Happy as a pig

... in free-range mud. Our experience in Spain is that free-range/organic meat doesn't have that high a profile. When we spent two months in the Ebro Delta we practically stopped eating meat and chicken because the quality of meat available was so poor and I refuse to eat battery chicken (luckily fish was no problem!). Here, S asked the lady in the organic grocer about meat a couple of weeks ago and she told him about a free-range pig farm not far away. When we ran out of work today, we decided to go on a little adventure.

When we arrived in the village (another place miles from anywhere) and asked for directions, a guy in a van walked to the house with us while phoning the pig farmer on his mobile. We had a brief chat with Joaquín and his wife about ordering some meat, and then he said "Would you like to see the pigs?" "Sure!" So we got in his jeep and he drove us all of 500 metres before we walked up a track to see a crowd of fat, muddy Bigourdan pigs who were very pleased to see us, rushing up to the fence to snort at us.

When we mentioned where we live in France, Joaquín smiled broadly. "Do you know Claude Marti?" "The singer? Yes, he's sung in our village a few times." "Oh, we know him -- he sang in a concert here and had supper with us afterwards." It turned out that Claude's family was originally from around here -- like so many, they emigrated to France in the mid-20th century and the village they came from is now deserted.  It's a small world! Or, "The world is a handkerchief," as they say in Spanish (El mundo es un pañuelo). 

The next thing we knew, Joaquín took us into the house and hauled out lots of ancient bottles of Corbières and Blanquette de Limoux from their visits to France. "I expect they're undrinkable," said his wife. "We just keep them as souvenirs." She then started pressing a quantity of freshly picked organic apples on us from the crates lying around the cellar. A lovely couple; eventually we tore ourselves away, but we'll be back in a week or so to collect some pork. I'm glad we can get by well enough in Spanish to enjoy meetings like this (and that everyone around here speaks Spanish, not Basque or Catalan ...).