Beach food

My parents on the beach in the late fifties

We lived on a small farm in the mountainous East of Algeria, where summers weighed on people like molten lead. Where some years, the usually melodious cicadas gave way to vast swarms of crickets that blackened the skies as they advanced in waves, shaving the earth bald of all vegetation.
More clement summers produced fields of golden wheat, deliciously sweet yellow-green grapes and purple figs that tasted like honey.
Heavy snows arrived with November and, contrary to common perception, winters can be quite harsh in North Africa.
The road to school often disappeared underneath snowdrifts and unexpected days off were spent in front of the roaring wood fire. Harissa-flavoured chickpea soup, fresh garlic bread made with beef dripping, huge mugs of milky coffee and board games filled those snowbound days.
Spring arrived when the white and pink almond blossom lit up the blue sky as the days got longer and the nights warmer. We often spent lazy Sunday afternoons on the lawn by the water well, reading comics, playing games or swaying to the rhythm of hula hoops.
Summer holidays were filled with trips to the blue Mediterranean in the company of my maternal Grandma, a real angel on Earth. She always treated my cousins and me to cones of lemon sorbet or freshly fried potato crisps sprinkled with sea salt.
When occasionally the whole family went to the seaside, the entire larder was transferred to the car boots and off we went.
On our arrival at the beach, we, kids virtually dived into the sea from the moving cars, while the adults set up camp in a remote corner of the beach and surrounded it with windbreaks not that it was ever windy in August. Tattered parasols turned the camp into a tented Saharan village. All we needed was a few camels and goats, and we would have made a Bedouin caravan!

As soon as they lit the terracotta charcoal burner, my mother and aunties began cooking lunch.
Children and adults picked fresh clams from the water’s edge to go in the “Spaghetti Vongole”, a dish I loved long before I understood a single word of Italian.
Fizzy drinks and a huge watermelon were buried deep in the wet sand to keep them cold.
Once the food was ready, we were all summoned to form a circle to wolf it down with thick slices of French bread to mop up the remaining sauce and our red lips.
Sometimes we were also treated to grilled sardines with just seawater, and a squeeze of lemon as their only dressing and a salad of misshapen tomatoes served sliced with red onion, garlic and parsley and drizzled with lemon juice and thick green olive oil.
Five-star food when Michelin was only a tyre.
A cool drink and a slice of ice-cold watermelon finished this excellent meal.