Comments on: Eating Barcelona

By: TORIL

TORIL — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 14:47:36 +0000

No need to go to Burger King, Ezhtarbu or similar, we should definitley boycott them. ¡ Viva la Paella !

By: admin

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:39:54 +0000

Hi Toril
Yes, indeed. Spanish food is wonderful and it seems quite tragic that fast food franchise places should be proliferating. Especially when there are so many delicious and nutritious dishes that one can make really quickly.

By: TORIL

TORIL — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 13:33:01 +0000

Mmm..the food.
The first time my parents came to visit me, quedaron totalmente alucinados about food, I mean real food, not the kind of ‘tourist-meals’ served on charter-trips like wiener schnitzel, german kartoffelsalat and other continental stuff.
In the early 90s, pre-olympic age, my parents didn’t know that el jamón – o sea, “el bueno, el de Jabugo
even existed. The same way with all the different ways of preparing bacalao – we are from Norway, kind of cod homeland (Sorry Iceland) where cod is boiled with boring boiled potatoes and other vegs as garnish. In Spain things are boiled only if you feel sick, then you got yor traditional arroz hervido.
Not forget about my mother-in-laws potajes, and my husbands caldos which certainly remebered my father of his mohers caldos during the 2nd World War – lots of bones and stuff in it, my husband never cared about mad cows.
After la comida or cena, my father wanted una copa de coñá like the rest of males… in the beginnig (with his typical guiri mentality), he couldn’t get into his mind why they didn’t finish all the bottle…tried to explain that no need to, “They have lots of bottles on the shelves and backstage” Fortunately, in a couple of weeks, both of them seemed to be a little more In the Garlic.

By: Theresa

Theresa — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 13:35:54 +0000

Absolutely beats me too, Val. An uncle of mine (English) who has lived in the States for decades and has worked in the catering / hotel trade came to visit a couple of years ago – the first time he’d been to Spain since the 6os (!) – and he immeditaely picked up on this whole ritual thing, about how people really seem to care what they eat. What particularly impressed him was how the no-room-to-swing-even-a-small-rodent, cigarette-butt strewn bars will be packed with workers in overalls tucking into splendid tapas and media raciones of fresh tasty produce. A far cry, he said, from the food-as-fuel, quantity-over-quality ethos that seems to exist over there.