Cucumbergate

It is the lot of certain fruit and veg that they imply innuendo. Melons, for example, are something other than melons, while any old two veg, accompanied by meat, take on an entirely different meaning to that of simply being placed on a plate.

Which brings us of course to the cucumber. Its capacity for the comedically prurient was highlighted in the scene in "Benidorm" when Martin, thinking he was coming to Kate's aid, burst into a bedroom only to discover Mateo, gagged and strapped to the bed, and Donald and Jacqueline preparing the salad.

The swingers would have been handling a Spanish cucumber. Was Mateo's fate to be to succumb to the E.coli bug? Well no, but had it been, it would have been far worse than what the couple had in mind for him.

There was just a possibility that it wasn't a Spanish cucumber, but a foreign import. This would, though, have been a remote possibility, because, as we know from the tourism-sustainably correct TUI and others, produce in Benidorm and elsewhere is sourced locally, thus establishing the great benefit of the all-inclusive.

The fuss about the Spanish cucumber, wrongly blamed for Germans dropping like flies, has had its repercussions on this local sourcing. Cucumber's off in many a hotel, and there has been an 80% fall in sales. The locals, as well as the hotels, are eschewing any chewing on a pepino. Despite Spanish indignation as to German allegations of contaminated veg, one German supermarket proudly announcing that it is stocking no Spanish produce at present, the Spanish themselves have taken the scare to heart as well.

The Germans, and the German media in particular, have form when it comes to making the blame fall mainly on Spain for health scares. Outbreaks of swine flu in Germany a couple of years ago were attributed, with barely any evidence, to a pocket of the virus in Playa de Palma. And so, as with swine flu, Cucumbergate threatens the German tourism market.

Joan Mesquida, the national secretary-general for tourism, has admitted that damage has been done. TUI, however, reckons that German tourism has been unaffected, but you can probably imagine that it will have been firing off emails to all its hotels in Mallorca and Spain telling them not to let a cucumber within a hundred kilometres.

With health scares come the photo-opp ministerial attempts to convince that all is well. The Andalucia minister for agriculture, suitably but perhaps unfortunately trussed up in plastic anti-contaminant attire, has tucked into a pepino for press photographers and cameras. "Mmm, lecker," she should have been instructed to say, with the footage then supplied to German television. It was her John Selwyn Gummer moment. "Mad cow disease? What mad cow disease?"

Not everyone is convinced though. In an act of solidarity with the Fatherland, Lidl has temporarily stopped stocking cucumbers, including those grown in Mallorca. This, despite the fact that all locally grown pepinos, which mainly come from around Manacor and Porreres, comply with all known sanitary measures.

Cap Rocat
Anyway, moving onto a different subject. The Cap Rocat hotel in Cala Blava, a converted fortress, has been named by the BBC website as one of its five best new hotels of 2011. The accolade for this Mallorcan hotel is welcome, as it is a remarkable hotel which presumably has some remarkable prices as well.

But quite how you arrive at the five best of anything when you have the whole world to choose from is a bit of a mystery. If the BBC's travel chaps have been jetting off across the globe in search of the best five new hotels, this would be licence-fee-payers' money well spent, I'm sure you would agree.

Cap Rocat, and its website is as near to it as I will ever get, other than standing outside its gated entrance, is not untypical, in its publicity, of the way in which the simple use of the definite article can create exclusivity. Thus, the website lists "THE water" (not that which you drink, but the "fantastic" and "crystal clear" Med; oh dear, someone's been at the brochure talk), "THE experiences" (sport), "THE special moments" (private meetings, it would seem). The only part of its offer which isn't "the" is an article-less gastronomy. No mention of THE cucumber being on the menu though, which is probably just as well.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.