Someone really needs to congratulate me on my title making skills, cause they are just horrible, and I don't think anyone really appreciates how difficult it is to continually come up with such horrific titles for posts...
Anyways, I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I really, really like Spain. Having never been there before I had just based all of my assumptions on the facts that I like their food a lot, and they seemed to have an attitude that I dug. Also, I like the fact that Spain is an ancient country that was held out of the loop until Franco died in '78, so they were an ancient country that was redefining itself and becoming a new country to go along with it's thousands of years of history. It's so un-European in many ways, yet as European as Europe can get at the same time. Sadly that's of course changing as Spain is getting swept up into the mainstream bastardized version of western culture that America shoved down everyone else's throats (look what it got us). But I can't blame them, it's hard to say no to all that money.
Capitalism wins again!
Trust me, as much as I could, and would love to get all 90-year-old man on you about the world today, and the evils of society, let's just keep this a nice little food blog and focus on food.
More specifically, let's focus on the food in Spain, of which I had some of in my recent trip there.
I'd love to write a 30 hour long post on my recent trip to Barcelona, but for the sake of "brevity" and as an act of mercy on my readers, however few of them may be left (I was doing so well there for awhile), I'll focus on the food aspects of my trip, which, as I'm sure you'll see, is MORE than enough for a post, and probably should be broken down into a few different posts, but hey, that's not my style...
Run on sentences, however, are...
So Spain.
Ah, Spain...
Oh, beautiful Spain. I just knew I was going to love you, I just had no idea how much, and for what reasons other than the ones I thought I would.
Let me start by saying that I fully expected to be disappointed by Spain. I figured after years of being nearly obsessed with it, there's no way it could live up to my expectations. I didn't not want to like it, I was just worried that I'd get there and it'd be some how, less than what I hoped it would be. And in many ways it was. Especially Barcelona. It's touristy, it's expensive, it's full of corporate mega giant stores making every touristy area there seem just like every other touristy area anywhere else in the world. I mean the food in most places isn't even really that good. But it seems like the people there know that, and not only do they know it, they don't care.
It's not like New York where we all avoid the touristy places like the plague. It seemed to me that the Barcelonians were just as comfortable in the touristy parts of town as they were anywhere else. It's more like the West Village here in New York, where locals and tourist just coexist worlds apart from each other, but in the same place, as opposed to SoHo or Times Square where we get pissed off if we have to be there for some reason and it's 90% tourist, 8% people trying to rip them off, and 2% people that live in New York that couldn't get out of going there either by visiting out-of-town family members or some evil work related scheme...
No, Barcelona seems like a city that actually likes itself, and given a choice of a similar job with competitive pay in any other place, most people would choose to live there. So unlike New York...
And with it's location, weather, variety of things to do to go along with it's historical significance, history, and natural beauty, who wouldn't?
But keeping with my promise to keep this about the food, let's forgo how gorgeous the city is, how perfect the weather is, and how many great things to do there are all while having a European laid-back attitude about life and focusing on what's really important and not constantly focusing on things that aren't important (ahem, I'm talking about you, America) let's keep it about the food.
So food.
Ah, food...
Oh, beautiful food. I just knew I was going to love you, I just had no idea how much, and for what reasons other than the ones I thought I would.
i guess when you talk about food and Barcelona, you sort of have to start here:
I mean, if there's a more iconic image when it comes to "Spain" and "food" I don't know what it is... The Boqueria for me was sort of an "Oz" or an "Eden" or "a girls locker room shower" or some other mythical place that just seemed like it was too good to be real.
Not only is it real tough, it's torturously better than I thought it was going to be.
I say torturously because all I wanted to do the entire time I was there was cook, but was unable to and thus forced to be just a spectator in a game I feel I'm pretty good at...
One of the things that I like about Barcelona is even though by all accounts the Boqueria is the heart and soul of the heart and soul of the tourist part of the city (think if the Statue of Liberty was in the middle of Times Square), the locals still do their shopping there.
I mean, tell me that this couple just jetted in from some far off exotic locale,
I guess if I had to define what it is that makes this market so vastly superior to any of the farmers markets we have here it isn't just the shear volume difference, even though there is about a billion times more things than there are anywhere I've seen here in NYC, but mostly the quality of the ingredients. I was blown away by the freshness of the ingredients in all of the markets we visited. The seafood especially. I mean look at these:
Even the fish eyes are fresh...
