The kindness of strangers: An A for A Coruña

With an address in my hand and a rucksack on my back I waddled out of A Coruña bus station and sought the help of the nearest granny. I asked her if the number 1a would take me to the city centre. Like a magnet I began to draw in grannies from all corners, fighting to help me. On the bus, when one granny got off, another took her place at my side. This continued until to a chorus of aqui! aqui! (here! Here!) I got off the bus only for the relay to be picked up by a passer -by who chaperoned me to the door of my hotel. I either have a disturbingly helpless face, or this city is full of kind hearted people. I am hoping it is the later, as nothing is better than the kindness of strangers.

Hotel Lois smart and chic and situated perfectly in the slim intersection between the beach and the port. In A Coruña the beautiful ocean breathes a sigh of calm through the city. I drifted out and walked the city for the first time on my own. It was earlyish but my eyes were drawn to Café Comba. 1) it had a menu del dia for £7.50 2) there were bottles of wine ready on the tables 3) people were already eating at half one. Before I could take a seat the waitress reeled off the menu, shouting back to the cook as she went. I  chose caldo, a Galician staple. Within minutes a large metal bowl was placed in front of me with a ladle, serve yourself. These menus are often something of an honesty bar situation. Ask for wine and an entire bottle is placed before you, drink a glass or the lot, da igual (it’s the same). The soup, a meaty broth bobbing with beans and grellos (Galician turnip greens) was comforting and filling. It arrived at the same time as a small elderly woman asked if she could sit with me. As I accepted she wished me que aproveche (enjoy your food).

Through the courses we shared reflections on our food, the waiters and then her time in Paris as an artist and well, life in general. Our seconds arrived, carne asada for me, roast pork that slipped of the bone, heavenly and unbelievable for the price. Fina was so content with her merluza (hake), she took a restaurant card to give to her Russian neighbour. At 7.50 euro for three courses it beggared belief. After homemade flan Fina and I continued the conversation along the beach, all the way to her apartment, through her studio where we looked at her art and right back to the city, until I was too tired to go on. What a powerhouse, at eighty she out walked me, out thought me, but didn’t quite out eat me. That afternoon, life felt like a movie.

The movie reel kept turning when back at the hotel Senor Pepe invited me to have a bite in the hotel restaurant. For a minute I was compromised, had I been confused as a restaurant reviewer? The seafood on display solved that moral issue for me and I showed up at nine with my camera and a notebook. Little plates started rolling out from the kitchen, an excellent selection of what Galicia has to offer. Treats like feather light croquetas of hake (the best I’ve ever had) and spider crab mousse displayed technical skill, but Marie the chef knows when you have stellar natural ingredients you barely need mess with them. Berberechos al vapor, cockles steamed just enough to open, were explosions of freshness, juicy and light with a punch of the sea. As I finished the gorgeous tarta de abuela (grannies tart) Marie told me her love of food started by cooking with her grandparents, and it showed. As I left she said ‘siempre tienes una casa aqui’ (you always have a home here).Inside I was glowing and I don’t think it was only from the amazing food.

And so from A Coruña my journey in Galicia began. A green land where people still know how to grow, fish and make their own food. Where I’ve given up listing every foodstuff they do excellently, even the basics of bread and wine are art forms here. Most importantly where each day I was reminded how decent and kind people are.

Fork notes:

• I walked the Camino de Santiago. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. If you can, do it!
• Las Islas Cies are spectacular, even for a day it is worth venturing to Vigo and hopping on a ferry.
• Eat; pulpo, grellos, bread, empanada, seafood (parillada de marisco), churrasco.
• Drink; Estrella de Galicia beer, especially a bottle called 1906, any local wine. 

The Galician good life

Right from the start I was impressed by the Spanish ability to avoid processed food. I watched with awe as my housemates soaked beans overnight and boiled them the next day with jamon bones, to make a killer stew. This admiration rocketed when I visited Sandra’s rural Galician home, beautifully orchestrated to keep fine food on the table year round. They rear, butcher, and cure their own meat, milk the cows, make cheese, collect fresh eggs and pull up veg from the garden.  Within moments of arriving I was sitting next to the wood-burning stove, eating a selection of home cured meats and cheeses, followed by a stew of home grown grellos (gallego turnip greens), potatoes and chorizo with onion, washed down with home bottled red plonk. One meal, and I was sold of the success of their sufficiency (and her Granddad Pedro is literally the most handsome man I’ve ever met!).

