The Spirit World

I walked into a Galician restaurant in Madrid a few years ago, and was greeted by a horrific scene.

Four people were seated at a table—in the middle of which sat a large, earthenware bowl.  The bowl, which was filled with liquid, had burst into flames.
 
“Step aside!” I said to my dinner companion.  And then—stroking my handlebar moustache and rolling-up the sleeves of my red, flannel shirt—I grabbed a nearby wool overcoat and prepared to smother the raging beast.
 
“You idiot!” she said while grabbing my forearm.  “Don’t you dare touch that! It’s a bowl of Queimada!” (pronounced, “kay-MAH-da”).
 
Queimada is a popular “cocktail” from Spain’s northwest Galicia region—which borders Portugal and is reknowned for its craggy shoreline, driving rains and tasty shellfish. 

Queimada is prepared by filling an earthenware bowl with the Galician grappa called “aguardiente” and spicing it with such ingredients as sugar, lemon or orange peel and coffee beans. 
 
The lot is then ignited and the table’s occupants (or, at least, those who didn’t go too heavily on the hairspray that night) stare transfixed at the bluish flames licking skyward from the bowl. All the while, ladle-full after ladle-full of the flaming cocktail is scooped, lifted and poured back into the bowl. 
 
Tradition dictates that a special poem be recited during this ritual of obsessive-compulsive ladling in order to ward-off evil spirits.  The poem—called the “conxuro” (pronounced, “cone-SHU-roh”)—goes something like this:

Owls, barn owls, toads and witches.
Evil demons and devils.
Spirits of the snowy plains.
Crows, salamanders and sorceresses.
The spells of the quack doctors.
Rotten, hole-ridden canes.
Worm holes and lairs of vermin.
Fire of the souls in torment.
The evil eye, black spells, the smell of the dead, thunder and lightning.
Dog’s bark, portents of death.
Satyr’s snout and rabbit’s foot.
The sinful tongue of the harridan wife of an old man.
Hell of Satan and Beelzebub.
The fire of burning corpses.
The mutilated bodies of the wretched.
Farts from hellish asses. [Hey…don’t blame me. I didn’t write it.]
The roar of the raging sea.
Barren womb of the single mother.
The meowing of cats in heat.
Mangy and filthy hair of the ill-begotten goat.
With this ladle I will raise the flames of this hell-like fire, and the witches will flee on their broomsticks, to bathe on the fat-pebbled beach.
Hear, hear!
The howls of those who burn in the aguardiente and thereby purify themselves.
And when this brew runs down our throats, we will be free of all the sins of our soul and of all witchcraft.
Forces of air, earth, sea and fire, I make this call to you: if it be true that you have more power than man, here and now, make the spirits of the friends who have departed share this Quiemada with us.
Kinda makes you thirsty, doesn’t it? I suspect, however, that Queimada is rarely served backstage at the 700 Club.

Anyway…when all is said and done, the flames die-down and the hot, fragrant, carmelized Queimada is a ladled into small, earthenware cups.

And then the revelers drink-up—secure in the knowlege that they are “free from all the sins of our soul and of all witchcraft.”

And that, my friends, is something on which you can’t put a pricetag.