Beef Stew with Garlic and Prunes

On a crisp autumn morning under a clear blue sky I crossed the Spanish Pyrenees in an open-topped car thinking about lunch. I stopped at a roadside tourist restaurant which was busy feeding a huge wedding party on this Sunday morning. I was squeezed into a back room with some locals who had been shooting. They were mopping up big bowls of dark stew with thick wedges of coarse bread. In my impeccable Spanish, pointing simultaneously to my mouth, and to their plates, I conveyed to the waitres