In the morning we ducked in and out of beautiful stone buildings, the milking shed, stables for pigs, sheep and a calf. We went to feed the chickens. They ate kitchen scraps, corn, and potatoes, and in return gave eggs and poultry. Next door, are the rabbits, another source of lean meat, and behind them a giant wood oven for baking bread stands in its own outhouse complete with a giant trough to mix the dough in. There are grain stores balanced on stone stilts, and a hay loft. Potatoes and onions have their own shelter, and in the green house giant lettuces sprawl and tomato plants are beginning to sprout. Outside the huerta (veg patch) was still full of grellos. Each section perfectly organised and charming, but the place that really got me excited was the curing room.

Next to the house, an old apartment has been converted into what I like to think of as this family’s personal deli. Two deep freezes store the meat for the year, that of a cow, and a pig, that they reared and butchered themselves. Above them, pancetta, jamones and longanizas (sausages) are curing after being salted for two weeks and covered in a protective layer of fat. As if it couldn’t get any better they opened a fridge and revealed at least 30 perfectly formed cows’ milk cheeses patiently maturing. It is a gourmet food market, but where you can afford everything, i.e. HEAVEN. Susanna used to joke with me and say ‘voy a hacer compras’ (I’m going shopping) when she popped in there to get something for dinner.

I followed the family around for a few days, walking the cows out to graze in pastures, with four happy sheep trotting behind. Cows and sheep work well together as the cows munch through the long grass and the sheep with their dainty teeth nip off what is left. Nothing here goes to waste. The wet winter means the hills are still rolling with green grass and that means amazing milk. Every morning Pedro milks the cows, making for the best café con leche ever, but he also makes a cheese each day! He tips the fresh milk into a saucepan, places it in the sink and fills the sink with hot water. He then adds a little rennet, and leaves it 15 mins to work its magic. Then he gives it a whisk and leaves it for an hour more. Meanwhile Pedro turns the cheeses from last week in the fridge, making sure they cure evenly and don’t go mouldy. Every now and then he will give them a wash in water. When the hour is up, the milk has separated and he gives it a brief whisk before passing it through a colander. The fluffy cheese is then poured into a mould, and the lid is pushed down to squeeze away the whey, and compact the curds. And just like that we had a cheese, in fact we ate it at lunch time as queso fresco and I slathered it with local honey. Oh the good life.

After one of many amazing meals I shared my thoughts that I was completely enamoured with this lifestyle and thought that nothing could make one more content than knowing where all your food comes from. They laughed and said the only problem is if the power goes down and the freezers conk out. I told them in such an event they need only call me, and I’d be on my way to help them eat it all. 

You can't read my pulpo face

It was always exciting going to eat at your friend’s house after school. The different routines, customs (I once had to slyly retrieve a slice of cucumber from my mouth, whilst my friends family said grace), and of course the food. This month I found myself in Galicia, the birth place of my Spanish friends, Raquel and Sandra. Despite being older now, I was nonetheless very excited to be invited to their parents’ houses for lunch, and as I quickly learnt, no lunch in Galicia is complete without pulpo (octopus).

My first morning in A coruña I ran to see the sea. I say sea, but really it is the fierce Atlantic Ocean that, which continually swallows the promenade of the city and delivers some of the world’s best seafood. Menus are full of it, and so are the restaurant windows, packed to the rafters with bonkers looking shells and molluscs. Even in the countryside pulperias (restaurants specialising in pulpo) are a firm fixture in every village. Pulpo or polbo in Gallego, is what every Galician misses when they are abroad. I’ve heard stories of a Gallego chef in London flying over bottles of Galician water so that he could cook pulpo properly. So though to the unaccustomed eye it is a daunting dish, there was no way I was wangling my way out of trying it.

