The Ghost Ship

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Literature · Subcategory: Literary fragments · Year: 1986 · Authors: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

The Catalan writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán (Barcelona, 1939-Bangkok, Thailand, 2003), endowed with an almost boundless personality, defined himself as "journalist, novelist, poet, essayist, anthologist, prologuist, humourist, critic, gastronome, culé and prolific in general", all fields in which he excelled. He was widely recognised especially for his novels featuring the detective Pepe Carvalho. In one of the novels starring this character, Historias de fantasmas (Ghost Stories), published in 1986, three ghostly tales are gathered. In the second of these, titled "El barco fantasma" (The Ghost Ship), the old theme of the shipwrecked vessel turned mysterious presence is mixed with the struggle for fishing rights. The action takes place in the Canary Islands and some passages refer to Santa Cruz. We highlight a fragment in which Carvalho's good appetite leads him to a classic restaurant in Santa Cruz, now disappeared, located in what was the Los Llanos neighbourhood of the capital: "La Caseta de Madera". The place was full of maritime typicity, with a bar whose longitudinal half was a boat. There, the best of the land's products were savoured, whether fruits, vegetables, potatoes, fish or mojos. 

«—¿Where shall we start?

—With some wrinkled potatoes with mojo. Where can you eat Canarian cuisine?

—I eat at home and I think I eat Canarian cuisine, if you like.

—Thank you very much, but a restaurant tempts me.

—Try La Caseta de Madera, they have good local fish there, the sama, the vieja and mojos. Restaurants are not very fond of Canarian cuisine. Many are run by foreigners. People are forgetting their own cuisine. When I was a child they even ate sarda.

—¿What is that?

—It is a local shark. These waters are very rich because you have cold and warm waters, depending on the currents. There are fish like the sama or the vieja that are local, the vieja is also called parrot fish. But there are also tunas, mackerels, bonitos, albacores, barrilotes, petos...

—Don't go on, friend. My mouth is watering.»

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