But really, one of the things I love about the European attitude towards food, as opposed to other countries (ahem, I'm talking to you, America), is the inclusion of the whole animal. The whole fish is for sale, the whole scallop. There's an appreciation and knowledge of how to cook every part of an animal, and that of course includes other animals aside from fish as you can see in these pictures which include all four kinds of tripe, kidneys, tongue, heart, and various other "parts" that even I wasn't sure what they were, but I'm sure are delicious...
And of course the produce is just amazing. It seems that some countries have managed to farm their land for thousands of years without raping it and killing all the nutrients by spraying thousands of tons of Chemical Death on it for years and years thus producing amazingly fresh and health crops from it year after year, unlike some other countries (ahem, you still listening, America?)
And of course there's the "Big Three" for me when I think of Spanish cooking.
Bacalao, or salt cod,
The most insanely fresh and delicious looking gambas (good luck trying to find a real one of these on any menu here in good old 'Merica...
And of course, my one true love,
Seriously, is there a more obvious reason that I'd love a country so much besides their love and obsession of ham?
On a baffling side note, one that I'll never be able to explain, I had not even ONE slice of pata negra ham on my entire trip there... Not even one! If you had asked me before I left, I would have assumed right along with you that I'd have fresh sliced ham morning, noon, and night but no...
I can only assume my subconscious was forcing its hand as far as "excuses to return" are concerned, but really... not one.
Anyways. If you are lucky enough to find yourself in the Boqueria in lovely Barcelona, you should take advantage of your being there and follow the throngs of people all jockeying for one of the few seats available at the counter of the much heralded Pinotxo Bar in the front of the market.
Liz and I went there for lunch one day and it was worth the hype.
And if you're lucky (or at least really pretty like Liz is) then you might get your picture taken with the king of the Boqueria, Juanito Bayen...
Apart from the market we ate very well on our trip.
My favorite meal was at a Basque restaurant (go figure) that we went to on our first night there. It certainly wasn't the fanciest or the most envelope pushing meal we had, but that's what I love about classical Basque cooking. It was just a selection of really really good ingredients done simply and well. I like all the "molecular gastronomy" stuff and appreciate what they are doing, but for me simple is better.
Here's a couple pictures I took with my phone camera, thus the quality isn't that great but the dinner certainly was...
Here's the wine we had in case you come across it I'd recommend it,
This was the fish I got, it was Hake in the classic donostiarra style of fresh fish cooked in oil with garlic and guindilla peppers.
Which was delicious. Liz got a steak that nearly brought a tear to my eye it was so beautiful.
I don't know if you can see it in the picture the the fat on this steak is yellow, which means that the cow it came from was actually a cow and not a meat flower like the ones grown in some countries in the world that view animals as profit and not a thing to be respected or a thing that could possibly have more flavor or nutrition if it's treated like an actual animal and allowed to do animal type things such as "walking" or "eating food that isn't poison to it" like some other countries do (are you getting the picture that your food customs are shitty, America?)...
But sadly (I'm sure) that's all I got on Spain for now. I'm sure I could go on and on about it and the way food is integrated into the daily lives of Spaniards, and how much I wish it were more like that here. And I wish I could make you feel the sorrow I had walking through those markets without a stove at my disposal and how much I want to return, but this time to a place with a kitchen and never even eat one meal out. I wish I could convey the physical and emotional need I have to return as soon as possible and this time touch the Mediterranean Sea, not to mention explore the levels of "ham" that I didn't even know existed.
Needless to say, it changed me in a great way. It helped to focus my culinary mission as well as my long term mission in life in how I want to live and the kind of family I'd like to raise. Also needless to say I plan on returning soon, and often and exploring all the other areas of Spain that I've read about and dreamed about and hope to realize those dreams in as surprising of a way as Barcelona, and Girona, and Figueres was.
I've loved the idea of Spain for many years, and now I hope to love the country and the people themselves.
And if I don't get back as soon as I'd like, I always have my favorite stores Despana, and La Tienda to get me through the rough times... (thought a shout out was due, it's been awhile)
And next time I am going to get into elBulli...
Anyhoo... Until next time then, huh kiddies? I have a bunch of pictures from a project I did for school and they're pretty good, plus I may or may not have good "life after culinary school" news for you, but am still not sure..
Till then, adios muchachos...
n*
