La gastronomía de España [the gastronomy of Spain].

Buenas dias chicos!  :)  Good day, friends!  This might be a long entry...I could write about food all day long!

After being in Spain for 21 days, I've definitely tried some really interesting food!  I've got plenty of stories about the food here, but since it's so different than what we have back home, I have decided to do an entry solely on the gastronomy of Spain.  It will be mostly photos, but don't worry, I will thoroughly explain what each item of food is (that is, if I even know!!) 

Before I jump into the wonderful array of items I've been eating, I'm gonna just take a few sentences and explain a few things about the food in Spain.  First of all I'll explain the peculiar times of eating here.  Breakfast, or desayuno, is eaten when you get up in the morning.  For us, it's at about 8:30h, before we have class at 9:30h.  Breakfast is a really small meal here.  We have warm milk with NesQuik, and some toast.  Lunch, referred to as, comida, and it's the largest meal here.  It's equivalent to our dinner in the states.  However, comida is served here at 15:00h.  Uff.  Between breakfast and lunch, I'm definitely hungry!  Then we have dinner, cena, and it's served between 21:00h and 22:00.  Some of my friends don't eat cena until 22:30h!  It's pretty different.  It's like the whole day is lengthened here! 

The food here is all so fresh and different than in the states.  They eat a very, very heavy Mediterranean diet, complete with a ton of olive oil (in everything!) and fresh fish, olives, tomatoes, etc.  The fruit right now is amazing - I have never eaten a clementine sweeter than the ones here.  Our host mom tells us that right now, in winter, the fruit is out of season.  I can't wait to see how amazing it is in the spring!  Most of the fruit here is grown in the Canary Islands, along with the bananas, and because they don't have a long distance to ship, they're closer, and just better all around.

Okay, so that's enough boring stuff!  Let's get into the pictures and yummy food!  :)

The first dinner we had in Madrid was a HUGE piece of salmon with baby white potatoes.  I obviously started eating before I took a picture, but it was so good, and we were so hungry!  

 The fish here is so prevalent and fresh, it's amazing.  I'm glad I can still eat fish. We probably eat fish about 4 times a week at home.  Most of the time it's fried, but sometimes she also bakes it! 

      

To the right, there's a photo of our dessert that night!  It's a fluffy pastry with a lemony cream cheese mixture in the middle with a raspberry sauce on the plate!  YUM!






Below are some pictures of the Spanish great, Paella.  We enjoyed this for lunch one day while we were in Madrid.  It was so delicious, I'm bringing Mom and Dad to the restaurant (called El Arrozal) for lunch while they're here!  Paella is a rice dish with a lot of vegetables, shellfish, meat, and spices (think jambalaya without the spice).  The main flavor in the paella here is saffron, which is why it appears so yellow.  You can also order Paella Negra, which is black.  It's colored with the ink of squids.  I think I'll just stick with the saffron, thanks!

It's made in a HUGE stovetop kettle, and then the portions are taken out of there.  The waiter came out of the kitchen and showed us the pan, so we could see the careful placement of mussles and shrimp on top.  It was a work of art!

 This is a photo of the regular paella, which my friends had at the table.  In it is vegetables, along with a lot of shellfish (you can see the mussel and shrimp on top), chicken, and other meat (we weren't entirely sure of what some things were). 

 This is a photo of the vegetarian paella I ate, since I'm allergic to shellfish.  It has large artichoke hearts, sugar snap peas, peppers, carrots, and peas in it!  I ate about half of it plain, and then I decided to squeeze the lemon on the other half of the paella.  It was so great, even writing this I can feel the flavors mixing in my mouth.  The sultry mix of the tangy lemon and the saffron made the paella my favorite meal we've had in Spain so far.  The rice they use I would consider more of a risotto than a rice, because it's similar to half pasta half rice.


Next up is a typical central Spain dish called cocido. The presentation of this dish was really neat.  First we received a base of white noodles.  Then poured on top of that was a red broth. To that is added a stew of chickpeas, potatoes, chicken, and beef, and some vegetables.  It's really tasty!  The main ingredient is the garbanzo beans, and it's really filling! Our host mom makes this sometimes.

The meat/chickpea/stew part was stored in little jars like this:

Overall, it was a really fun meal to eat!  The different layers of the stew really made it all come together!















And I know you're all waiting to see a picture of churros con chocolate!!!  Well, here it is!  Long strips of fried bread, sprinkled with sugar, dunked in a cup of thick, soupy chocolate!  Can't go wrong with it!  After you're done dunking your churros, you can drink the chocolate like hot chocolate!  It's very delicious! 

This photo has a really great story behind it.  We spent the day in Segovia (another entry soon) and during our free time, a few of us decided to sample some tapas and vino.  This is a really common past time in Segovia.  They have some of the best wine in Spain.  In fact, it's so common in Segovia, that when you order a glass of wine, the tapas are free!  Segovia is one of the only remaining cities that follows this tradition.  Here is a fried egg with a béchamel sauce.  It was really good!  Clockwise from the fried egg, you see a pile of mushrooms with chunks of Iberian ham, and bread.  Every meal is served with bread here.  It's GREAT.  And the Iberian ham is something you'll never find anywhere else in the world (unless it's imported) and it's delicious.  It's cured ham, sliced VERY thinly.  And as with everything else, it's delicious.  The fun story behind this plate of tapas and wine, is that while we were in the bar, enjoying our food, we chatted with an older Spanish couple from Madrid, and they had 2 daughters who lived in the United States.  We also talked with the bartender for a long time, and it was a really awesome experience, to learn about the cuisine from native Spaniards.  They helped us pick out good food, and they were wonderful company.  It was perhaps one of the best interactions I've had with Spaniards so far.  Moving on...

 This is a photo of the breakfast my friends and I ate in Burgos (another entry soon).  It's café con leche (coffe with steamed milk) and also tortilla española, rellena. This is scrambled eggs made into an almost quiche, that has layers and layers and layers of sliced potatoes in it.  It's so simple, but I do think I could eat it for every meal.  Especially if it has cheese and bacon in it, like this one did.  It was phenomenal!

Here's a better photo of the filled tortilla:

 

  These last photos serve as a demonstration of the quality of fish they have here in Spain.  In Burgos, we got lunch at this little cafe.  I ordered this sandwich, called a bocadillo.  It came open faced, and it had slices of oranges underneath the smoked salmon.  There was also a white cheese sauce between the two.  It seems like a really strange combination, but it was absolutely delicious!

Okay, okay.  This is all I have for now.  I hope you enjoyed your tour of Span's gastronomy.  It was long, but I hope it was worth it!

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and savor the food you eat!  I know I will!  :)

Besos y abrazos!  (hugs and kisses!)

Erin