The famous Sangría of San Roque

Sangría

Whilst the romería once again cannot take place this year, we can get the flavour of the event. There are many ways to prepare Sangria, but today we give you the near mythical recipe for the sangria distributed at the Romería de San Roque in Garachico, which usually takes place each year on 16 August.

Sangria takes its name from the reddish color obtained from its main ingredient, red wine. (Sangre = blood. Sangria means bloodletting in Spanish). 

Tips for making the perfect sangria

• First of all, use a decent wine, neither a gran reserva nor a tetra-brick.
• Always use hard fruit, such as peach, apple, pear, etc. Never use canned peach or pineapple.
• The maceration time of the sangria must be at least 2 hours. That will give the fruit time to transmit flavours to the wine.
• Sweeten to taste, but remember that the fruit itself or if orange or lemon soda is added, it will already add sweetness.
• You can add cognac or any other alcohol. Your call.
• Put the ice in the glass, at the moment of serving. If you make a bowl of sangria as is normally done, do not add ice to the bowl, because if the ice melts, the sangria will be watery and diluted.

Ingredients:

1 litre of red wine

1 peach

1 apple

1 pear

Half a melon

1 cinnamon stick

Orange peel

Lemon peel

Sugar to taste

Half a litre of lemon, orange or plain soda

Note: Increase by half a litre of and half a fruit for every two people.

Method:

Place all the peeled and cut up fruits in a large bowl, add the wine, soda, sugar (to taste), citrus peels and the cinnamon. Marinate for two hours and serve cold. 

Hoy la famosa Sangría de San Roque

Romería de San Roque in Garachico

Romería de San Roque in Garachico

Every year thousands of visitors gather in Garachico to participate in one of the most popular and traditional festivals on the island, first held in the 17th century and described as, "Garachico’s most important annual festival when the town fills with pilgrims (and partygoers) from throughout the island. San Roque (Saint Roch), the town’s patron, was credited with saving the town from the Black Death, which arrived in 1601." As tradition marks, at 8:00 a.m. the town will wake up with the 'Viva San Roquito', thanks to the Garachico Musical Group. 

The Romería (Pilgrimage and festivities of San Roque (Garachico), which in 2006 attracted around 30,000, is held annually on 16th August (irrespective of day of the week), from around 2pm. The figure of the Saint is earlier taken from the Ermita de San Roque to the church of Santa Ana, in the town centre and after a religious service, is taken back to its hermitage, accompanied in procession by the municipal band, carts, flocks of goats and other festively bedecked animals, and musical groups (rondallas and parrandas). The fishermen of Garachico hold a sea-going procession, their boats forming part of the Saint's entourage along the coast. The traditional pilgrimage dance is held in the Plaza de San Roque.

And you probably need to try The famous Sangría of San Roque.

Romería de San Roquito Villa y Puerto de Garachico Tenerife

From Candelaria to San Roque ...

San Roque in Garachico

De fiesta, a fiesta ... You'd be forgiven, mainly because you'd be right, for thinking that in Tenerife there is a fiesta a week (at least) to attend. And there's certainly no lack of variety in the entertainments these events provide and plenty of people who do 'crawl' from one fiesta to the next, especially through the summer.

The fiestas in Candelaria just took place for the archipelago's Patrona, then the party moved to Garachico for fifteen days worth of fiestas in honour of San Roque, which this year drew a crowd of 30,000 to the traditional romeria alone - and that ain't a bad turn out for a town of scarcely 6,000 inhabitants.

The origin of the devotion to the saint goes back to the middle of 17th Century, when an epidemic of plague hit the island of Tenerife. The villagers in Garachico, who had been particularly affected, asked the saint to intercede and, apparently, it worked. Since then, the people of Garachico have remembered the event honouring the patron saint of the locality with a traditional romeria.

The police had never seen so many at this fiesta before. The town was completely blocked off by 11 a.m. and people had to park as far away as La Caleta. Forty-five carts went in procession behind the saint on it's route through the town, which along with good local wine, of course, potatoes and meat cooked on the barbeques on the back of the carts, kept folk amused for 5 hours.

In the meantime, La Guancha have also been celebrating their fiestas in honour of the Virgen de la Esperanza (Virgin of Hope).

This week, it is the turn of Buenavista del Norte, who celebrated a solemn mass for the town's patron, San Bartolomé, yesterday - along with an open-air rapid painting contest in the Plaza de Los Remedios. The winning entry, by Meca González, recreated the scene of the unique dance of Las Libreras - which will be part of the fiestas in El Palmar next month.

On Sunday, in Buenavista del Norte, also as part of the fiestas in honour of San Bartolomé, some 90 crafters will be taking part in the Feria de Artesanía de Buenavista del Norte (Buenavista del Norte Crafts Fair), which is also becoming one of the principal summer attractions of the Isla Baja area.

The time is given as "from the first hours of Sunday". I would translate that as about 10 a.m. ish onwards. As well as typical crafts, there will be ambulant musicians through the day and at 7 p.m. there is concert of folk music.

Also in the El Palmar valley this week, in the district of Las Portelas, are the fiestas in honour of Nuestra Señora del Carmen, from today, August 25th, until September 3rd. I have it on excellent authority - proving the rule that public washbasins are indeed news broadcasting sites, so this is breaking news here in the "media" - that there will be a salsa band from Los Realejos tonight, fireworks tomorrow and mass and a procession on Sunday afternoon.

The Las Portelas fireworks are an annual event that I "attend" from home and it's a spectacle that has to be experienced. Fireworks are always spectacular here, but these have another, entirely unique attraction: that of the acoustic effects of the valley walls. I can hardly describe it, but because the valley is a big basin, almost completely surrounded by an inverted "D" shape of sheer walls, it's like a very noisy train running around that ricochets off the Teno mountains.

And, as I hinted above, the next local fiestas and mini country-fair will be those of the village of El Palmar itself, at the back end of September, which includes the dance of Las Libreras and the annual event of La Trilla (threshing).

Before the fiestas in El Palmar, there will be fiestas up in Teno Alto. Then, in October, there will be more fiestas in Buenavista del Norte and, there are the fiestas up in Erjos to be taken into consideration.

And you can't help thinking that once this fiesta season is over, it will be only a few short weeks before the two public holidays at the beginning of December usher in the month-long Christmas season. Then, as soon as we've had Los Reyes, in January, the carnival season will commence ... and as soon as that is over, the spring-summer-autumn romerias and fiestas circuit will begin again.

We came to the conclusion that the best job in the Canary Islands has to be hot dog or sweet stall holder, because they follow every fiesta of every type! :-)