Manuel, my friend, is not from Barcelona. He is Portuguese and made even prouder by the fact that Ronaldo, too, is from Portugal. For a man who gallops around like a horse on steroids it’s hard to believe that Manuel was brought up on a diet of snails — good Portuguese snails, not the virtually inedible ones that infest Australian gardens. Once every so often he takes a flight all the way home to ‘reconnect’ with the cuisine of his younger days. Manuel is also so wiry and stick-slim it’s hard to countenance that this slender frame conceals a gargantuan gourmet. Additionally, he’s a man who’s held at least seventeen different jobs since arriving in Australia in 1982, and he has hundreds of interesting stories to tell, but the two subjects he most favours talking about are football and food.

If he has to choose one over the other, well, despite Ronaldo, he’ll choose food. Which is how he got to tell me — in the midst of a discussion on butter chicken — how when he and his wife first arrived in Australia they found themselves in a country town.

It’s common knowledge that friendly neighbours are more likely to be encountered in the countryside than in urban surroundings — where you could dwell in the adjoining flat for a decade and not know the person who lives next door.

Anyhow, six full months passed during which time Manuel was beginning to wonder if this small town he’d arrived in, with its cold and aloof occupants, wasn’t really a slumbering city in disguise. Barely had the thought been articulated when there was a knock on their door, which turned out to be the neighbour bearing an invitation to tea.

Being a Sunday, Manuel’s wife had prepared a sumptuous lamb stew for lunch, of which they’d both just partaken, followed by a rich, pre-siesta dessert.

“Tea might be the right thing for us after this,” Manuel told his wife as they set out to honour the invitation some hours later, still very full in the stomach.

When they arrived to discover that this was not going to be a ‘cuppa and biscuits’ session but roasted chicken, potato fries and stacks of boiled veggies, Manuel says his stomach quailed and he ended up thoroughly dishonouring the culinary efforts of the hostess by nibbling a solitary chip baton and gnawing his way tediously through a tiny piece of chicken.

“How was I to know the Aussie word tea really meant dinner?” he queried of his wife later. Anyway, to show she harboured no animosity, a fortnight later, the neighbour invited them to tea again.

“Please don’t cook anything heavy for lunch,” Manuel instructed his wife, adding, “In fact, take a break from the kitchen. Let’s not eat anything at all during the day so we can arrive hungry enough and not embarrass the poor woman with our nibbling.”

By the time six o’clock came around, the pair of them, having subsisted on cups of tea, arrived ravenous and ready to do the meal justice this time. To their delight and slight bemusement, cups of tea and biscuits were served first: Crackers with bits of cheese and cucumber on them, and others filled with lemon cream.

Bemusement, because they’d already consumed a fair quantity of tea but ... one more cup of tea before a healthy meal won’t hurt, Manuel told himself.

Tea and biscuits, as is almost always the case, are usually accompanied by general conversation. Lots of it. And lots more. And more. And the hands on the clock face on the wall turned round and round. And at some point in the conversation the hostess apologised for the last time.

“No,” protested Manuel, “It’s we who should say sorry.”

“Not a bit,” laughed the hostess, “I was so embarrassed two weeks ago. I realised you Europeans had come for a proper tea and I’d given you dinner instead. This time I thought I’d get things right. More tea? Manuel?”

Kevin Martin is a journalist based in Sydney, Australia.