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The Wild Asparagus Hunters are Out and About

It´s that time of year. Cars parked in odd places, the solitary person - usually a man, popping up above a bank or from behind an olive tree. The hunters of the wild aparagus are here. The plentiful rain scattered with a day or two of sunshine has brought them out in droves. Some have their route, others instinctively know where to go. They appear, walking back to their cars, with a huge bundle of foot long green spears of asparagus. And off they go, probably not to be seen for another year - or another week if the rain continues. No matter how hard the shoots try and hide the older men hunt them down with stick in hand, to fob off the spiky old growth, and uncover the tender new stems of wild asparagus. Everyone has their favourite way of cooking them but the most common seems to be in a Tortilla - the thick Spanish potato omelette to which you can add anything that comes to hand - or is hunted down. My one or two shorter stem finds don´t come close to the experienced hunters catch. I...

Spanish Road Signs - Black Bulls & Guitar Playing Bottles

The unmissable black bull and the black bottle, red hat-and-bolero-wearing, guitar-swinging bottle, are famous Spanish road signs, which always have me trying to get a photo, usually from a moving car. 

They are more common in Andalucia being nearer to the producers. They were orignally sherry adverts, the black bull to advertise Osborne and the bottle, Tio Pepe both Cadiz-based Sherry companies.

Tio Pepe Sign on A4
A4 Cordoba - Andujar

The black bulls were first used in 1956, though not as we see them today. When advertising within 150 metres of a road the design changed and became larger.

Black Bull Sign on A 44, Jáen
A 44 Jaen - Madrid

In 1994 a law banning all roadside advertising meant that the signs had to be removed. But having become a popular sight there was a national public outcry. The Courts eventually allowed these signs to remain because they had become of "aesthetic or cultural significance", but without any advertising text on them. Although two do remain with 'Osbourne' on them. One in the airport of Jerez de la Frontera and one at the Osbourne headquarters in Puerta de Santa Maria.

There are around 90 of the 14 metre high 'Osbourne Bull' signs across Spain, 23 of them in Andalucia.

The Trade Mark 'Tio Pepe' was first registered in 1888. The dressed-bottle logo appeared in 1935 and went through various updates and modernisations. Once colour began to be used the red and black silhouette took off and even today Tio Pepe hostesses can be spotted wearing the red hat and red bolero now associated with the brand.


Tio Pepe Girls
Copyright TioPepe.es



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