When I arrived at Raquel’s house a whole pulpo was bubbling away on the stove. The markets are amazing, and picking up a whole octopus here is like popping out for a loaf of bread at home. I am told it’s better to buy it frozen, apparently it gives a much better texture, otherwise you have to whack it several times to tenderise it. In fact just like steak there are those who prefer it well done, so depending on your preferences and the size of the pulpo, the cooking time can be anything from 25 to 45 minutes. However, before it meets its destiny in the giant saucepan Sandra’s mum says you have to asustar (scare) the pulpo by baptising it in boiling water three times, which helps keep the skin on.

Once the pulpo had been boiled and then rested, Raquel’s dad set to work with the scissors, snipping the legs into 1cm discs, pure white flesh surrounded by a purple skin and tiny suckers. Olive oil, sea salt and pimenton (sweet or spicy paprika) were generously poured over. In Raquel’s house we ate the pulpo with potatoes as a hefty second course at lunch. With Sandra’s family in Ourense it was served on a typical wooden board and we used cocktail sticks to spear our catch. In both houses we raced to dip delicious Galician crusty bread into the sea infused oil, ate too much and laughed a lot!

Each morsel is sweet like a scallop or crab but the texture is meatier and the flavour more robust. Like most things here, when you eat it the Ocean comes crashing back to you. Perhaps that is why it makes such a hearty home coming for the Gallegos. I now understand why to Raquel the Mediterranean Sea we walked along in Valencia no tiene nada que ver (is no comparison) to the mighty roar of the Atlantic, but perhaps it is what gets fished out of it that she misses the most.

Fork notes

• Some boil the pulpo with a whole peeled onion and others just with water
• The cooking water can be used to afterwards to boil the potatoes while the pulpo is resting
• If you get served it as a racion of tapas in a bar, look for the palitos (cocktail sticks) and you will look like a true Gallego
• It was traditionally cooked in copper pots
• Moitas Grazas to my favourite Gallegos Juan Pablo, Raquel, Sandra, and their wonderful families. Big love xxxxxxx

The asparagus that got away

Yesterday I was driving in the car with Jaime, when he spotted an asparagus growing on the verge. We were travelling at 30kmph so Lord knows how he caught that, but I started quietly cooking up plans to go on my own wild asparagus hunt. This morning, as the sky broke and the sun shone through, I thought, I’ll just take a walk. My mind flickered to the asparagus, whether I should take a bag with me for my findings, but like not wearing matching underwear to jinx a possible romance, I left the bag in the drawer. Two minutes from my flat and I saw a man emerge from the pine forest greedily gripping a large bunch of wild asparagus. I cut my route to the sea short and immediately dived into the dense green jungle from where he had appeared. I walked along a sandy path, trying to adjust my eyes to differentiate between the heap of green shoots, twigs and plants that lay underfoot. I walked slowly and swayed from right to left like a metal detector. No asparagus yet. I looked at the footprints in the sandy path; it made me nervous, so many had passed before me this morning. So I took my hunt off road, clambering through brambles, my head in a cloud of midges and dodging near misses with wasps. Crouching down, I scrambled through tumbling weeds, looking like someone on a deranged hunt for a lost contact lens. I found some dandelions, wild rocket and lots of snail shells, but no flipping asparagus. I only want one, I bargained with the universe, at the same time trying to imagine where I would grow if I were an asparagus. Desperate. Then like with the lottery, I started to think about what I would do with it, boil it with butter, grill it, or make a tortilla de asparagus. Also like the lottery I realised that one wouldn’t do and to be really happy I would need at least five. Then I started to think, I don’t even need them anyway, look here I am in Spain taking a nice walk in the sun, doesn’t the forest smell nice, all the while my eyes fixed on the floor searching like mad, who was I kidding. As I walked my way out of the forest empty handed and my socks full of scratchy grass seed, I met Sofia in the street. I told her about my failed morning and she laughed, you have to keep practising or find a Granddad.

I am also very bad at mushroom picking. On a mushroom hunt in Mallorca last autumn I collected a grand total of none. So for this I am thankful that Spain celebrates its produce by having festivals where you get to buy them and eat them without disappointment. Here are some pictures from the beautiful stone village of Mancor de Vall in Mallorca where they were celebrating the arrival of setas (wild mushrooms) in particular el robellόn. The meaty orange mushroom pictured, is also found in pine forests and is best when cooked on a grill over the fire. At this festival you could by a plate with various cuts of pork and robellόns, barbecue them yourself over an already flaming brassier and then eat them sitting on a straw bale. The mushroom is slightly bitter, has an aroma of the forest and meatiness to it. A thoroughly rustic and enjoyable experience with guaranteed satisfaction.

