ham land and other foodstuffs

and now it's time to express some disappointment in the spanish. they're all dark and wild and relaxed, and dude--we love their cities and their discos and their old pretty buildings. but there's one thing they haven't won any of us over on.

their FOOD.

not one of us. everyday i hear my fellows mouth off about meals and how they're starving and will simply have to go to that pizza place after dinner in order to stay alive. whiiiiiiiiiiine. but not even i, the self-proclaimed wastebin of foodstuffs, am impressed. i like to say that i like good food, like non-processed cheese and homemade bread and whatever. but basically, i'm a hungry person who understands that indulgence and enjoyment are big parts of gastronomy. that hotdogs and risottos can exist in the same world, if we'd just admit that we're all pretty easy to satisfy. we're all humans. and i'll eat that cold pizza-bagel off of your plate if i'm still hungry and if you're going to throw it away. eating is fun.

but spain is a different story. there's weird shit here (pâté, man. and pickled asparagus. and yesterday, when we took an excursion to madrid, we ate at museo del jamon: the museum of ham!). over the past few weeks, i think i've managed to pin down what the mysterious deal is, and why we're all complaining about our meals: nothing here is spectacular enough to make anything else seem indulgent.

does that make sense?

alright. what i mean is, spain is basically like any american city in that meat, potatoes, and other basic vegetables are the most common fare. we eat pale iceberg lettuce salads with tomatoes and olive oil. we have slices of ham (we could start calling spain "spam") and bean soups. we eat apples and oranges and sometimes even spaghetti. sadly (saaaaadly), dessert is almost never more exciting than an ice cream sandwich (but, ok...ice cream sandwiches are pretty marvelous).

and paella...is good, but not great. it's basically a huge skillet of yellow rice with bits of red and green pepper flecked throughout and a strong fishy flavor. it's fun to find pieces of shrimp and calamari in the dish, but in general, it's not very interesting. too bad.

so really, there's not much to jump around about. there aren't really any exciting national desserts or exotic fruits to take our minds off of the food we're served at school. it's hard to go out (in toledo, at least) and find any "authentic" spanish restaurant that is different from what we've been having in the cafeteria. restaurants all advertise the paella we eat every sunday, and all cafes have the same big chunks of meat and potatoes on their menus. maybe i'm dreaming, but it seems to me that our good city of minneapolis has more variety than many places in spain.

but you know, at least we're fed. and amply. i am always grateful for that. and the hundreds of ice cream spots around the city are stocked with rum raisin (yeeeeEEEES) and dulce de leche and "whipped cream" flavors. but after these two weeks, i must say that the best eating in spain can still be found at imported places that sell hummus and falafel and kebabs.

i think western europe may be losing the culinary battle to the mediterraneans...oh well. thank goodness for globalization.