and economic pain in a post industrial world and the cultural impact of that; writing things on walls; dance, song and ceramics. How people live together. As well as the food. Knowing who you are by the food you eat and how you eat it..

Finally - talking about cultures around the globe -  the different cultural difference I've noticed this trip is the gap between Qantas and Emirates when it comes to aeroplane music. Qantas has a kind of world music - including Shakira, Martha Wainwright, Paca Pena, Herb Albert. Emirates have a massive bunch of music tracks from Addis Ababa, West Africa, South Africa, Iran, South America, India, all around the world.  Great sounds to travel by.

Grette's photo of Madrid Skyline evening May 13, not quite so glorious where I am at the airport.

Fight, you are not alone

The other side of the crisis

On the fast train from Cordoba to Madrid, with one more night in Spain, I "read" - through an automatic web translator - an opinion piece by Jordi Soler in today's El Pais titled The Reverse of the Crisis. He reminds his Spanish readers of Orwell's  analysis of the positive benefits to community life in London during the second world war, ranging from growing, sharing and exchanging food and skills; to more reading (and more sophisticated reading) by bored soldiers at the front line and civilians deprived of other entertainment at home. Orwell argued that this response to hard circumstances encouraged a more thoughtful and community minded sensibility.

Soler suggested Spain's situation, while not as serious as the London that Orwell was writing about, also provided opportunities for a sophisticated, communitarian response: the other side or face of the Crisis could lead to a collaborative economics.

So reflecting on Australia, it must be fair to say we are not in a similar crisis, structural adjustment not withstanding. The focus on consumption in our consumer society remains pretty well undiminished. But we are picking up the economic and political rhetoric that seems to drive the dominant government responses to the crisis in this part of the world: We must pull our belts in. People on low incomes are too dependant on the state. A balanced budget is the priority before social well being.

The thing that unsettles me about this equation is we aren't being pitched together to make do creatively in Australia today, as arguably people were in London in the 1940s, or even people are in Europe today.   It looks like the language of hardship and striving might just be an excuse to narrow our thinking to self interest.

Patio in antique Cordoba

patrimonio cultural inmaterial

Being here in for The Fiesta De Los Patios De Cordoba frees you up from the burden of more simplistic self directed tourism. We don't need to buy things, we can just look in the courtyards, and there are a series of pathways through neighbourhoods of open courtyards that you can sign on to which puts some structure in the experience. That most of the visitors are Spanish and even local (although many aren't) kind of helps me deal with the situational challenge.

We took a guided tour through some of the patios in the antique areas of Cordoba this evening(Friday). It was in Spanish so I understood just a little. Grette understood a lot more.  But that was a good exercise for my Spanish ear. And a fine experience too given we mostly get things delivered to us in English and ready to consume.

This trip has strongly featured representative examples of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, as proclaimed by UNESCO. Namely Flamenco, Fado and now this Fiesta de Patios. As our guide explained, in the middle of a residential street, hundreds of years old - with bars and loud music and a number the courtyards looking spectacular and with queues at their doors - it's not the material thing, it's about the life people lead. And that includes maintaining the patios, and their geraniums and ferns and wells and fountains, and holding the competition.  

UNESCO seems big in Europe. And cultural heritage makes a lot of work, particularly if people like us come along to see or enjoy it.

Reminds me of a plan a friend and I had in the early nineties of a dance led economic recovery.. After all a dance piece with only one dancer isn't a better more efficient product than a piece with a troupe of ten.

But this cultural heritage (patrimonio cultural inmaterial, in Spanish) is especially fun and powerful because it isn't just us visitors enjoying the festival, or the fado in Portugal, or the flamenco, it really is still a part of so many people's lives.

Pavement sample

Pavements in black and white

The pavements of Portugal are particular it seems. A mix of white (limestone) and black (granite) squares making lines and patterns, quite different in different cities and different streets. They are pretty hard. Well, stone is hard. And variously uneven and slippery at times. They obviously last a long time. And they are a cultural expression, ranging from  sweeping curves to geometric boarders up and down the sides of streets, and even pictures of the Madonna, or a landscape, or a cat picked out in a black and white mosaic.  

The thing is there are so many of them. Much lower in terms of carbon dioxide production than concrete. I just wonder if there are some hills or mountains somewhere made of limestone, that are disappearing.  

Mosteiro dos Jeronimos

Fish stew with no chilli, but capsicum

A tourist song

Well it's been a hard couple of days in Lisbon being tourists. no one should have to do it but I'm sure it is an economically important contribution that we are making.

Yesterday was a particularly grumpy day when I failed to find the tram route so as to follow the fabulous self guided tour down the very steep hill, and we had to walk up the hill and see too much castle and not enough of the other special sites and views instead.  And, well, it was a day only saved by a simple dinner in a cool bar and some pretty fine touristic Fado in a restaurant-club.

