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Costillas con papas y piñas (Pork ribs with potatoes and corncobs)

Costillas con papas y piñas (Pork ribs with potatoes and corncobs)

Costillas con papas y piñas (Pork ribs with potatoes and corncobs) is one of the most iconic Canarian dishes, typical of Tenerife. Here's how to make it:

Ingredients:

1.5 kg fresh or salted rib of pork
3 corn cobs
6 whole black peppercorns 
2 mint leaves
Half a lemon
Salt

Method:

If the ribs are fresh, add a little salt. If the ribs are salted, they must be previously desalted and then you will not need to add salt. To desalt the ribs, if needed, soak them in cold water for about 2 hours. After this time, drain off the strongly salty water and place them in clean water to soak for another 5 or 6 hours, then drain before cooking in fresh water.

Separate the ribs, to make individual portions. Put them in a large pan, with enough water to cover them generously. Add the peppercorns, the half lemon, the two mint leaves, and a little salt (if needed). Cut the corncobs into two or three pieces each, and place them in the pan with the meat. Place on a high heat until it starts to boil, and then turn the heat down to medium, leaving it at a rolling boil. The ribs will need to cook for between 1.5 and 2.5 hours, until tender enough that the meat will separate from from the bone without any effort, using just a fork. Turn off the heat. Drain, reserving the cooking water from the ribs.

Peel several large potatoes, cut them in half and cook them in a saucepan with a little salt, in the water from the ribs. Drain and allow to dry over low heat. Arrange on a platter and take to the table. Serve with mojo de cilantro (coriander sauce).

Costillas con papas y piñas


COSTILLAS, PAPAS Y PIÑAS COMIDA CANARIA

The Orotava flower carpets and their three suspensions throughout history

Corpus La Orotava 2009 Photo Jose Mesa Some Rights Reserved

This year a pandemic has interrupted the tradition in honour of Corpus Christi - the Día de las Alfombras (Day of the Carpets) that should have been taking place in the streets today, Thursday 18 June 2020 - as also happened in 1891, then by smallpox, while in 1897 it was not celebrated because the parish church was being renovated. The flower carpets of La Orotava are the most important hallmark of the artistic identity of this Tenerife town. According to the existing documentation, La Orotava was the first municipality in the Canary Islands to make flower carpets for the passage of the Most Holy Corpus Christi back in 1844. Tacoronte and La Laguna then followed suit.

The carpets were not always as we know them today. It was 1892 when the two most important festivals of La Orotava, the Octava of Corpus and San Isidro, were unified, as they're celebrated today. The first carpet was produced in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento in 1919, but the entire route was not carpeted until the first years of the 1980s. And during these more than 175 years, the production of carpets has only been suspended, three times, in 1891, in 1897 and in 2020.

The curious thing is that both the first time, in 1891, and this year of 2020, the reason has been practically the same, that of a worldwide pandemic, which has demanded the greatest sanitary security measures and that include social distancing as one of the main actions to be carried out. 

In 1891 the pandemic was smallpox and this year it was, as we know, coronavirus or covid-19. As has happened this year, in 1891 few countries worldwide were spared from suffering the serious consequences of smallpox, with the few precautions taken by health authorities globally being notorious. However, the press at the time did praise the efforts made by La Orotava authorities in order to eradicate this epidemic in the municipality. The local health authorities, in agreement with the City Council, established a provisional hospital on the outskirts of the town in order to isolate and care for the sick. 

The Orotava press wrote at the time, "that smallpox is spread by contact of healthy people with sick people and that contagious germs are conserved many times in the clothes and objects used by the latter, whose contact should be avoided." They also wrote that "you have to be logical: carpets have been banned due to the possibility that outsiders bring the germ of the disease and leave it on the ornate streets." But this was not the first time that a smallpox epidemic attacked La Orotava, as during the months of March to July 1870, it was much more virulent than that of 1891. In 1870, 292 people fell ill in the town, 46 of whom died. In 1891, only two people died. In 1891, in fear of what had happened years before, all possible sanitary protection measures were taken. Curiously, however, in 1891, during the month of April and due to the procession called Visita de Enfermos (Visit of the Sick), the whole street of La Hoya, (today Hermano Apolinar), was carpeted with the traditional Orotava flower carpets.

The second time La Orotava carpets were suspended was in 1897, but the reason was because the parish church of La Concepción was temporarily closed to worship, as it was undergoing important renovations and it would mean that the procession would have to take a different route from the usual one.

And in this 2020, the City Council of La Orotava, in a telematic plenary session, unanimously approved, on May 5, the suspension, for the third time in history, of the Flower Festival, in the face of the pandemic of the coronavirus.

