LO TRADICIONAL

it does its job sometimes, tried and true, and it does still have its place, although that place might not be where you'd traditionally expect to find it. and where you find it one night at dusk as the breeze rises and the temperature finally starts to fall is far away from the manicured traditions of the center, on the edge of one (or it could be another) of the neighborhoods where people have been left alone to live everyday life. you find it in a parking lot, which apparently pertains to calle alberche, outside, among the cars and the parking spaces, because inside of la tradicional there's nowhere to sit. and you sit, outside, in tawdry plastic chairs from the diet coke brand, which match the equally tasteless plastic tables that cover that patio surrounded by the parking lot, and the atmosphere of the restaurant is capriciously both at odds with and made by them. you came, however, for the food, because the food speaks for itself, which you know because it has such a widely spoken reputation. but what's basque about cantabrian anchovies on top of salmorejo? then again, why should the brazilian expat ex-toledana have known all the traditions of spain in the first place? but that, in keeping with the essential incongruity of the tables and chairs (not to mention the impeccably dapper server who announces plates but doesn't take orders) is in perfect keeping with all the best traditions of seville. away from the manicured traditionality of the center. eleven o'clock. breeze still rising. you joke more than necessary about the pluma al oporto -- and the jokes are soured by regret, but the dish is fine. you can't, however, do much to stem the bad puns, because the beers at la tradicional are served large. bullied silence. the way home, with the detour taken not to find ice cream, doesn't manage, in the dark, to avoid the virgen del sol. days or hours later, on the way to the white footed bars around america town in madrid, you finally see one of the black footed pigs off to one side of the highway through extremadura, and he or she is happily trotting out acorns there in the place of tradition. he or she (if it was actually him or her that you saw) will later mark the end of the line, because even if you were a third of your way to cantabria, the salmorejo was, so to speak, behind you, and the anchovy sandwich at that not so traditional roadhouse was nothing but salty brass tacks. not a trace of breeze. lucky that the beers there are served large too, even if the capital could only offer a shade of the pluma al oporto and was more than a far cry from la tradicional.