My parting thoughts are I am so pleased there is still exciting wild food to be found in Spain but can somebody please show me where it is. 

Desperately seeking sobrasada

This year my totem of pork was toppled. Spain boasts an abundant array of pork products, from the masterful iberico jamón to fruity longanizas de pasca. Each region makes its own speciality, like morcilla from Burgos or chorizo from La Rioja. You could make an amazing travel itinerary based around embutido. Whilst picking olives in Mallorca in November, I stumbled across one of the greatest ever sandwich fillers, sobrasada. This magic meat has shot to the number two spot in my life, let’s face it, nothing ever will beat jamón.

Mallorca has got it all going on. Forget Magaluf and think more Michelin starred. Almonds, olives, vegetables, wine and pigs are some of the local specialities. The Mallorquin Black Pig is a breed that has evolved throughout history and is native to the Balearics. During the matanza (slaughter of the pig in winter) it’s customary to blend a mixture of meat, fat, salt and pimentón (paprika) to form the highly coveted sobrasada. Different parts of the pig are used as linings such as the intestines, stomach and bladder, making varying types of sobrasada. These different forms are carefully designed to supply a family with a years’ worth of sobrasada from just one pig. It is deep red, smoky and gloriously rich in taste. The soft spreadable nature means it is popular on toast with honey or I like a salad of poached egg, Mahon cheese (cow’s milk cheese from Menorca), lettuce and sobrasada. It really is the egg of the embutido, good both hot or cold and with both sweet and savoury accompaniments.

I will never forget my first deeply satisfying bite of a hot sobrasada sandwich. Whilst picking olives in the mountains, the farmer would make us the best almuerzo ever. Just before our morning break he would sneak off and make a fire of olive wood, then using the grill he carried around on his tractor he would cook longanizas of sobrasada (sobrasada in a sausage form). Pressed between slices of rough cut Mallorquin bread blotted with paprika stained oil, the soft meat melted in my mouth. I would have bashed a thousand more olive branches if it meant I could eat more sandwiches like those. I had a dream that farming in Spain would transform me into some kind of bronzed goddess, but then sobrasada happened.

Fork notes:

• Sobrasada can be made into 8 different forms, using the organs of the pig as linings. Generally the ones cured for the least amount of time will be eaten first, and the larger ones which have had longer to mature will be eaten last
• The paprika added is native to Mallorca
• Some people add a little black pepper to the ends believing it keeps the flies away
• Spreadable meat has always scared me, but this is naturally made, so fear not

An onion less ordinary

I’ve made a base camp for myself in El Saler, the gastronomic heart of Valencia, to start work on You Had Me At Jamon the book. My desk overlooks rice fields which seems an apt inspiration. The farmers have flooded the fields with water, so now the sunsets are doubled and thousands of birds swoop around to feed. On my first Sunday I was invited to join the Dasi Dasis on a family outing to eat Calçots. They know I can’t resist anything to do with food, I told them they should call me the seagull.

Over twenty of us piled into cars and drove north to Castellon. Calçots are most definitely a Catalan thing, but the trend has caught on and they’ve started cultivating them further south. After receiving my invitation I was watching a programme about farming. They showed a village in Tarragona, where locals and tourists were celebrating the arrival of Calçots, long white onions which are cooked over a wood fire and then eaten with a special romesco sauce. I love nothing better than a Spanish food festival. They are masters at celebrating locally grown produce and getting everyone eating and drinking together. These calçotades (calçot eating fiestas) are all go at the moment as we enter the season.

Unlike the television broadcast, we arrived at a go-kart track. They were offering a carrera (race) and calçot double combo. Whilst budding Alonsos whipped round the track, I kicked back with an ice cold beer, chomping on olives and warming up my appetite. Known specifically as Calçot de Valls, they hail from Valls in Tarragona. They are officially protected by a denominacion de origen, which Spain uses to identify their finest produce and acknowledge exactly where it comes from (like pimentos de padron or manchego). Though the ones we were about to eat had been grown locally and not in Valls, we were no less excited as we entered a massive barn with long tables set out before us. Each place is set with a bright orange bib and plastic gloves. We don are equipment feeling a little bit like doctors preparing for surgery. Then waitresses appear and set down large clay roof tiles filled with the charred calçots.

