Life Lesson #5: The best mementos don't come in boxes.

My first day of classes at the Universidad de Oviedo finished, I walked into my host grandparents’ apartment to the most incredible smell. It was somewhere between onions being sautéed for pasta sauce, and baking tater tots. I drifted into the kitchen, inhaling deeply with every step. “What on earth are you making, Eloina? It smells fantastic!” I said to my host grandmother.

Tortilla española at Eloina and Lucio's.

            She grinned and pointed at a bowl of beaten eggs next to the frying pan. “I’m making tortilla española,” she said. Fifteen minutes later, I discovered that this translates to “a slice of heaven on a plate.” Tortilla española is basically a large, unfolded omelette, filled with onions and potatoes cooked in olive oil and salt. After one bite, I declared that I’d found my favorite Spanish food.

            Four weeks later, I took my final exams and returned to Eloina and Lucio’s for a celebratory tortilla lunch. Eloina, as promised, waited for me to come home from school before she started making it. When I got in the kitchen, she put me to work washing and chopping potatoes while she prepared the eggs. I had never seen cooking like this before. A circle made by her thumb and index finger was my size guideline for the potato chunks, and by some nearly psychic power, she shook no more salt into the pan than necessary.

Making my first tortilla back home.

            “See, once you do it enough, you don’t need to measure things,” she told me as she poured the eggs back into the pan. “Food is best when you follow your instincts.” After devouring our creation, Eloina helped me write down a loosely organized recipe for tortilla, with such directions as, “Not too much salt” and “Put a bit of olive oil in the pan.”

            A year on from that warm afternoon in Oviedo, I’m still making tortilla española.

            Spain and its fantastic foods had a lot of lessons to teach me. This one, though, was the most important of all. A poster of Guernica and an Asturian flag can represent wonderful memories. But objects can’t compare to those memories, or to the stories (and recipes) you bring home. My summer in Spain showed me, more than any other journey I’ve taken, that the best mementos never come in boxes.

Life Lesson #4: Question your own opinions.

Calamares fritos, Madrid.

I’ve never much cared for seafood, nor have I ever liked eating things that look like they did when they were breathing. This list includes a staple of the Asturian diet: squid. So, when my host grandmother walked into the apartment one day carrying “a squid dish,” I’ll admit I was concerned. That concern spiked when my host mom and I pulled it out of the refrigerator that night.

            It was a bowl of rice and sautéed whole squids. Each one was purplish-gray and about the size of a head of garlic. I tried not to think about the fact that they still had eyes.

            As we ate, the squids’ aliveness was less of a problem than I’d thought. In fact, I rather enjoyed them. The northern Spanish coast is only half an hour away from Oviedo, so the squids were incredibly fresh, and they were perfectly cooked, neither squishy nor tough. I also solved the eye problem by turning the squids facedown before I ate them.

But I still couldn’t quite stomach the thought of eating the tentacles. They drooped behind each squid, their pinhead-sized suction cups clearly visible. I was half expecting them to start wiggling. I tried cutting off one squid’s tentacles and nudging them to the side, wondering if I could avoid eating them without seeming rude.

            My host mom noticed. She smiled and said, “How come you’re not eating the tentacles? They’re the best part. They’re really tender and salty.”

            I tried, without success, to explain my “aliveness” issue. My host mom had never heard of such a thing, and found it hilarious. Finally, she said, “Aw, come on. Eat your tentacles.”

Arroz negro, or rice cooked in squid ink, Oviedo.

            There was a sentence I didn’t hear every day. Inspired by this, I closed my eyes and put the removed tentacles in my mouth. They were just as my host mom had described them: salty, tender, and delicious. The suction cups even popped as I chewed, just like Pop Rocks candy. Soon the rest of the squids had joined their companions, tentacles and all.

            Those little squids turned out to be some of the most effective teachers I had in Spain. In preparation for my trip, I had tried to make myself like seafood by eating more of it. To my dismay, this strategy hadn’t worked. So, I went to Spain ready and willing to eat whatever seafood my host family might give me, but prepared to not like it much. My host grandmother’s squid dish proved that I could actually enjoy food I’d sworn I would never like, if it was cooked right. Eating my squid tentacles was a valuable lesson in opinions: don’t be afraid to question them, especially if they’re your own.

            Epilogue: The next time I saw garlic-sized squids (live ones this time), while swimming off the coast of Belize, I thought, “Mmm, lunch.”

Life Lesson #3: When in Rome...

Our first cups of sídra, Oviedo.

Our first full morning in Oviedo, the capital of Asturias, dawned cool and uncharacteristically sunny. My professor led us all through Oviedo’s historic center, and announced that we would end our tour at a famous street, la Calle Gascona. As we turned left off of the main street Víctor Chávarri, the sweet smell of apples tingled my nostrils. La Calle Gascona, a short and steeply slanting road paved with black brick, was lined with sidrerías: restaurants specializing in Asturian hard apple cider.

Smiling, my professor told us that he would treat us to our first cup of sidra. By my watch, it was 12:30, far earlier than I’d ever taken a drink in my life. But, as I looked at the streetside tables already packed with locals, I remembered the attitude I’d adopted towards traveling: when in Rome, do as the Romans do.

            Once we arrived at the sidrería, our waitress brought out a tray the size of two dinner plates, loaded with bright green bottles of sidra that glinted in the sunlight. I watched, astounded, as the waitress demonstrated the proper pouring and drinking technique. She held one of the bottles high over her head and sent a stream of amber liquid tumbling into a glass, not spilling a single drop. Immediately after pouring her glass, she downed it in one gulp, as if doing a shot. I felt my stomach churn with nerves: I’d never had a shot of anything before.