The previous night we saw a Fado presentation, a concert that is  marketed as guaranteeing you a good insight into the art form.. although we both found it a flat and serious and mournful really. The performers last night had some more zip and humour about them. Of course, it is a kind of music that revolves around the lyrics which, to me, really ARE a foreign language. So I know I can't judge.

 I did google "fado, austerity and the crisis" and found references to (for example) a band called Deolinda. So something is going on, as you'd imagine.

On Monday we'd taken a train to Sintra and climbed all over an old moorish castle, and giant royal palace, and another royal museum that has a giant kitchen precisely perfect for a life rendition of Gormenghast with extremely giant chimneys.   And room to roast a rhinoceros.

Today was another day of tourism. Lots of queuing to get in to  museums that are collections but not great experiences. The Jeronimo Monastery however, was extraordinary though. Wonderful ornately carved columns all such a golden yellow from being cleaned of the grime of centuries just 15 years ago.

But the Marine/Navy museum was full of model boats, really full, but rather missing the physical reality of all the trade  - in spices and gold and slaves - which Portugal's golden age encompassed. And - no surprise here - I haven't located a mention of the chilli; which was what I'd hope to see at the naval museum.

The Portuguese seem to be quite proud of their historical period of world domination, and at the same time, very committed to food like fish and custard tarts (called Pasteis de Nata- the good ones are very very good and earn long queues).  Like the Indian restaurateur and I, almost everyone knows that the chilli was brought by the Portuguese from America. But where's pride in having used world domination to make that culinary contribution?

I have to admit I've dropped the chilli ball here. I've been a bit too pleased with the sardines and the seafood stew. And I've left the thought of finding a Brazilian or Angolan restaurant  too late in our adventure. Tonight we eat fish cakes and tomato salad at home, with a beer, and a pasteis with strawberries. Nice relaxing simple food.   We are really tired and we can sort out all our belongings before heading to the "Fiesta de los Patios de Cordoba" tomorrow.

 Particularly satisfying in a way was the bus trip back today's tourist sites. First Grette queued for the pasteis (We got 10) which was a cultural experience. Then we caught a fairly random bus that ran through suburbs rather reinforcing in our eye the rundown nature of Lisbon and the hard time people are having. Next we chanced upon a 250 yr old candle shop where I got a candle shaped like a cabbage. Finally we walked back to our apartment past a very convenient metro entrance that we'd never noticed before, and have no need for now! Just starting to feel at home.

Angels of diversity

Students in their black chanting and marching,

Before the big night out

extra chilli - green

Porto to Lisbon

Farewell Porto hello Lisbon

Saturday night and Sunday there were thousands of students in identical suits and stockings and black gowns all over Porto. Some chanting political slogans and gathering outside University Admin and the Town Hall and others just gathering for some student graduation related musical event, all a part of a ceremonial burning of their faculty ribbons, Queima das Fitas. 

After we'd been to a Brazilian jazz concert we braved bulk students in black, all with countless bottles of alcohol, spilling in and out the metro and running up against railway police for (it would seem too often) failing to validate their tickets. Then when we it got back to our hotel there was a crowd of students, mostly young women, all standing very still out the front.  It looked like was some kind of stand off, possibly a ritual "hazing" of some sort. But nothing much happened, so we went to bed.

 

In the morning there were students still dressed in their formal black having breakfast with their families, or being photographed proudly with them while gathering in big numbers outside the town hall for a ceremony. 

There were also a lot of other people asking for money around Porto, at outdoor restaurant tables and ATMs (doing their best to insist,  with us tourists) and more evidence of people sleeping in streets than we saw in Spain.   With nests of cardboard and blankets on the steps of closed shops.

I don't know if that says anything about hardship or about the different parts of Spain and Portugal that we are seeing, because Porto seems quite rough and ready, with lots of graffiti, and roadwork everywhere, so it may also be a question of tolerance.

On the other hand, the scale of this student event, and the presence of families everywhere did make us imagine there's an increased reason for sticking to education when there are so few jobs out in the market place.

Sunday afternoon we arrived in Lisbon to lodgings in the heart of the tourism square. Lots of beer, mementos and ice cream going on. We couldn't find a shop that sold bananas, milk and water until we were led to one by a religious procession involving incense, marching bands and lavender.

Then went to a recommended Indian restaurant, Tamarind, which was delicious. We were reassured that the food WASN'T spicy. We asked for extra chilli!  The chilli world tour goes on.

Anyway, the crisis here, for this restaurant, is a shift from 70 customers a night to 11. Melbourne, where one of them did her Masters, is looking good. 

The cheap fish cafe down the road was full.

We went for an after dinner walk to find a set of angels  painted on a wall that Grette had seen on the way in from Porto. One has an anarchist 'A' on its chest, another a crescent moon, then a star of David, a cross, and a five point star. And all making the peace sign. Also saw a graffiti slogan incorporating the 'A' which referred to essence and purity. Not sure how that fits together.