Food and celebrations

There's something about celebrations that brings the need to share it over food. Food and celebrations are so interlaced that it's like the event didn't even happen, if some bread hasn't been broken. Take Christmas, part of the thrill for me is the food that I associate with it..
The same goes for weddings. Although most people won't have clue what they ate on the day, part of the feeling that they take home from the wedding is created by the food they ate. Even to this day, we've had people commenting with mixed opinions about the dessert at our wedding (Blue cheese ice cream with figs) - foodies absolutely loving every minute, and the rest noting the wedding for strange contrasts - the Catalans thinking it was an Irish tradition, and the Irish thinking that it must another one of those strange napkin-swinging Catalan traditions..

This weekend we went to the wedding of our best friends, Raül and Carmen in Sant Vicenç de Moltalt. E has known Raül all through college (he was the year ahead in Hotel Management), had worked with him in his first job after college (the Hotel Campus in UAB where E worked as Receptionist and Raül as Maitre D) and ran into him again when they both went to work as consultants in CCS for a hotel ERP software program (without even knowing that the other was applying). Since then, their friendship has been constant - always finding a companion to comment Barça's latest trials and tribulations, and an accomplice to try out the latest restaurant or other culinary experience.

So as you can imagine, Raül finding a suitable girlfriend was going to be subject for scrutiny..

When we met Carmen, we both breathed a sigh of relief.. No one could be more perfect, more fitting than Carmen, with her instantly fitting in and becoming part of the group as if we'd know her for decades..

As you can imagine, when they announced that they were taking the plunge we were all over the moon, and started rubbing our hands just thinking about the wedding banquet. Knowing Raül & Carmen, friends after our own hearts, the outlook was promising!

And boy did it fulfill! The couple chose Turó del Sol, a restaurant about 20 minutes outside Barcelona for the location of their civil wedding. It was the most appropriate and well-organised setup we've seen in a while, which made everything run to plan..

The food was simple but extremely well executed. But the excitement of the day - seeing how much our two best friends beamed (Carmen must had a sore face the next day from so much smiling), that I only remembered half way through that I hadn't taken any photos to document the event..

So you'll just have to imagine that the food was brilliant (a massive chunk of hake, cooked to perfection; followed by a sirloin of pork with a wine jus; and a plate of Leches (milk pudding, milk custard, rice pudding), and I'll leave you with the happy face of the novios!

P.S. Will try and root out the menu, it's around here somewhere - I never throw anything away from the weddings I've been at..

P.P.S. Found the menu.. Here it is:

Centre of hake in a garlic shoot cream

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Fillet of Iberian Pork with a red wine jus

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Milk puddings platter

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Wedding Cake (Strawberry mousse tart)

Daring Cooks' challenge - Gnocchi de mató

Since I've signed up for the Daring Cooks' challenge, I thought it might be a good idea to practise with previous recipes. So to start off slowly without trying anything too complicated, I opted for May's recipe - Ricotta Gnocchi.

First problem, source Ricotta. When checking out what exactly Ricotta was made from, to my delight I discovered that it was just the Italian version of requesón or mató as it is known here in Catalunya. Mató (known as brossat in Tortosa and a main ingredient for passissets - more about them later) is a main ingredient here, used much like ricotta in both sweet and savoury dishes. Grand, main ingredient easy to find and the other ingredients are more everyday stuff (eggs, flour).

As instructed, I strained it overnight in the fridge (mató tends to be quite liquidy) and proceeded to make the gnocchi. They turned out to be easier than I thought in making.. Didn't even fall apart on my first attempt!


I decided to go with the basic recipe - just a dash of nutmeg and plenty of parmigiano. The trick is to handle them as little as possible to ensure a fluffy filling that is quite different to the more common gnocchi de patate but still as deceptively filling.
According to my official taster (E), they passed the test although he suggested the next time they should 'accompany' something else (i.e. I'm still hungry) and that I should try a wild mushroom sauce made with ceps (porcini). So I guess, round one passed. Will I make them again? Probably - they were a lot easier to make than I thought - the most time consuming moment, forming the gnocchi (trying not to make them too big nor too small) but I definitely think I'll try E's suggestion in the Autumn (when there's fresh ceps around).

