Spain is probably responsible for every kind of blending ofculture and cuisine in the world in some way or the other, and is in itself, agreat place for food, where I had a great culinary experience.
During our trip to Europe, in Madrid, we stayed with a dearfriend who gave up her personal space to accommodate us and after about tendays of cold breakfast in Paris, we had a kitchen at our disposal and anartisan bread store just next door. ‘The Chef’ was in the house, so it was eggsto order, bacon or a locally smoked ham called Jamon (or both), Queso Fresco,cream cheese and bread that was not allowed to cool after coming out of theoven, and of course freshly brewed coffee. This was a daily affair.
We visited an artisan market called Mercado San Miguel, oneof the most amazingly quaint markets I have seen, a lot like the Bouqueria ofBarcelona, but a gourmet version. They had the most amazing Tapas. The firststall had a variety of olives and pickles. We tried olives stuffed with freshcheese and sweet pimentos, olives stuffed with pickled onions and anchovies,olives with goat cheese and pickled chillies, Gherkins stuffed with tuna andpickled onions and roasted peppers stuffed with cream cheese. My favourite,though, was Queso de Cabra stuffed in Pimento piquillo. Soft goat cheesestuffed into tiny semi spicy red peppers, pickled in vinegar. It was fingerlicking good.
The next stall had seafood Tapas. We went with smokedmussels on crostini, fresh marinated Bacalhau on toast, dried Bacalhau with eggon toast, sardines on toast and a variety of diffently coloured caviar withblinis. We washed it down with a jug full of Sangria, like only the Spanishmake it: orange slices, cherries and lots of ice. Then came the cheese platter,an assortment of goat’s cheese, fresh cheese and cured cheese with toast. Thenthe main attraction: the cured meat stall where they had two guys carving paperthin slices of heavenly Jamón ibérico salted and smoked to perfection. Wesampled the Spanish Chorizo, the Picante version is a lot like our own Goansausage, but less spicy. They had variety of sausages on display and choosingbecomes really tough. I was in heaven, food heaven. The sweets and pastriesstall was full of beautiful cakes and chocolates. We tried the chocolate éclairs,chocolate gateaux, a variety of cookies, and other chocolaty sins. Talk about asugar rush. Now my wife and kids were also in heaven.
The next day we were taken to a restaurant called Lateral,it is here that I was really impressed by the tapas. We started off with minitornados, grilled medium, topped with caramelised onion and Foie Gras on crispbread, cream cheese and chives wrapped in smoked salmon on bread, friedeggplant with a balsamic dip and sweet red pepper stuffed with Queso Fresco on toastand a potato tortilla which is basically a potato and onion omelette, one ofthe most simple and amazing things I have tasted. Culinary journeys are theonly ones on which you never hear that irritating ‘are we there yet’?
