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YUCCA The first time I saw a yucca in flower I was amazed – the yuccas I’d seen in England were pot plants. Then I saw these strange roots for sale and learned they were yucca too – known in some places as manioc or cassava. You can boil it and serve with a mojo (sauce) – it’s rather bland on its own – and it thickens a stew beautifully. It can be fried in slices or made into chips – in fact you can treat it as you would a potato. Apparently you can also put the flower petals in a salad and eat the fruit.
YAMS are another favourite, though yam is what my OH calls them – batatas is the Canarian word, and in England you know then as sweet potatoes. I love them, though it’s difficult to tell whether I’m buying blanca or naranja unless I scratch one – I prefer the nananja. Its orange flesh tastes divine, particularly when roasted like a parsnip, and like the yucca they go beautifully in a stew or curry.
YACHTS are everywhere here – not surprising on an island – and some of them cost more than a house. There was speculation in a local newspaper last week about who owns a luxury yacht in Los Cristianos harbour – if it’s going begging I’ll take it off their hands!
Many little fishing harbours, like this one in Las Galletas, have gone up-market in recent years with marinas, but alongside the luxury yachts you will still find the local fishing boats, and the beaches will still be scattered with battered rowing boats.
YOUNG As the OH is fond of saying, with such a name we will always be young. Shame it’s not true, and the body lets us down more often, but age is a state of mind too. So as the YEARS pike up inexorably, nil desperandum!
