We Spaniards, above all those of us who are lucky enough to live on the Costa del Sol, where the heat is most intense, are bemused by the time when foreigners typically eat, which is of course much more sensible than when we do. In days gone by, let’s be honest, the real surprise was that we ourselves ate, since this was scarcely widespread practice. Hunger, at times congenital and hereditary, abounds in our literature and, as I am fond of recalling, literature is life in writing. Ever since the Picaresque, which together with the Mystic is one of our great literary achievements, powerful inspiration has been drawn from empty bellies. These days no one, not even in the inevitable slum areas, suffers this lack. Everyone eats. Some more, some less and some a whole lot more. (Childhood obesity has become a problem, and not only because at school break time the fat kid’s classmates don’t let him play even if it is his ball.)

The panorama of famine worldwide is a pitiful sight, digestion a privilege granted only to the lucky minority. And we should not confuse hunger with appetite. When we say something like “I’m absolutely famished”, what we really mean is that we are good and ready to sit down to a satisfying meal. What seems to be falling from favour is eating at home. Many things have changed. In Spain we are beginning to appreciate more fruit, milk, vegetables and other foods looked down on by the couch potatoes and greedy-guts among us. It is a question of savouring, rather than stuffing ourselves. As the great Spanish writer Azorín, a man of restraint not only in his prose, put it in a single phrase: “eating is not ingesting”. In any case, it is reassuring that today, whether at home or not, we all have something to eat, both foreigners and natives, albeit at different times. The fact is that, whatever hour of day it may be, mealtime is always sacred.