La Gastronomia de España: parte 2 [the gastronomy of Spain, part 2]!

Hello family and friends!

It's been a while since I've updated you on the crazy foods I have tried while I've been here, and sitting here, staring at the cookbook I purchased for myself of Spanish foods is reminding me about the culinary roller coaster I've been on this semester.

I know I've written another entry for you all to see some of the food I've eaten, but it's been a long time..and I've surely eaten some STRANGE food since then!  So this entry is going to be a lot of pictures with descriptions!

(I'll warn you now...some of them are REALLY crazy...those with weak stomachs should probably stop reading now..)

 Let's start off with some more tortilla española, this time filled with red peppers!

Eggs, potatoes, onions, red peppers, all tossed together on a toasted bocadillo bun (sub sandwich bun).

You absolutely cannot go wrong with this!  Throw a little mayonnaise on it for some extra flavor, and down the hatch it goes! 

 In Sevilla, we went to an Italian restaurant and ate some delicious pasta, and what you see here is a cheesy pasta with salchicha (sausage), mushrooms, and garlic.

Delicious!!

And fair warning...here is where things start to get a little off kilter...

We were in Salamanca, and we wanted to try some good looking tapas, so we went to a cafe, and we all ordered, and we shared food between the group...

 This is what one girl got.  It's called  callos, here in Spain, and we had no idea what that meant.  None of us had a dictionary on us, so she got it, and ate it.  I tried several pieces of it, and to our surprise, it tasted delicious.  It had the texture of what I would imagine a starfish would feel like on your tongue...bumpy, but it was cooked, so it was tender. 

 Here's another photo of the callos.  It was in a red juice with peppers, onions, and lots of spices.

Drum roll, please! 

We asked the waiter what it was after we had eaten it...and he explained to us that it was the cooked stomach of a cow.

Oh..I'm REALLY glad I didn't know that before I ate it.

 Also in Salamanca, another girl ordered chipirones en su tinto, not exactly knowing what it was.

But when it came out, it was much more obvious than the previous dish...

Baby squids, cooked in their own ink!  I actually thought this was delicious!  The ink sauce was flavored with a lot of garlic, and other spices, and it gave the squids a nice flavor.   

 Here's a photo of the underside of the squids - the tentacles!  You just pop the little guy in your mouth and eat him whole!

In fact, Maria (my host mom) made us chipirones en su tinto for my birthday about a week after this experience! 

 So that's all the really weird stuff...from here on out it's relatively normal food.

Here's a giant pan of paella from Valencia - the origin of paella.  We couldn't make it a trip without eating some of the delicious saffron, vegetable, chicken casserole that has made the city famous! 

 And this...well, it's food I got in Spain..Barcelona to be exact...but it's not really Spanish food...

I ate NACHOS!  It was the biggest plate of cheesy chips I have had in such a long time, but it tasted wonderful!  I had to include it in this entry, because, well...it was so delicious.  And every time I look at this picture, I can just taste the nachos.  mmmm.  I can't wait for some good tex-mex food when I get home!

  These last five photos are all from my trip to San Sebastian.  It's know to be the culinary capital of Spain...so I wanted to put them last.  They're all tapas.  My friend Sarah and I went to a few different locales to try some tapas, and this is what I ended up with! 

 The one above is bread, layered with green peppers, mushrooms, garlic, and onions, all covered with a garlic spiced olive oil sauce.  It was served hot, and delicious.

 This is a hot dish as well, and it's a piece of white meat (some sort of poultry).  It tasted very similar to chicken, but when we asked the waiter what was inside of it, he said it was poulty, like chicken.  So we don't think it was actually chicken.  But it had this sesame cream sauce over the top of it with fried strips of potatoes.  Mmmm.  Delicious! 

 I think I can say for SURE that this was my favorite dish I tried all night.  It's eggplant, layered with cheese, layered with more zucchini, and another piece of eggplant, served hot.  The cheese had melted between the layers of vegetables, and it tasted absolutely amazing.  I would pay to go there and eat it again in a heartbeat, it was that incredible. 

 For those of you who know me, this one may seem like a strange choice, but I assure you, it took second place only behind the cheesy eggplant.  It's a piece of french bread.  And on one half of it, is a few chunks of bleu cheese with a walnut on top.  On the other side of the bread (facing the camera) is cream cheese with a half of a cherry tomato on top.  The whole piece was then drizzled with balsamic vinegar, which I have discovered to be a very powerful tool in the kitchen.  It was so delicious, and so easy to make!  

 And last but not least, the bacon wrapped salchicha.  It's very similar to bacon wrapped bbq weiners, sans the bbq sauce.  It's a mini sausage (with spices already in it) cooked, and wrapped in bacon.  You literally can't go wrong with it! 

 The last five photos you see here are some of my favorite foods I've had while I have been in Spain.  They were absolutely delicious.  I guess there's a reason why San Sebastian has it's claim to fame as the culinary capital of the country...and there's no way after my experiences I could dispute it.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this brief update on the crazy Spanish food I've been eating!  Oh, and I've also been enjoying my fair share of churros con chocolate, too!  (And don't worry, my cookbook has a recipe for them!)

 Well, that's all for now!  I hope I didn't make you too hungry!  (or disgusted...)

Something I've learned here:  When you get the chance to try something you haven't before, you should take it.  You never know how it's going to end.

besos y abrazos,

Erin