Las alfombras de la Orotava y sus tres suspensiones a lo largo de la historia


Infraoctava Corpus Christi La Orotava 2019

When Doctor Balmis vaccinated thousands of people in Tenerife against smallpox

The María Pita, a ship chartered for the expedition, departing from
the port of La Coruña in 1803 (engraving by Francisco Pérez).

Santa Cruz de Tenerife was the first port to which the Balmis Expedition arrived in 1803, the great international sanitary operation that Spain promoted to bring the smallpox vaccine to the Spanish Empire. It spent a month in the capital city, vaccinating thousands of people.

El barco de la viruela: La escala de Balmis en Tenerife
The Ministry of Defense has named "Operation Balmis against SARS-CoV-2" the deployment of the Armed Forces to fight SARS-CoV-2 responsible for Covid-19, in a tribute to the Balmis Expedition or "Royal Philanthropic Expedition of the Vaccine", which took place between 1803 and 1806.

What was that expedition? It was the first international operation of a sanitary and humanitarian nature, proposed to King Carlos IV by the Spanish doctor and military surgeon Francisco Javier de Balmis y Berenguer in order to bring the smallpox vaccine to the  Spanish Empire to save hundreds of thousands of lives, especially children. It would be Carlos IV himself who would pay for it.

In order for the vaccine to withstand the long journey, Balmis took a group of orphaned children under the age of 10 as a natural reservoir, as they were inoculated with the vaccine, in order to extract the fluid from the pustules that formed (in what was called the "serial method "). In this way, thousands of people residing in the different territories of the Spanish Empire could be inoculated.

Isabel Zendal is recognized as the first nurse in history to take part in an international mission by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The expedition, on board the corvette "María Pita" (name of the heroine who had defended La Coruña from the English invasion of 1589), set sail from the port of that city on November 30, 1803 with Balmis (who would take advantage to study medicinal plants in the regions they visited) at the head and two auxiliary doctors, two practitioners, three nurses and the director of the Casa de Expósito (home for abandoned children) in La Coruña, Isabel Zendal, who would be responsible for the care of the 22 children on board.


The first port that the aforementioned expedition reached was that of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where it spent a month vaccinating thousands of people and from where it left for America on January 6, 1804.

Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, all the territory known at that time as New Spain that included Mexico, California and Texas; the Philippines, China and the island of Saint Helena (although she was British), were the main regions where the procedure would be carried out.

The expedition carried 2,000 copies of the "Practical and Historical Vaccine Treaty" by the French physician and anatomist Moreau de Sarthe to distribute to the different vaccination commissions that were created in each place, so that they could learn and continue with the vaccination process.

The Balmis expedition was, without a doubt, the first and one of the greatest milestones in history of preventive and social medicine and public health that any country has ever carried out, saving the lives of thousands of people who, without it, would have died, although, even today it is unknown by many people in the country.

Cuando Balmis vacunó a miles de personas en Tenerife contra la viruela

Other references:
La vacuna de la viruela en Santa Cruz
ISABEL ZENDAL: la enfermera que ayudó a erradicar la viruela
Documental sobre la biografía del Dr. Balmis

Tenerife in June 2020

Día de las Alfombras (Carpet Day) for Corpus Christi in La Orotava in other times

There are no national public holidays in June, but some at a municipal level:
  • 1 June: Monday of Remedios in Los Realejos
  • 13 June: Festivity of San Antonio de Padua in Granadilla de Abona
  • 18 June: Infraoctava del Corpus Christi in La Orotava
  • 24 June: Festivity of San Juan Evangelista in Garachico, Guía de Isora, Los Silos and San Juan de la Rambla
  • 29 June: Festivity of San Pedro Apóstol in El Sauzal and Güímar
Normally these dates would give clues to any fiestas taking place in those localities, but, of course, there are none being held currently. Shops and town halls will be closed in those districts on those days.

The Día de las Alfombras (Day of the Carpets) for Corpus Christi in La Orotava should have been taking place on 18 June this year, however, the town hall of La Orotava announced that they have cancelled their fiestas patronales entirely. In fact, they have cancelled all cultural, recreational and sports events or all those involving any type of agglomeration, including fairs, right through until October.

Likewise, it's difficult to imagine how the annual Fiestas de San Juan could be socially distanced, so we're sure that these will also be unable to go ahead.

Tenerife Land of Eternal Christmas

Sunbathing SantaDesert Island ChristmasScuba Diving SantaTropical Santa
Santa's Having a Whale of a TimeSurfing SantaWaterski SantaCamel Rodeo Santa
With a wide range of products in each design, click the pics (above) to see the full selections.