How to make head cheese (queso de cerdo)

In Argentina. In Kilburn (thanks Dave). (First mention in Corde is in Ventura de Peña y Valle, Tratado general de carnes (1832). That marrano means pig as well as a renegade converted Jew is probably explicable in non-cannibal terms, although with these Frankish types you never know.)

Revealed: Ildefons Cerdà's muse

Barcelona’s Eixample district slots humans into a grid of stacked cuboids; it often smells of poo. It is no surprise, then, to discover that its planner, Ildefons Cerdà, was born on a large pig farm. (It’s just outside Centelles which, like the rest of the region, continues to ignore European law by spraying on slurry…

Revealed: Ildefons Cerdà’s muse

Barcelona’s Eixample district slots humans into a grid of stacked cuboids; it often smells of poo. It is no surprise, then, to discover that its planner, Ildefons Cerdà, was born on a large pig farm. (It’s just outside Centelles which, like the rest of the region, continues to ignore European law by spraying on slurry…

In praise of troglodytes

The NYT editorial Army Troglodytes in Spain is misguided and reactionary (as well as being factually inaccurate re Spain’s history and constitutional order). Troglodytes are good, forward-looking people whose choice of housing reflects a concern for energy conservation; unlike nomads, troglodytes rarely form armies and are generally nice, romantic things like shepherds, brigands and Ruby…

Bush is worse than …

‘“Bush is worse than Stalin” -Hitler’ gets 30 ghits while ‘“Bush is worse than Hitler” -Stalin’ gets 822. Is this because the people who make this kind of comparison (a) haven’t heard of Stalin; (b) think Stalin was uniquely awful, an ÃœberBusch; or (c) think Stalin was actually a nice guy with some bad press?…

More churchy coppers

Re shepherds, Pío Baroja says that in the Navarre village inhabited by Silvester Paradox, hero of The adventures, inventions and mystifications of Silvester Paradox (Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox, 1901) that the local guardians of public order were called ministers (ministros). (Silvestre Paradox is very strange and very funny. It’s a disgrace that…

Shepherds in Galician ports

Amando de Miguel says that Aura Grandal says that people in Ferrol, Galicia call policemen “chepas”, and that this derives from “shepherds”, which is what British engineers called the watchmen in the naval arsenals. I’m going to believe it, whether I do or not.

Mother of all abominations

One dreadful consequence of writing this blog has been a realisation that ideas whose sublimity none has dared impute in the bar down the alley, Sally, are regularly rubbished by those too distant to receive the hair-mussing they so richly deserve. Here, for example, barrett writes “Ghits”, by the way, is an abomination and reminiscent…

Is Michael Moore a resurrected Saracen monster?

European acceptance of Michael Moore’s new anti-Americanism has been greatly assisted by the loving detail with which he depicts the country he has invented, bursting with gun- and God-happy fatties and ruled over by a Semitic mafia. Here, from El Semanario Curioso, Histórico, Erudito, Comercial, Público y Económico, El Blasón de Cataluña (1842; cited in…