La Matanza Country Inn

La Matanza, 1839 In all Tenerife there is no better country inn than that, or rather those (for there are a rival pair of them), at Matanza. The hostess of the one I favoured was buxom and comely, and she had learnt to a nicety how to fracture the shell in which the common Englishman thinks fit to ensconce himself. None but the stiffest of necks could stay unbent before her hospitable endeavours, and her sweet if flattering commiserations with the wayfarer on the hard luck that has compelled him to battle with heat, flies, and dust on that particular day. Her smartness, too, was a pattern for all Spain; though this was no doubt due to the exigencies of the mail, and its assumed punctuality in leaving when the half-hour for luncheon had expired.

Ere I was well settled in my chair the ragout of eggs and meat and broth, which stands in Tenerife for a soup de pays, was smoking before me; and beefsteaks, cutlets of kid, chickens, dulces ( biscuits and other sugary confections), and fruit of bananas, figs, oranges, and apples succeeded each other like the carriages of a train. “Ah! the dear English!” she muttered, while bustling about with dishes and bottles; and she carried her affection for us so far as to attack and rout the bevy of barelegged beggar boys and girls and old crones who kept up a tiresome clamour for coppers at the window of the inn.

Charles Edwardes, Rides and Studies in the Canary Islands (1888)