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Catalan clubbers swap food for fiestas

A popular nightlife complex in Catalonia will allow punters to pay the €10 admission price with groceries instead of cash to collect food for a local charity and raise awareness of poverty.

Catalan clubbers swap food for fiestas
Patrons of Larida nightclub will feed the poor to fill the dancefloor on Saturday. Photo: Larida

Larida, a nightclub and leisure complex in the Catalan province of Lleida, has launched the unprecedented initiative in conjunction with the local Food Bank, supported by the town hall and the Network of Social Care Organizations.

The goal is to raise awareness among young people of the realities of the poverty that many people suffer and to promote active involvement to mitigate its effects, according to press agency EFE.

Rubén Lladonosa, co-owner and manager of Larida, expressed his wish to use the attraction that young people feel for the nightclub, which is one of the biggest in Catalonia, to "make them aware of the plight that many families find themselves in because of the crisis and get them actively involved to alleviate the suffering, not just today but regularly."

Lladonosa declared himself confident that the experience would be a successful one and said that it might be repeated on other occasions.

Josep María Forné, president of the Lleida Food Bank and of the Catalan Federation of Food Banks, stressed the potential of the initiative because, "it has the benefit of not just collecting much-needed food but also of educating and raising awareness."

Forné hoped that the example set by Larida would be followed by others.

"Expand this beyond Lleida and it could encourage other entertainment and recreation venues  to show that they can also have fun at the same time as doing their bit for solidarity by doing something as simple as asking for food donations as entrance fees."

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FOOD AND DRINK

Why do they pour cider like that in Spain’s Asturias?

The green northern region’s drink of choice is cider but it’s the method waiters have of pouring it from a great height that catches the attention of ‘out-ciders’.

Why do they pour cider like that in Spain's Asturias?

They say Asturian blood is 50 percent water and 50 percent cider, and given the 40 million bottles produced every year in the region, it doesn’t seem too hard to believe.

However, it’s the method of serving cider in Asturias which really captures the imagination. 

The bottle will either come attached to a contraption which sucks up the cider and splurts it into a wide but thin-rimmed glass.

Or the waiter will come out every few minutes to grab your bottle and glass, lift the former high up with one arm and the latter down low around waist height before pouring some of the cider into the glass from at an arm’s length. 

There’s even a verb for this action – escanciar – to decant.  

The objective is for the cider to be shaken and aerated so that its natural carbon dioxide ‘awakens’.

When it is poured from above and hits the glass, carbon dioxide bubbles are produced that make the aroma of the cider come alive.

It’s good and normal for there to be splashback when pouring Asturian cider, but the aim is still to get most of it in the glass. (Photo by MIGUEL RIOPA / AFP)

These bubbles go away quickly so once served, the customer should quickly drink the culín (small bottom) up in one swig. 

The action of escanciar imitates how cider would be traditionally served when it went directly from big oak barrels to the glass, as cider has been the drink of choice in Asturians since before Roman times. 

READ ALSO: Why Spaniards’ habit of drinking alcohol every day is surprisingly healthy

This is after all natural cider which doesn’t come with the sugar, additives and pre-carbonated mixes of brands such as Strongbow, Magners or Kopparberg.

“It took me some time to get the hang of pouring cider, I missed the mark a lot, and my arm used to get very tired at first,” a Latin American waitress at a bar in Gijón told The Local Spain. 

Many sidrerías (cider houses) and restaurants have cylindrical tubes on wheels where escanciadores (the waiters in charge of pouring cider) can put the glass in to avoid making a mess on the floor or splashing customers, as there is always some splatter even if they don’t completely miss the mark. 

A waiter pours cider for customers at a cider bar in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo (Photo by RAFA RIVAS / AFP)

The more old-school chigres (cider house in Asturian) prefer to have sawdust all over the floor to absorb the spilt cider.

To pour, tirar (throw) or escanciar (decant) cider like an Asturian, you should tilt the bottle slowly from above and aim for the cider to hit the top part of the inside side of the glass, which has to be held at a 45-degree angle. It’s this that brings out the effervescence out in la sidra natural.  

So when you visit the beautiful region of Asturias and you tuck into their famously ample servings of fabada asturiana (Asturian bean stew) or cachopo (meat, cheese and ham all together in breadcrumbs), washed down with one or two bottles of sidra, now you’ll understand what’s behind this eye-catching tradition.

READ ALSO: Eight fascinating facts about Spain’s Asturias region

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