Happy families and happy meals

When I first arrived in Madrid, all those many weeks ago, my host family were welcoming and were at pains to make me feel at home and fully accepted as a temporary family member.  Various ruses were employed to these ends.  The blistering September sun led to weekend swimming pool outings.  Evening trips to the park became a regular fixture.  And Papá was insistent that the whole family be present on a drive-by afternoon tour of Madrid’s main sights.  But no measure was more earnestly and obviously welcoming than the Sunday Family Lunches.

This process, undoubtedly already well known to some of you, can also be described as the “meet the parents” phase, and is probably not dissimilar to the future in-laws procedure.  In the same way, you are being generously welcomed into a family and the pressure is on to make a good impression.  Yet there are also fundamental differences in my case.  Firstly, I did not yet master the language well enough to make educated comments on the subjects of conversation; and therefore pathetically had to rely on a permanent smile and a continuous stream of monosyllabic appreciation.  Secondly, I had been dropped in at the deep end of a culture that was all but completely alien to me, and suffered accordingly.

The family, by which I mean the one comprising Grandparents and cousins as well as the nuclear family; is, as in many Mediterranean cultures, a matter of utmost importance here in Spain.  Typically, a son will live at home and continue to have his clothes washed and ironed by his mother until he marries, which could be after he reaches his thirties.  Although sometimes dismissed as yet another national stereotype, I have first-hand accounts of this situation and can now assure you it is completely accurate.  Furthermore, the son, unless of the darker ovine variety, will set up his family not too far from the mother ship, as it were, enabling his dear parents to come over every Sunday for an afternoon of lavish feasting.

This is more or less what happens every Sunday in the family I now live in.  Papá’s parents arrive around two o’clock, always late and bearing ridiculous amounts of food. They then proceed to greet everyone with multiple hugs and kisses and present gifts to the youngest members of the party.  Nibbles will be handed out, as will a crescendo of alcohol, while the aforementioned little ones cry and fight over which present is whose and exactly how its hair should be combed.

And finally, the meal itself arrives.  At some stomach-rumbling time around three or four, we are all called to the table and I am generously served by Grandmother who returns my plate invariably creaking under the weight of the larger part of this week’s animal.  As part of the Spanish idea of a balanced diet, there is a side offering of Garlic and olive oil, with a few potato slices thrown in.  With my stomach groaning in protest, I politely gorge myself on the overload of meat and try my utmost to take some part in the conversation, also known as near-violent argument, going on at the table.  Yet woe betide me should I finish my portion, for I would immediately discover it replaced with another by that dear hospitable grandmother.  The amount of meat consumed is quite incredible here, and a six-year-old is served a leg of chicken any adult from my more northern culture would be awed to find on his dinner plate.

The meal, long and copious though it may be, inexorably draws to a close around five or six in the evening when the fully sated participants retire to a deserved siesta.  I am at last released from the kindly old Grandfather’s explanations and comments, and can go in search of a quiet lie down in order to get over the whole ordeal.  Indeed, the meals act not only as a test for my stomach, but also as a veritable afternoon of Spanish lesson.  The concentration required can be quite exhausting.

Yet somehow, despite the intellectual and physical hardship endured, these family dinners could quite obviously be described as a grand thing.  For a busy family that doesn’t spend a lot of time together during the week, it provides invaluable argument time with parents, children and relatives, and maintains the close-knit feeling typical of Mediterranean families.  However, I must admit that after a few Sundays like the one described, I soon acquired a taste for weekend day-trips to sites outside Madrid.  Therefore, unfortunately absent from the proceedings, I have been unable to partake in the last few feasts.