Barquillo, barquillito…

It is that song that I remember as a child, while playing on the beach of Las Canteras and suddenly in the middle of the morning you heard… “Wafer, wafer… tasteful wafer”.

That cante was the sign that summer was coming to the capital, although summer and winter don’t matter on this beach, we always live and feel it.

The sea, the sand, the sky and on those clear days the best image of Teide, or the incredible sunsets, but without forgetting the towels, the umbrellas… What memories!

They say that by the 1930s, there is a history of beach waffle makers, a profession that passed from father to son, generation after generation.

That man who either went with a whistle or shouted out loud “Wafer, wafer…” with his white clothes and his wicker basket or the cylinder, like the ones still kept by some in Madrid.

In 2007 Miguel “El barquillero” left us, a true character of this beach, for his clothing, for his years and his stories. Son and father of “wafers”.

To be near him was to smell paradise, that smell of vanilla, toasted, there were many who made them themselves, over the years, about 20 years ago a small factory began to make these flat wafers. With simple ingredients, flour, sugar, fat and vanilla aroma.

That wafer biscuit, which crunches and has such a special flavor, in the mornings or in the afternoons do not stop enjoying them and helping this product to persist among us.

Do you remember eating it?

Today we can find them in different stores, ice cream parlors, such as the one in Peña la Vieja. Although in the search for information they have told me that there is a young man who continues to go out to sell on the beach.

Old times are the best times!!