Sweet Nothings

Una rosca can be two separate things. The first is the thread on a screw or screw top and the second is a round, biscuity sort of cake with a hole in the middle – not particularly exotic but more interesting than its distant English relation, a rusk. 

A young male who is not over-successful with the opposite sex might complain no me como ni una rosca. Literally this sad admission means I don’t get even one biscuity sort of cake etc. but implies (for want of a better way of putting it) it’s been a long time since I’ve been intimately involved with anyone.

It’s curious that such an austere turn of phrase should be chosen for such an unaustere activity, especially on pondering the euphemistic possibilities of  cakes, tarts and biscuits on view at a Spanish baker’s. 

Spaniards visiting Britain often express somewhat naive surprise at encountering so many churches in a famously secular country.  Britons react in much the same way to the many pastelerías and confiterías – cake shops that jostle with establishments providing the expected vino, tapas and paella.

Resort towns and villages boast multiple bakeries and cake shops but it is necessary to leave the coast behind to discover just how sweet Spain’s tooth is.  Order a café bombón (a shot of black coffee poured over a slug of super-sweet condensed milk) and it is invariably served with a packet of sugar in the saucer.

A sweet-toothed person is described as goloso, a pretty-sounding word that sounds less pretty if translated as greedy.  Una golosina is one translation for a sweet and un caramelo is another.  This sounds suspiciously like a caramel and it sometimes will be, but the word applies to most sweets not involving chocolate..

Much that is sweet and Spanish has a religious name or connection, possibly because so many convents maintained themselves (and still do) by producing and selling cakes and confectionary.

Huesos de santo, literally saints’ bones, are small rolls of marzipan with a sugar and yolk-based filling.  Sinfully delicious yemas de Santa Teresa are again made from egg yolks and sugar and acquired their name because, like Saint Teresa, they are associated with Ávila.

Tarta de Santiago is almond cake from Galicia which Santiago a.k.a. San Jaime Apostol – Saint James the Apostle supposedly visited, hence Santiago de Compostela in whose cathedral he is said to be buried.

Equally predictable, tarta de San Jorge is a Catalonian speciality honouring Saint George, the region’s patron saint (and England’s).

The adjective sweet is normally translated as dulce:  hogar, dulce hogar – home, sweet home but reappears in agua dulce – fresh water while pimentón dulce – paprika is described as sweet to distinguish it from hot pimentón picante.

Sweet nothings would be dulces ñoñerías although unfortunately ñoñería is irremediably linked to insipidness and fussiness, which says little for Spanish regard for romantic murmurings.

 A Spaniard would probably substitute amable, agradable for an English-speaker’s sweet person, reserving dulce for someone who is not only sweet but also gentle and charming and possessed of genuine, not synthetic, dulzura – sweetness.

Un mono is a monkey and una mona is a sugary, spicy bun eaten all year round, but topped with an unshelled hardboiled egg for Easter. 



una gatita salada



As an adjective mono or mona is appropriate for sweet, pretty children of either sex and sweet, pretty females of any age.  It also refer to the sweetness or pleasantness of any object, as in ¡qué gatita más mona! but you could just as easily exclaim ¡qué gatita más salada! and although this means what a salty little cat! everyone knows that you think she’s sweet.