The Daring Kitchen

Have been toying with the idea of joining the Daring Kitchen's baker's challenge for quite a while but have been put off since my oven does all or nothing (so I discovered one Christmas when trying to make my first Christmas fruitcake - Crispily black on top and gooely, uncooked mixture inside - lovely!). Why do things by half? It can just about cope with a pizza although it complains every so often, overheating its electric circuit and shutting completely off while giving a *lovely* aroma of burnt plastic. It's on the books for a change, but it's a matter of E and I seeing eye to eye about roller-drawer or hinged oven doors, and changing the hob as well (E wants vitro, I love gas) so I think it's going to be a while before we change it.. Anyway, so I reckoned that the world was not ready for my experiments as a baker (I don't think E was either as he openly discourages me from baking cakes etc!).
Thankfully I've found another challenge to keep me occupied that doesn't necessarily require an oven. Here's hoping that I can encourage E to help out since he likes me blogging and the like. He's an extremely good cook. I suppose it's his training (he did a degree in hotel management which included stints in the kitchen) but he's more a case of open-the-fridge-and-see-what-I've-got-to-make-dinner type of chef, not a fan of following recipes at all.. So it's going to be a push to get him to stick to the text. Don't you just love a challenge?

Food for thought

Found an interesting article in the Guardian entitled Everyone's a Critic which discusses the idea of educating kids' palates. It talks about a trip with a crowd of two-year old's to Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck..
Wow, Imagine feeding green tea and lime foam to a two-year old! - Would have liked to be in their shoes!

P.D. Was discussing the whole idea with E afterwards, and he came up with a very good point.. For kids, every taste is new to them, so in some ways the finer qualities of foie or oysters would be lost on them until they have sufficiently developed their palate to know what they do and don't like. He has a point; especially when we think that there's many adults out there that haven't developed their palate either, turning their nose up at a lot of things without really trying them

Age-old cycle of the seasons

Found a rather interesting site just now, recommended by a friend of mine. Eat the Seasons reminds us of the benefits of eating when fruit, veg and fish are in season.

• it reduces the energy (and associated CO2 emissions) needed to grow and transport the food we eat


• we avoid paying a premium for food that is scarcer or has travelled a long way


• it helps support the local economy


• it helps reconnect with nature's cycles and the passing of time

They're rather important reasons for going seasonal, apart from the all important "it tastes better" too! Overall they have most of the fruit and veg seasons, right (apart from artichokes, better to leave them until January/February in my opinion).

It's funny how we've gone a complete circle again, returning to the ideas that originally appeared in Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, published in 1861. According to Mrs. Beeton, currently in season we have:

FISH.—Carp, crayfish, dory, flounders, haddocks, herrings, lobsters, mackerel, mullet, pike, plaice, prawns, salmon, shrimps, soles, sturgeon, tench, thornback.
MEAT.—Beef, lamb, mutton, veal, buck venison.
POULTRY.—Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, plovers, pullets, rabbits, turkey poults, wheatears, wild ducks (called flappers).
VEGETABLES.—Artichokes, asparagus, beans, cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, celery, cresses, endive, lettuces, mushrooms, onions, pease, radishes, small salading, sea-kale, sprouts, turnips, vegetable marrow,—various herbs.
FRUIT.—Apricots, cherries, currants, figs, gooseberries, melons, nectarines, pears, pineapples, plums, raspberries, strawberries, walnuts in high season, and pickled.

Although here in Spain, we tend to think the best time to eat shellfish (marisco) is the months that contain an R - January, February, March, April, September, November, December; but I suppose the season may be much longer in colder waters/climates (i.e. for artichokes). Having been used to having everything that we want, when we want, I think it's kind of nice tasting the 'first of the season'. The wait for the mandarin oranges or sweet, juicy nectarines makes them all the nicer.

Fishy wisdom

We Irish have a special relationship with salmon; it is probably the only fish that is full accepted in the Irish diet (despite being an island). There isn't a house in Ireland that doesn't whip out the smoked salmon and brown bread at Christmas, weddings, funerals and christenings! Maybe it's Fionn's blood in us all.

Here in Spain, there isn't as much furor for salmon, sadly being over looked for other more meaty fish like monkfish and cod. Having been here 6 years now, I'm beginning to understand their liking for cod. In Ireland, I tended to avoid it like the plague, as it was insipid and bland. The cod here is different, probably because it's salted, which is good in some ways as it gives more flavour to an otherwise unappetising fish. The downside is if you don't soak it enough, you'll end up drinking water for the rest of the afternoon, so we've discovered on numerous occasions.. 48h hours is just not enough!