The calçots, like all good things in Spain, are cooked over a wood fire. When the exterior is charred and black they are bundled into groups and wrapped in newspaper for around half an hour to finish cooking. When they arrive they look almost like leeks. I am shown by my friends how to hold the calçot by its tail, peel a little of the outer leaves and then pinch the end to pull the blackened exterior away. 

You are left with a delicate, tender calçot ready to dip into a special romesco salsa. The white part of the calçot is long and fine and just right for eating. To do this you have to dangle it into your mouth, careful not to slap sauce all over your face. It is juicy and sweet with a hint of charcoal. Although a tiny bit stringy you can use your teeth pull away the young tender white flesh of the onion. The sauce is lovely, smooth and sweet. It is made with an interesting list of ingredients, tomatoes, garlic, almonds, hazelnuts, bread, dried nora pepper, rosemary, olive oil, jerez vinegar, salt and pepper. 

The slight nuttiness of the salsa works well with the freshness of the calçot and overall it is a delight to eat. My teenage friends who spent the car journey perplexed as to why they were driving all that way to eat onions, admitted they were rather nice.  So much so, that I munched my way through at least ten.

Considering I thought alliums were comprised of mostly water, I felt surprisingly stuffed. It seems nobody had remembered to mention to me that the second course would be a generous bbq of meat and embutido (cured sausages). The meat was cooked over the same fire that the calçots had been, and is the traditional way to follow them at the calçotades, along with a liberal dousing of cava. Plates heaped high with rabbit, chicken, beef, chorizo, longaniza (sausage) and morcilla (black sausage) were passed around. I was crazy to think this would have been a one course event. Luckily I live by the principle 'if you change the flavour I can keep eating', so I tucked in.

The wine flowed, children ran around and eventually we couldn’t eat anymore. There was one more race to be had, so I sat back in the last of the afternoon sun and nursed a strong coffee. These eating expeditions always take it out of me, but there is nothing better than being surrounded by good company and amazing food (especially when you get to wear a bib and gloves).

P-p-p-pick up a pimiento de padrón

I loved overhearing conversations about food in Spain. From grannies on the bus, meticulously noting recipes, to barmen boasting the best tortilla, it felt like everyone was at it. In Galicia, the conversation dominator is pimentos de padrón. So much so, it’s one of the region’s top ten topics of discussion. As we Brits enjoy speculating about the weather, the Gallegos relish in sharing theories as to why uns pican e outros non (why some are hot and others not). You see, eating a plate of pimientos de padrón, is a game of gastronomic Russian Roulette. There’s one little pepper hiding amongst the others, that will knock your socks off. It’s near impossible to know which. Grown in Herbón, a tiny village in Padrón, A Coruña, Galicia, these little bright green peppers are delicious and dangerous. Roughly ten percent of each crop will be extremely hot, whilst the others delectably mild. Theories bandied about by my Galician friends, guess that it’s the smaller ones that burn, or those with thicker skins. My friend Xián’s mother (who grows her own in Galicia), believes if you don’t honour them with sufficient care and attention, they will become spicy in spite. I can just about see some logic in her notion of chili karma.

The beauty of these little gems, lies in their easiness to prepare and interesting flavour. Simply get a pan nice and hot, pour in a generous splash of olive oil and cook the peppers until the skins blister and blacken. My advice is not to move them around so much, give them time to get a good bit of heat. Once ready, let them have a rest on some kitchen paper, then liberally sprinkle with rock salt. And that’s it. They are ready to be eaten with fingers, using the stalk to guide them to your mouth. They have a slightly nutty flavour with an enjoyable bitterness. They can stand alone as a tapas dish, but work marvelously well on the side of tortilla de patata. My friend Juan’s wife serves them with a fried egg sunny side up, so you can dip them in the yolk. However, my favourite way to eat them is with my aunt, watching her scream, as every time she picks the head-blowingly-hot one.