My First Week in Food

Those that know me well know that food, both preparing and consuming it, is a passion of mine. Many gastronomes consider Spanish cuisine to be of some of the highest quality, both in ingredients and flavor, in the world. So part of my desire in coming to Spain, was to expand my adventure in the food world; to experience a cuisine different than mine and throw my hat into the ring of preparing a new type of food. That being said, here’s my first week in Madrid, with a look at the food I’ve been eating.

*Note: the pictures of lower quality, are mine, whereas the better looking ones are stock photos. I haven’t gotten used to taking my camera everywhere nor taking pictures of food that I have not made.
 
First meal over the Atlantic: a chicken with seasoned rice dish, served with a Caesar salad, a semi-frozen roll, and a small package of Milano cookies.

The airplane dinner, served by the wonderful flight attendants of United Airlines.

First meal in Spain (technically): a croissant with a small side of fruit, also served by the flight attendants of United.

We were flying over Spain when breakfast was served so I suppose, by a technicality, this was my first meal in Spain.

First meal in Madrid: Potatoes with Fried Eggs and Chorizo, Paella, and Coquettes; with a caña of Mahou

I touched down during the early afternoon, and promptly made dinner plans with some fellow folks in the program for 8pm; a tad early for a Madrid dinner, but some of us were jetlagged and wanted to get to bed early. We asked the receptionist at our hostel for a dinner recommendation and she mentioned a good tapas place. Tapas means small dishes in Spanish, and that is a good definition of what they are. Tapas are just small plates of food, meant to be shared with your friends while you drink. We each ordered one thing off the menu, I chose the potato dish, and shared it. The potato dish that I ordered came up first and it was rather disappointing. It was literally fried potatoes, next to two fried eggs, and a strip of Chorizo, talk about uneventful. Coquettes came up next which are a potato dish, filled with different items, in our case ham and cheese, and then deep fried.
Very unhealthy, but quite tasty. Lastly we got a small dish of paella mixta. Paella is a rice dish, similar to risotto, that was invented in Valencia, Spain and incorporates rice with stock, meat, and the important spice, Saffron. Our paella came with seafood and chicken, and was not bad, but was overly salted.

Of course, with our tapas, we all had cañas (about a half pint of beer) of Mahou, the beer of Madrid.

Mahou is best described as if Budweiser and Busch light were to have a love child. Needless to say, I am not impressed by this Spanish beer. I will however, continue to try other beers here until I find a drinkable substitute for our wonderful selection back in the States.

First meal that I prepared: Chicken Caesar Salad

After the first few days of fried, carbohydrate heavy, food, I really craved a salad. So I picked up some chicken that I sautéed, added some lettuce, and dressing, and had myself a chicken Caesar salad. Of course I needed some bread though, so I had some baguette with goat cheese.


Favorite dish, so far: Tortilla Española

At the moment, I am really loving tortilla here. It’s simply potatoes, onions, cheese, and eggs, but it is so good. I could eat it for every meal, if it was acceptable.


Favorite meal: Doner Kebab

My favorite meal included a dish called Doner Kebab. Think a gyro (chicken or lamb), with a salad, all coated in a hot sauce and a garlic sauce. Absolutely delicious, and horrible for your health. Served with French fries, that you can coat in even more garlic sauce, and a Coke made with real sugar. I’m drooling just writing about it.


Trashiest meal: the following Monstrosity

Cook noodles that you got from the Spanish equivalent of a dollar store, add some ground beef, cheese from northern Spain, and of course, a delicate sauce of ketchup, and you have yourself one, extremely, trashy meal.