Shopping today I came across some lovely looking whole salmon, at only 5.95€ a kg - not bad. Despite being farmed, which usually means that it's rather fatty, it wasn't the case this time; it turned out a lovely fish. Rather than having the supermarket butcher it (and I mean mutilate it with a knife), I decided to take it home whole and wrestle with ourselves. E wasn't too enamored with the idea, as he says it's a great way of blunting knives, but then again, isn't that what they're for? Personally I always prefer to buy a full fish, having always seen mum and dad filleting fish at the kitchen sink, rather just asking for cuts to be cooked the same day - it's a fish that freezes well and is rather versatile.

The fish came in under 3 Kg, so there was plenty of fish to work with. In the end we took one full side and pan-fried it whole for a recipe I found in Arabesque (Barbecued Salmon and Aubergine Terrine). It starts off by lining a terrine with oven-roasted, ruby-red peppers, then sprinkling some crumbled, salty feta. On top of that, along one side, it layers poached leeks and on the other, some peeled, roasted aubergine. We placed half of the fillet (which had been panfried with a little garlic) in the centre and sprinkled it with some crushed coriander seeds. Then another layer of feta, more aubergine and leeks and the remaining salmon. Finally we topped it off with the rest of the peppers, and a layer of clingfilm. We've put some TetraBrics of stock on top to weight it. E was a bit skeptical about whether it would compact, but so far, the liquid seems to be dripping out. We'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the result.

The trimings along the backbone are going to be used for E's salmon tartare, a real treat where he mixes roughly diced fresh and smoked salmon with minced onion, gherkins, capers, hard-boiled egg and a dash of mustard and oil. A great temptié or a meal in itself (it's rather rich, so best to share - no worries here!).

I cut the other side into smallish darns and popped them in the freezer, to be salvaged another day when I'm homesick. Nothing like some panfried salmon and spuds to reminisce about moist lush Ireland!

Grocery shopping, the same all over the world, or is it?

Yeah, I know. A mind-disengagingly, boring task anywhere. Well for most people anyway.

E and I seem to get a kick out of it. It's a first stop-off, no matter where we go. I say that you can always tell how a country is by its supermarkets or lack-thereof.. and Spain is a food lovers paradise, so go figure that it would be instant gratification for us just doing the weekly shop.

Well, that was how it was until our busy lives caught up on us, forcing one or the other to do it alone. Not as much fun, alone.. I'm mean, somethings are meant to be done together. A long list of things comes to mind.. Yet, it ended up either being a) a strange guiri dashing through the aisles with her yellow-luminous post-its, hell bent on doing it as fast as possible (yep, my record was 34 mins for a full shop) or b) a tired-Spick whose face would light up with all the food that wasn't on the efficiently e-mailed shopping list or that already could be found in the laden shelves at home. Definitely not fun.

So where did the fun go? Most probably when the whole convenience food came..

When I arrived here, I would spend hours on end wandering around supermarkets mesmerized by the different food brands and lack thereof (I still can't stop giggling when I see Bimbo bread and reckon that Cif should still be Jif). I simply couldn't understand why their milk was on shelves and not in the fridge and why most supermarkets were rather empty of food and variety. For students in those days, it was hell. On earth.

Later, I discovered that supermarkets were not the places that the *real* people in Spain shopped. Heaven forbid if you even considered buying meat in the supermarket. For fresh stuff like that, you had to go to the market. The idea of convenience food was pizzas, chinese noodles and a millions of types of croquettes. Convenience it wasn't - rather *sin*venience - too much hassle and oil for a student.

So what happened? Globalisation, I guess. Or one rather smart market analyst who saw a gap market and a growing trend. I suppose it goes to figure, since the average working week is a minimum of 40 hours, and food customs (main meal in the middle of the day, and evening meal at 22h) meant that no one has enough time to go to the market (generally closed before 20h, unlike the supermarkets that open until 9 or 10 at night), let alone cook anymore. So it's a case of cartons of ready-made gaspazcho, cellophaned torillas, even callos a la abuela (tripe in a murky looking sauce that looks like anything but home-made by your granny - she'd turn in her grave, she would). The markets are fighting back, trying to employ celebrities to advertise the advantages of going local (better quality, fresher produce) but who can fight against price given the current aroma of the economic crisis?

It's one of the changes in Spain that I don't like at all. That's why going to Tortosa with its local market (with produce that has just hopped off the field) makes my mouth water for the fresh crunchy greens. Yet, there's other days (when I couldn't be bother to cook - yep, it happens to me too) that I'm glad I've got a tin of tuna in the house..

I guess it goes without saying that if a sign of a country is its supermarket (in my eyes), it won't be long before we all speak Spanglish.. :-/