At my host grandparents' house

            The waitress handed me a glass. Contemplating the drink, I mentally repeated the saying: When in Rome, do as the Romans do. I took a deep breath, threw my head back, and drank the whole thing in one deep gulp. The sidra fizzed playfully as it went down, tickling my throat. It was a little bitter, but the taste of apples was far stronger than any other. I found it absolutely delicious, and after everyone had tried it, I was one of the first people to ask for a second glass. I had several more encounters with sidra, including my host grandfather telling me that I drank it like an asturiana, and even learned how to pour it properly before the trip ended.

            For most of my life, I never quite understood the advantage of blending into your environment. But sampling sidra in Asturias helped me see the reasoning behind the “When in Rome” saying. Experiencing sidra as it is meant to be experienced brought an edge of novelty to drinking it. Even more: drinking sidra properly, as the locals drink it, was a little slice of the region’s heritage, a snapshot of a culture. Sidra proved that “doing as the Romans do” can give a unique view into what it is like to be a member of the community you are visiting.

Life Lesson #2: Take a leap of faith.

           Our waiter rattled off a list of dishes we could choose to order. I understood most of the names, but there was one I simply could not translate to myself: carrilleras. I beckoned my professor over and asked if he knew what it was. He gave the students on either side of me a shifty look, leaned down, and whispered in my ear, “I don’t want to say what it is out loud. Everyone will probably think it’s gross.”

            “You can tell me,” I replied, but he said he wouldn’t until after I’d eaten it. My curiosity piqued, I boldly told our waiter I wanted the carrilleras. As he left, the student on my right asked me what I’d just ordered. When I told her I wasn’t quite sure, she goggled at me and said, “So you’re eating something without even knowing what it is?”

            “Yep,” I replied cheerfully.

            Twenty minutes later, my carrilleras arrived. Four lumps of meat lay on the plate, drenched in a rich brown sauce. I admit I felt a slight sense of foreboding as I poked the meat with my fork. Flakes of it instantly slid from the chunk, a good sign. I took a bite, and the most wonderfully tender meat I’d ever tasted touched my tongue. It seemed to melt away as soon as it reached my mouth. Within five minutes, an entire chunk was gone, and everyone in my area of the table had tasted the delicious meat.

Beef carrilleras, Madrid

            As I started on the second chunk, my professor wandered over and asked if I liked the carrilleras. I said yes and asked if he’d tell me what they were now. His grin grew even wider and he said, loudly so that the whole table could hear, “Cow’s cheeks.” Everyone at my end of the table, including me, laughed and we went right on eating them.

            The carrilleras contained an important lesson. I had no clue what they were, and I wanted to find out, so I tried them. They turned out to be one of my favorite dishes in Spain. I might not have wanted to try them had I known what they were before I ate them. The carrilleras showed me that sometimes, asking no questions and taking a leap of faith can lead you to some wonderful food indeed.

Life Lesson #1: Never underestimate simplicity.

            I couldn’t believe my eyes. Plate after plate of food was coming to my group’s table. Big halos of light, flaky bread and triangles of manchego cheese. Bowls of bright green Spanish olives mixed with translucent cocktail onions and tiny pickles. Fried eggs and potatoes, rich pulled meat, fried eggplant rounds, grilled asparagus stalks. I had never seen so much food in one place, not even at a full-blown Chinese dinner. I took a little bit of everything; it was all delicious, all wonderfully flavorful.

My host mom's version of ensalada mixta.

            But the thing I came back for the most seconds of wasn’t the potatoes or the olives. It was the ensalada mixta. This term, as I learned over the course of my trip, is a catchphrase for basically any kind of cold salad. The one at La Taberna Toscana was made of sliced tomatoes and white onions, soaked in olive oil and white wine vinegar. A simple dish, but one that made my tastebuds dance. The blend of the tomatoes’ sweetness and the onions’ tang was just perfect. I must’ve eaten five helpings of that little salad.

           I had several more encounters with ensalada mixta during my five weeks in Spain. There were many variations, ranging from basic lettuce-and-tomato dishes to full-blown concoctions of corn, tuna, and fine Spanish olives. But, every single one was delightfully, beautifully simple. Usually an ensalada mixta had no more than six ingredients, and I didn’t encounter salad dressing once in those five weeks. “Dressing” consisted of olive oil, white wine vinegar, and salt. And to make it even better, every vegetable used was as fresh as if it had just been picked from someone’s garden that day.

           I have good memories of many Spanish dishes, of varying levels of complexity. But ensalada mixta is one I remember most fondly. They are modest dishes, but behind that unassuming nature hides an explosion of flavors and freshness. Ensalada mixta is living proof that sometimes, the simplest things can bring the greatest delights. 

Introduction

Outside of Toledo

           Food. It is one of the defining characteristics of a place. One could say that it can sometimes be the defining characteristic. Over the summer of 2014 I visited a place where food is one of culture’s most important aspects: Spain. I spent five weeks in Madrid and Oviedo, capital of the northwestern region Asturias. I toured museums, hiked gorgeous mountain trails, played my guitar on lively Madrid street corners, and completed my Spanish minor with classes at the University of Oviedo.

            But most importantly, I ate. I knew that Spain values good food, so of course I wouldn’t be missing out on that aspect of cultural education! I had promised myself I’d eat anything that was put in front of me, no questions asked, at least until after I finished the food. This promise led me to some truly amazing and unusual dishes, including tortilla española, Asturian hard apple cider, and squid sandwiches (more on that later…).

            The fascinating dishes, however, are not my only memories of Spanish food. Each new food that I sampled inspired a story. And, more often than not, a little lesson came with each dish too. The lessons I brought home from Spain apply to all areas of life, not just to food.

            So, this blog is a retrospective, a one-year-later celebration of Spain’s cuisine and what it had to teach me. ¡Buen provecho!