Week #1

Another day, another paella; this time I made it with chorizo, a spicy sausage. I wandered into the central market downtown yesterday by accident so I bought some habadas, large green beans that come in pods. The woman in the market stall had a little device that split the pods open to remove the beans. I have made habadas from dried beans but I have never seen them fresh like this. I added the habadas to my paella after I began cooking the rice. I don’t think I will ever get tired of cooking or eating paella, I doubt that I will run out of different ways to prepare it, and any excuse to cook with saffron is a good excuse.

The central market is, without a doubt, the most remarkable collection of food items I have ever seen under one roof. Everything that this part of Spain has to offer for the table is being sold here in one of the hundreds of small stalls. I am too overwhelmed by this place to really begin to write about it. I will need to go there a few dozens times to shop so that I can begin to do it justice in words. Yesterday I started to write down the different varieties of fish for sale. I was too hungry to finish the task and decided that I needed to take pictures so I could remember what each species looked like.

The market—and Spain in general—is like Disneyland when it comes to hams and other types of dried, cured pork products. What I have found curious is that although there are plenty of specialty shops that sell the Jamon Iberico, the whole leg quarter hams, there don’t seem to be many bars and restaurants that offer this delicacy. In other cities in Spain pig legs hangs by the dozens in almost every public eating and drinking establishment. In Madrid I wouldn’t be surprised to see hams hanging in an optometrist’s office. Where is all the damn ham in Valencia? This is just another fact of Valenciana life that I will have to figure out.

Valencianos also don’t seem to be as addicted to tapas like people are in other parts of the country. Many of the bars look like they cater to this Spanish institution but rarely do you see the crowds of people flocking to the bar for tapas as I grew accustomed to in Madrid, Sevilla, and Toledo. There are plenty of tapas places all around town but they just don’t seem to experience the two, huge tidal shifts of clients in the afternoon and early evening.

Prices

After a week in Spain I have come to the conclusion that almost everything here is cheaper than in the States, at least where I lived in the States. I will list the prices for a bunch of things in Euros (about 1.25 to the dollar, so something that costs 10E is $10.25)

Coffee 1.20-1.50 E
Small Beer 1.50E
Bus 1.10E
1 Liter Chicken Stock 1.00E
Loaf of Bakery Bread .49-.85E
1 Kilo Rice .57E
Kleenex .69E
12 Eggs 1.09E
Day Bike Rental 2.00E
Various Dried Salamis 1.65-4.85E
Bottle of Spanish Brandy 5.75E
5 Liter Jug of Wine 3.75E (Priceless!)

If you know how to cook and have access to a kitchen you can eat like a king for very little. Yesterday I bought a quarter kilogram of mushrooms for 1.75E. They are called revellon and they look perfect for risotto. It will be a nice change of pace to have a meal without pork. Oops, I forgot that I bought some loganiza sausages that I wanted to try. The pork-free day will have to be Sunday, or the next day, or the week after. That porkless day may have to wait until I leave Spain.

Alcohol is as prevalent here as pork—this is like some sort of Muslim hell. Wine, beer, and spirits are cheap and ubiquitous. What is as popular here as I’ve seen in other parts of the country is the habit of stopping by the local bar in the afternoon and early evening for a beer. Spaniards usually drink little beers called cañas, draft beers that come in a wine glasses or similarly small vessels. I’m sure that there are plenty of drunks here but you don’t notice much in the way of public intoxication. The drinking age is 18 and is posted in almost every bar, but you rarely see young people under about 25 drinking.

I have always said that it is logistically impossible to get drunk in Europe in a bar or restaurant. The service here is just not set up to facilitate heavy boozing; it isn’t the right pace for it. I can rarely remember having more than one drink in the same place.