Farewell to the Bulls?

A new bullfighting season is only weeks away in Toledo, but the talk is only of memories. Aficionados have seen the end of their sport coming for centuries - now it's finally here.

“Gitano” - and a lecture on the merits of a bull with one ear…

I ate my lunch beneath the head of a bull called Gitano – the gypsy. The heavily mounted shape was one of three in a parrillada down a back street in Toledo, and the walls were otherwise littered with newspaper cuttings, posters and signed photographs from bullfighters dating back to the nineteen thirties. There was standing-room only in the eatery; fifteen people in a space which could hardly hold five. A tang of vermouth and the noisy hiss of kidneys fried on a hotplate contributed to a characteristically Spanish dynamic of grease underslashed with acid.

A new man entered and shouldered his way to the bar. With a wink of his eye, he ordered a plateful of zarajos de cuenca; lamb intestines wound tightly round a skewer. There was nowhere else to perch, so he came and put his bag on my feet, resting an elbow opposite me. The head of Gitano was more than big enough to shelter us both, and he watched me eating a dish of morcilla while he waited for his order. I’m loyal to the glory of Stornoway black pudding, but Spanish morcilla shines in the dark perfume of seeds and spices – and it’s very like the culture of presentation in this place to serve it simply as it comes: You want morcilla? Have slightly more of it than you can handle – and let’s not piss around with salad or a garnish - just a towering lump of blood and fat, washed down with beer and a crust of bread so light and lifeless that it might as well be a meringue. Perfect.