The secret British history of South America
In Small Earthquakes, Shafik Meghji uncovers Britain’s forgotten connections with Latin America, from Welsh tea rooms to red phone boxes
Minha Tresavo (so, avo, grandfather, tres, great great grand, so my great great grandfather) is buried up at La Oroya in Peru. There’s a little Anglican church and an English graveyard. The railways of South America were built by the British, largely enough, he was one of the engineers on the suspension bridge there.
And then Mexico still makes pasties, brought over by the Cornish tin miners. They were, at the time, the world’s finest hard rock miners and so were hired all around….
And of course Britain introduced two other major innovations into S America : football and the abolition of slavery.
Argentina was an “informal” colony of Britain until the 1920s. Nearly all beef in the UK arrived, frozen or tinned from there. The string of dictatorships from the Great Depression onwards leading to the madness of Peron buggered all that.
Secret? Really?
When I’m on a rant against people learning Welsh, it includes something like “the only people you can speak it with are people who can all speak English or a few people in Patagonia, which makes it less useful than Klingon”.
And then Mexico still makes pasties, brought over by the Cornish tin miners.
Or you could say the Cornish make enpanadas, brought back by returning tin miners. Except there something similar in Greece. It’s something any cuisine will come up with. Rolled out dough, a filler, fold over pinch together, bake. Most Hispanic ones get baked with the join on the side, but some on the top.
It’s like paella. Down here they think it can only contain seafood & is heftily priced for two or more like a luxury. In Valencia* it’s rice ‘n bits. Often the bits will include chicken or rabbit. It’s poor people’s food. Rice with whatever you’ve got to give it flavour. Italian & Chinese has the same.
I’ve eaten a proper Valencian paella. It’s cooked by the the men standing around a large paella – the name of the pan – over a wood fire, drinking beer & talking football. Meanwhile the women sit round in a circle doing salad & talking about the men. Sunday thing.
There’s lots of connections between S. America & the UK. Argentina was once one of the world’s richest countries & Harrods had its only branch in Buenos Aires. And there’s amusing stuff. The Chilean Navy’s first admiral was an English MP. It’s first president was Bernado O’Higgins. The existence of Colombia* is owed to Brigada Britannica, 1200 British riflemen. Fought under Simon Bolivar. Made mincemeat of a much larger Spanish army in the War of Independence. There’s a monument to them in Colombia.
* Gran Colombia of course. What is now Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, Ecuador & parts of Peru & Brasil.
And then Mexico still makes pasties, brought over by the Cornish tin miners. They were, at the time, the world’s finest hard rock miners and so were hired all around.
After the tin petered out in Cornwall, the miners also went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to work the copper and iron mines. There’s still roadside pastie stands up there to this day. Also, a lot of short, dark and hairy Yoopers.
BIS,
“Or you could say the Cornish make enpanadas, brought back by returning tin miners. Except there something similar in Greece. It’s something any cuisine will come up with. Rolled out dough, a filler, fold over pinch together, bake. Most Hispanic ones get baked with the join on the side, but some on the top.”
I have to say, I’m struggling for one for France. Maybe people just worked nearer their homes or had food cooked or something.
Food is, what’s available and cooked to needs. Cornish pasty was a food you could eat with filthy hands far from home. Bouillabaisse was a fisherman’s soup made up of all the crappier fish they caught but couldn’t sell like rascasse and conger. Add veg, stock, herbs and most importantly a ton of garlic and herbs to stop it tasting like shit. It turned into cheffy bollocks later and you got restaurants drawing up a “Bouillabaisse Charter” of what should be in it, when it was just about whatever low-grade fish were caught on the day to make a cheap meal.
@WB Cuisines are the result of what materials you have & the utensils cooking facilities you have to make them edible. So it’s not surprising various people with similar materials, utensil & facilities come up with similar things.
And yes, it’s often true that dishes that were originally favoured by the poor end up as signature cuisine. I doubt if the historic Italian rich would have eaten much pasta. Cheap nosh for peasants. Lot of starch for bulk & a bit of meat to flavour it.
@BiS – also biryani.
Some time ago, when I still read the Guardian, there was an article about the ‘right’ way to make paella. The comments BTL turned into a row between various Spanish people, each claiming their village / town / Mum’s paella as the right way.
French pasties – chaussons aux viandes.
@Marius
Since paella’s poor people’s food, the ingredients are going to depend on what’s cheaply & easily available in the locality. So there can’t be a definitive paella. And as I said above, “paella” is actually the name of the pan, not the dish. It’s a paella because it’s cooked in that pan.
@WB
I have to say, I’m struggling for one for France.
Probably cassolette. Beans ‘n bits. And again there’s numerous regional varieties depending on the cheap, easily available bits
The paella Valenciana I was given, the kids went to the beach looking for shellfish, prawns came from a trap, a chicken had its neck wrung & the area around Valencia grows the rice. If there is any rice grown where I live in Andalucia, it’s going to be around Seville, a couple of hundred klicks away. Don’t know what our locals would have been eating before modern cheap transport. More likely beans. And I doubt you’d have got shellfish even 20 km inland.
WB: I know the Patagonians sing hymns in Welsh, but I wonder if any of them could still hold a conversation with a Welshman other than in Spanish.
Years ago in Buenos Aires I thought their subway system had cloned the London Underground.
If we want to copy anything from S America, who votes for free Chilean helicopter trips for politicians?
How tempting Nessimmersion.
Western Bloke said:
“I have to say, I’m struggling for one for France.”
The French don’t need a pasty equivalent because they stop for a 2 hour lunch and go to a restaurant.
The French don’t need a pasty equivalent because they stop for a 2 hour lunch and go to a restaurant.
That doesn’t suit our motorhome lifestyle. We much prefer to go out for a meal in the evenings, but as we spend most of our time out in the country very few restaurants are open in the evening.
Bloke in North Dorset said:
“That doesn’t suit our motorhome lifestyle”
As I think I’ve said before, living in Dorset myself, anything that discourages motorhomes is good.