Upon The Sacred Mountain

It was a Tuesday. Or a Saturday. Or a Monday. It was a day. A very hot day. Not wait, that's rubbish because very hot conjures up saunas and beaches and summer holidays and this was beyond that, beyond anything I had ever experienced. It was still sort of summer (half way through September) but the temperature was at least 38c and Seville was sweating and I was regretting. Regretting coming to such a cursed, wretched, sun-blasted, shirt-soaking place. Regretting not staying up in The North with its sea breeze, wonderful fish and scenery, not to mention girls. But then it happened.

Ducking my way under some scaffolding, weaving between antique barrels and men wearing wax jackets (that’s right folks, 38c) with oily hair sipping ice-cold sherry, I stumbled upon the Holy Grail.

What I'm about to reveal to you should be locked in a safe somewhere, the only access given to people in bio-suits or kept for those living in a terrible dystopian future to gaze upon misty-eyed, looking back to an age when animals skipped merrily in the fields, and when we didn’t know what else to do, we put them in an omelette. That’s right. I'm about to reveal to you The Power of Sacramonte, the ‘sacred mountain’ (compacted disc, to be fair) of egg and potato and chorizo and pepper and onion and various other bits and pieces that are left over from God knows how long ago.

The first time I had this magnificent creation was at exactly 3.11pm. I remember making a note of it (but oddly I don’t remember the day) thinking to myself that the magnitude of this experience will be forever unparalleled in my time on this earth. It was drug-like, almost hallucinogenic, holy. If there is a heaven then this is surely to be had at the top table most lunchtimes. Angels probably shit it or something. It’s that good.

Anyway, I’d steered past the men dressed as hunting aristocracy in their little tasselled loafers and wax Barbour jackets, and positioned myself at the bar, which in this particular bar (don’t know whether to give the name away or keep it secret. I expect I’ll tell you later but only if you’re good) is a wrap around job containing a wonderful assortment of sandwiches, tortillas, pickled cheeses, olives, unidentifiable pieces of pig, pastries and other Iberian accoutrements.

What caught my eye however, amongst all of these delicacies was an omelette unlike any I’d ever seen before. It was yellow, sure, but it was also green and red and meaty looking and it was the size of a tractor tyre. It glistened, and it dominated the bar and not just the part where the food was arranged but I mean the entire bar. I ordered a beer and peered at it some more, trying to decipher what it was made of, what was contained within its springy, muscular walls.

Some people say that the Sacramonte originates in the inhabited caves of the same name near Granada but I prefer a different story. Legend has it that the abbot of the Monasterio de San Cecilio in Granada was expecting a few local dignitaries for lunch one weekend, and had rounded up a few lambs outside ready to be slaughtered and roasted on the day of the party. He woke up on the day of the feast only to find the lambs had been stolen by a local criminal gang. Desperate for something to feed his important visitors, he rustled around in the monastery larder for leftovers and this is what he found there, all ready to be turned into an omelette: as well as all the obvious tortilla ingredients, the ingredients on that day and even now often include, but are not limited to, lambs brains, testicles and pieces of tripe. I’ve encountered kidney, chorizo, turnip tops and peas not to mention all sorts of other tasty little treats contained within the eggy outer skin of the sacramonte. The more the better I say.

One night, my friend Rob asked the barman how many eggs it takes to make a sacramonte. Any guesses? 10? 15? Well, you’re miles off. It takes 26 of your finest Spanish eggs to accumulate enough cholesterol to craft a sacramonte. Just to give you an idea, a normal tortilla de patatas is cooked in your bog-standard frying pan and is generally made with 4-6 eggs. You wouldn’t, though, be able to get this thing in a standard oven let alone frying pan. God knows how they cook it but I'm glad they do.

It tastes wonderful. I shall now try to explain to you the combination of flavours that hit you as you shovel it past your taste buds. Firstly, the texture is excellent. It has bite and it is meaty but yet each individual component (particularly the onions) forms their own compartments within the whole so you get an almost honeycombed, slightly aerated effect in parts where the egg has set and formed little chambers around the other ingredients. This means that if you bite into a mouth-sized

portion, you get an amazing cross-section of ingredients and flavours. Bite down upon the eggy outer casing and you might get to a piece of sweet onion, then to a cube of chorizo or lump of succulent brain and then some potato all in one mouthful, the flavours coming one after the other. The ingredients work so well together in perfect harmony. Creamy egg, soft bland floury potato, sweet slippery slivers of onion, salty, peppery chorizo and fatty wholesome brain and offal.

I have yet to visit this bar (La Bodega on Plaza Alfalfa by the way- well done, you behaved) without eating at least a wedge or two of Sacramonte. It works in the grand tradition of leftover foods such as bubble and squeak and dishes which taste better the next day, cold even. With flavours intensified and combinations long tried and trusted, the beautiful simplicity of putting whatever you have lying around into a pot (you don’t need the brains and kidney, chorizo on its own will do) and combining it with potatoes and eggs works so well. It’s the taste but it’s also the practicality of the dish which gets me. It's like Calzone or anything between bread. It makes so much sense, it’s so practical, you get all you want in an uncomplicated plateful and you get all the flavours in one bite. This will forever be the taste of Andalucia for me.