Let the txotx season begin! Today is the day they tap the ‘08 harvest kupelas in the Basque Country. Astigarraga, just outside Donostia, is, of course, the place to be.
More specifically, the place to be is probably Sidrería Petritegi. That’s where, this year, after the Mayoral speechifying whereupon the virtues of the most prodigious (10 Million kilo) and most aromatic apple harvest in 30 years will be extolled, and after the apple tree planting (if you want the bounty, give back to the land) is done, at 1:45pm, the txotx season officially opens with a shout of “Gure Sagardo Berria .” That’s so many daunting Basque words for: we’re talkin’ cider here, folks, the hard stuff, come and get it — fresh and fruity and flowing from kegs all over town. (more…)
They have lulled you into believing, perhaps, that jamón Ibérico de bellota is the only smuggle-worthy delicacy produced in Spain. Well, I’ve got news for you: the farmers of this peninsula’s northern provinces are over there in their little mountain villages quietly making more and more fabulous cheeses. (more…)
If you thought the pimientos you ordered in New York or Madrid this winter were good, belly up for another round pronto. What you get, especially if you happen to be in Galicia, in the northwest corner of Spain, will put those wimpy winter peppers to shame. Midsummer is the season for the intensely flavorful, rarely spicy Pimiento de Padrón. (more…)
Getting to the Penedés wine country from Barcelona is as easy as last week’s New York Times travel section article (”Catalonia’s ‘Champagne’ Country“) makes it sound. About an hour’s drive gets you to the big-volume producers travel writer Sarah Wildman mentions. What she doesn’t offer a clue about is that another half hour and a good map will take you away from the “Disneyesque” Cava touring she describes. (more…)
In this lead-up to Easter Sunday, pastry chefs in Catalonia and Valencia are tempering chocolate like mad and sculpting it into eggs and other shapes to adorn the traditional Easter sweet, the mona de pascua. (more…)
Barcelona’s Boquería market is spectacular, but if the Boquería is the only market you see in this town, you’re missing out. (more…)
Two ways to sample Spain’s most venerated pig, jamón ibérico de bellota (a native breed of black-footed pig, reared in acorn-laden oak forests, and carefully salted and cured where the air is just so) here in the USA were plugged in today’s New York Times Dining pages. This is the cured meat people in the know here were buying futures in a couple of years ago.
In case you missed that whole story, The Wall Street Journal’s early account is still up on the Tienda website — tienda’s owners devised the “futures” scheme as they worked with suppliers to get a version of the ham approved for sale in the U.S. (more…)
If you read Bill Buford’s Heat, you know that Mario Batali’s first formative food epiphany came in Spain. Too bombed to recall the specifics, he later moved on, slightly more soberly, to Italy. Now PBS has him roving Spain in the company of Gwyneth Paltrow, filming their culinary road trip for TV. Mark Bittman is along too, presumably to eat for Gwyneth. Stalking along on Batali’s blog, I started to worry that Mario, GP and Bitty’s “discovery” of Vic’s beloved sausage, the llonganissa, might make it impossible to keep production at artisanal levels.
A purist’s salami, llonganissa is made from choice cuts of pork, (more…)
Torrones from Italy have made their way into American specialty food stores, but I don’t touch the stuff. (Well, not unless I’m at Tony’s Colonial in Providence, Rhode Island.) I wait instead for friends in Spain who know about this problem to send the more almond-y turrones. (more…)