Spanish food is deliciously obsessed with death

The moral absolutist in me believes that in every city, with its finite number of restaurants, there is such a thing as the best of all possible lunches. I don’t have to find it, but I have to get close. Mediocre doesn’t cut it. In fact, on holiday, the idea of wasting a meal on mere ‘mediocre’ fills me with crippling guilt over wasting not just money but time. What if I die before I see Paris again? I would be ashamed that I had wasted my precious mortality eating that Pret tuna niçoise salad.

The price of this neurosis is that I tend to travel alone to save others the trouble of putting up with me, and never have anyone to share an adventure or a meal with. I decided that booking myself onto a ‘cooking retreat’ with ten strangers in a remote village in southern Spain would remove the stress of the restaurant search, and if I still proved to be a difficult travelling companion, there’d be no friendships harmed.