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Monday, June 09, 2014

Street names; & Menu items


Bilbao proved a hit with my London-based friends, as did the journey through the magnificent countryside from the mountains of the Basque country to the plains of Castilla y León.

Talking of León . . . The map from the 2004 Rough Guide featured a street named after the Francoist general Mola. Even worse, the map of Burgos not only contained a street named after General Sanjuro but also an Avenida Generalisimo. Like an Avenue Adolf Hitler in Berlin. I asked the taxi driver about this and wasn't too surprised to hear they'd been renamed. About which he seemed rather ambivalent. "History is history and things should be left how they are", he muttered.

We had a General Mola street in Pontevedra once. It was renamed General Gutierrez Mellado. Which is a bit of a mouthful, even for the Spanish. So everyone still calls it 'Mola', though this is probably not politically correct. But at least we don't have a street named after the appalling General Queipo de Llano.

I know this is too easy but tonight's menu contained an item called Revuelto de setas y gulas, of which the correct translation is 'Scrambled eggs with mushrooms and eels'. What we actually got was - 'In a mess of mushrooms and gluttonies'. Gula is Spanish for gluttony, it seems. Whereas gulas means eels. Go figure.

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