Catalan breakfast

Whether this is an authentic term for what you see below I do not know: but it is what I use. The components are light pieces of toast, olive oil, tomatoes well-salted and peppered and Serrano ham. You squash the tomatoes into the oil with the toast and then alternate between eating tomato, ham on the toast - or even both. It is a good plan to leave enough toast at the end to mop up the juices at the end...or make more toast.



Airport food

I find it bizarre that the food you find in airports is of such variable quality. And even more bizarre that some of the countries with a well-deserved reputation for the quality of their cooking - I refer, for example, to France and Italy - can allow such a reputation to be diminished by the food available at the very point of arrival into or departure from that country.

Of course, it might be said that the marketplace is prevailing: why bother to provide decent food when all passengers want is fast food? Or the lack of a marketplace. With a captive audience, there is no harm in serving expensive badly-cooked food because there is nowhere else for the passengers to go, particularly past security. My rejoinders to these hypothetical defences are simple. First, decent food and fast food are not mutually exclusive, as Nigel Slater has demonstrated repeatedly in his various books with "Fast" in the title. Second, the ludicrous time an airline requires its passengers to check in to the flight in advance of its departure usually gives ample time for a decent meal. I reckon that holidaying passengers will often be willing to splash out for a decent meal on the first day of the holiday. Finally, there are those who, faced with a lousy choice of food, will choose simply to go without. I am one of them.

Let me name and shame, and name and congratulate. Pisa Airport: plasticky mozzarella and tomato rolls were all on offer; and my companions and I nearly caused a diplomatic incident in our response to correspondingly rude staff. By contrast, the airport in Naples offered good though expensive buffalo mozzarella: sadly we only ran into it after we had run the gauntlet of nasty sliced bread sandwiches and bought them with regret, thinking there would be nothing else.

As for France, at Nice Airport there was nothing of interest. Yet this from the city that named an internationally renowned salad. The Spanish airports fare better in my estimation. I do not know what lies beyond customs at Madrid, having only transferred flights there. But within the wood between the worlds there was a reasonable selection of raw ham rolls and chorizo rolls.

The airport on Crete possibly comes bottom of the pile: the only thing that was edible - term used loosely - was a hot dog. So poor was its quality that we returned it and demanded our money back.

Far more impressive was Warsaw Airport. Beyond security, a cafeteria selling an array of interesting and tasty dishes: comfort food such as Beef Stroganoff. And Tokyo Airport, where I have just eaten my way through a plate of exceptional Sushi. One of my fellow diners had just landed - I was leaving Japan - from France and had been so missing Sushi that he had immediately headed for this restaurant. I could have eaten perfectly adequately for less than a fiver. Instead I went for a pricier set. There were sushi chefs behind the counter making up the plates. Green tea was complimentary.

This place, I confess, was before security. I was more fearful that there would be nothing beyond that I ignored the signs to head for my gate. And, as a result, no sooner had I gone through all the formalities than it was time to board my flight: so no sitting around fruitlessly. And I noticed, on my hasty journey to the gate, that there was at least one perfectly good looking Sushi restaurant here as well. But at double the prices, I wondered?

Spanish bus station

Dining at a table with crisp white linen, candlelight and hushed voices is one of life's pleasures. A tasting menu, say, with seemingly endless plates of delicious morsels. Companionship while you eat through such a meal is not essential but, I think, desirable. I will leave to another entry the topic of solitary fine dining.

Instead, let me deal with another subject altogether: the thrill of finding good food in the most unlikely of surroundings. Elizabeth David has written some wonderful essays on the topic. Here is my own story which comes from Catalunya in Spain.

It began with a plan. I would get a bus from Besalu, where I had been staying, to Olot, at the end of the line. I would spend the day there before heading to Figueres and catching a train across the border to France.

Olot, the guidebook told me, was in the heart of Garotxa, a volcanic region near Girona. My map showed a number of (extinct) volcanoes within the bounds of the town itself. The guidebook had warned me that the approach to Olot by bus was unpromising: and so it proved. Although the landscape on the way had grown more rugged as we had wound into the hills, the outskirts of Olot were nondescript. The grey bus station itself did nothing even to hint of the natural wonders which, apparently, lay so close by.

I had no intention of dawdling in the bus station anyway: I wanted to go to one of the various restaurants in the town which offered "Cucina Vulcanica" - Volcanic Cooking. The restaurants which used this brand apparently served dishes containing some or all of nine regional specialities, including wild mushrooms and boar. Marketing ploy it may have been, but it appealed.

An enquiry at the ticket office scuppered my plans. The next bus to Figueres, I was told, was not until the evening: long after my train to France would have left. The only solution was to head south, back to Girona, which I had left several days before, never expecting to return, and pick up the train there. I hated the thought of turning back.

Perhaps it was a combination of my surroundings, my nearly missed train and the wrecked plan which persuaded me to leave Olot immediately. And a heavy rucksack. At all events, I decided to get some lunch to take with me on the bus to Girona.

In the bus station was a cafeteria, which promisingly displayed a menu from one of the "Cucina Vulcanica" restaurants in Olot. For a wild moment, I wondered if I was standing in the very restaurant.

But no. There was little on display in the cafeteria, but what was there looked good. I saw bread rolls where a paste made of tomatoes had been used instead of butter. The rolls were stuffed with Serrano ham. There was also a plate of tortilla - potato omelette. I decided to have both a Serrano ham roll AND a tortilla which caused a little confusion, as did my wish to take my lunch away. Did I want my tortilla in bread? That, too, caused confusion on both sides. A bystander helped to interpret my attempts at Spanish. No, I would have it without bread. The woman behind the counter wrapped up my purchases in foil, a reassuring touch.

About to leave, I saw a modest sign on a blackboard: Gazpacho. I asked about it tentatively and the woman reached into a fridge immediately and pulled out a half-full bottle with a murky label. In the presence of good food, my negative thoughts about Olot had shifted. This was clearly home made soup. The woman poured some into a glass: obviously I was expected to drink it there and then rather than take it away. It tasted just as Gazpacho should taste.

I sat at the back of the bus and unwrapped my lunch a little guiltily, with a feeling that eating food on board was not really allowed. As we headed towards Girona on the bus, the rain started to descend heavily. But my spirits rose with every mouthful. It was the best of picnic food.