If you see clams, cockles or mussels for sale labelled 'sin arena', this means that they have no sand in them..
Black boletus mushroom. Excellent to eat from August to October whether raw in salads or cooked or preserved and also freezes well.
A semihard cheese from León made from cow's beestings, made from spring to summer and matured for two months. It has a greyish-white, smooth paste, often dry, cracked and crumbly, with a hard, yellow, slightly oily rind. It has a bitter flavour.
The scrumptious sticky coating that gathers at the bottom of the paella pan when you scrape it up at the end. The flavour is enhanced by adding puréed fresh tomatoes during the cooking, which then caramelises.
Monk’s beard. A thin, wild spring grass, a type of chicory, looking like a cross between samphire and tumbleweed, from northern Italy. It has a bitter flavour, bearing some relation in texture and taste to samphire, succulent and pleasantly resistant to the bite, and is eaten raw, blanched for seconds and dressed, or stewed in olive oil. It is also a useful addition to salads. It has a very short season which seems to be quite specifically five weeks in spring.
