Spanish food

Two posts in one day! I'm a little bored I guess. And too hot to leave the house. I've come to the conclusion that its dangerous to leave the house between the hours of 2-7pm. Really more like 12-9pm, but 2-7 is the worst. If you do leave, you run the risk of melting right on the spot. Or spontaneously combusting. Minus the spontaneous part. Its hot. Freaking hot.

Anyway, when planning my trip here, I was a little nervous when I heard about the kind of food the Spaniards eat. I didn't really know what to expect but was afraid I wasn't going to like anything. Well, I've liked pretty much all of it. A lot. I've tried some things that I never would have before, and found out they aren't too bad! I feel a little weird taking pictures of the food Angelita serves me, so I just found some pictures online of similar things. These are some of the things I've tried so far, the good and bad!

The first thing everyone told me was that all they eat in Spain is ham. I was not too disappointed and was kind of looking forward to it. I was picturing, like, a good old Easter ham. Not the case. This is more prosciutto-like. Waxy and fatty and gross. Glad that my señora hasn't made me eat this so far...But, this was one of the first things I tried here. Out at a restaurant for tapas with our group's local guide. Made me nervous for what was to come, to say the least.

After a couple of really good, not-to-scary meals, there was one that scared me. I walked by the kitchen one morning and noticed something that looked a lot like calamari in a bowl. I was praying she wouldn't be cooking that for lunch. Then lunch came. Fortunately, it was served it a soup much like the one pictured here. With lots of potatoes. Soooo I ate the potatoes. And tried a bite of the calamari. And ate more potatoes. Not my favorite.

I've had clam chowder. I always pick out the clams. So when Angelita brought out a big plate of clams after lunch one day, I was scared. I tried to say that I was too full to eat any more (I was actually pretty full). But she doesn't go for that. She always says "¡Pruébate!" ("try it!" in the command form. not in question form). Sooo I tried it. And it wasn't bad! I actually would have probably eaten more if I hadn't truly been so full. Probably.

Another day after lunch, she brought out a big plate of camarones. Yikes. I've never eaten anything with the eyes still attached. This brought on another "¡Pruébate!" So, I pruebate'd. She had to show me how to eat it. First, you pull of its head. Then you suck all the goo out. (A very classy, lady-like meal). Then you peel the rest of it and eat the body. The gooey brains are not so great. The rest of it tastes like crab. I actually loved it and ate quite a few of them.

So all these other things were things that I could eat and be just fine. But then today happened. She served this really good soup that mostly consisted of garbanzo beans. Tasted like pork and beans or something, so I figured the base had some pork in it. Well, then she brought out the meat that the soup had been cooked with. Yikes. Oh I was scared. So scared. I had no idea what any of it was. And it looked disgusting. This time she wasn't so demanding with the "try it!" but I still did. She told me what everything was, but all I understood was "chorizo." I don't like chorizo. She asked me if I did and I said not so much. But she served me up a little plate anyway. The thing not pictured here is just like some basic roast meat of some sort. That I recognized and figured it would be good. So I started with that. Not bad. Next to that was the chorizo. Then what I'm pretty sure was blood pudding. Then a blob of what I assumed to be pork fat. Then pork snout. Or ear. Or some inedible, gelatanous body part. She said what they normally do is just mix it all together and chop it up. So that's what I did. It actually wasn't too bad when done that way. Although I only took about 3 tiny little timid bites. And that was enough. I found a picture of what I'm pretty sure it was, and its called "Puchero." This is the translation of the ingredients I found online: Chick peas, potatoes, green beans or cabbage, a piece of stale bacon (it will be the only old man in the pot) of freshly killed pig: bacon, breast bone (sternum), spine, tongue, heart, gill, tail, ear or mask and black pudding. Yummmmmm! Oh please don't let it get worse from here.....!

Oh this picture just doesn't even do it justice. You just can't even imagine the horror of it.

The actual soup. Quite delicious!