Live to Eat, Eat to Learn

Monday, January 21, 2013

Pastel de Carne :
Murcia's Culinary Crown Jewel

After spending two weeks in Granada with Yolanda and her family I've started back up with my Murcian routines-going to the market, attempting to read news articles in El Pais and stopping at the Espinosa Confitería before teaching English lessons in the Barrio del Carmen

The last time I went in one of the barmen greeted me with a half grin, said the equivalent of "ah, here you are-I thought we'd lost you" and asked what I'd like to drink now that I was back. I recalled a pre-holiday visit when an older patron sat down at the counter next to me, placed his order in a mumble and was served a little glass of tea, a packet of sugar and a bottle of whisky. The man took out the tea bag, emptied the sugar, tipped in half a jigger and slid the bottle back towards the waiter, who collected it nonchalantly on his next pass by the bar. I looked on and tried to recall any other time I'd seen that kind of serve yourself liquor
set-up. While tempting, I decided a "TéWhi" might not be the best decision before going over conditonal verb conjugations with my students.

Pastel de Carne Murciano at Espinosa

During that same visit I had made my way through the hoard of people ordering trays of typical Christmas cookies like mantecados made with lard and almonds and roscos flavored with anise and sweet wine. Presiding over the hussle and bussle was Espinosa's mustachioed owner who always wears pressed shirts and peers over the tops of his glasses and looks like a character right out of a Tintin comic (perhaps as a seemingly stern banking
mogul who proves surprisngly helpful when the young reporter needs him most). Stationed in the open kitchen he was smoothing bright blue "FRAGILE" stickers onto boxes of holiday treats to be sent through the mail, some so big he had to lift with his knees to pick them up. At the same time the bakers were parading out a steady stream of pastries right from the oven, raising the trays above their heads to make their way through the narrow space leading to the display case.

Anticipating an onslaught of sugar in Granada I decided to go the savory route and ordered one of the foods Murcianos are most proud of--their version of the Pastel de Carne. The waiter slid a freshly baked one onto a small white plate and even from two yards away I could hear the glorious sound of paper thin pastry shattering as he cut it into quarters. Underneath all of those crispy layers is a tender crust filled with a finely chopped mix of veal and chorizo that's been seasoned simply and topped with slices of hard boiled egg.

By the time I was done I had amassed an impressive pile of crumpled napkins and managed to eat almost all the little pastry shards left on the plate without blatantly licking it clean. Next time I plan to go after my class so I can tuck into a Murcian meat pie along with that whiskey, and a little glass of tea.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

You know you're in Spain when...

Two minutes after walking in the door you're offered chocolate milk and little cakes,
and then a plate of jamón

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Where there's only one way to fry

Menorahs aren't so easy to come by here but with a bag full of votive candles I made do for Hanukkah this year. After stumbling through an explanation of the miracle of lights in a combination of hand gestures and faltering Spanish (not too many vocab drills out there on biblical keywords), my roommate managed to gather that "Jewish Christmas" has something to do with oil. When I told her the festive foods revolve around frying, she was all for hosting a latke party.

I put Yolanda to work prepping homemade applesauce and filling bowls with Yogur Griego (subbed in for sour cream) while I started on the potato pancakes. I wanted to give her the full Hanukkah experience so I took her through the grating, the squeezing and the mixing. When I looked over and saw she was pressing on valiantly with the onions despite the burning tears in her eyes I decided not to tell her that I actually think latkes made from Manischewitz box mix taste better than homemade.

If it was going to be a party we were going to need dessert, and the obvious choice was traditional Hanukkah Sufganiyot-doughnuts filled with jam and rolled in sugar. After dinner I found some forgotten sunflower oil in the back of the cupboard, poured it into a big pot and starting cutting out circles of dough that had been rising on the counter all evening.

Yolanda came in to wash a stack of plates, saw the empty bottle and was physically taken aback. In the same endearing way she responds (as if the English language has personally betrayed her) when I try to explain that despite her years of education to the contrary, we don't actually say things like "queue" or "rubbish" in the USA, she threw up her hands and shook her head, dumbfounded.

With an unintentionally melodramatic flourish she knelt down to haul out the 5 kilo plastic jug of extra virgin olive oil her father replenishes when she visits home and set it down in front of me. The notion that I, or anyone else for that matter, would use oil from sunflowers rather than olives to fry with was completely baffling to her ("it's very strange to see this, do you know?!") but I was able to talk her down with the promise that I would never prepare doughnuts in such an heretical fat again.

A couple weeks later we went to see her relatives in Granada for the holidays, and just like coming downstairs to see your parents showing embarrassing baby pictures to your middle-school boyfriend, I realized she was recounting the episode to the entire table while I was getting more napkins from the kitchen. They all had a good laugh over my preposterous frying habits and then her dad leaned over and give me a good-natured pat on the back, just glad to see that I had been converted.