We’ve been meaning to post more food observations for some time…

As both travel geeks and foodies, we’ve been having a fantastic time exploring the culinary options here.  Here are some discoveries that we hope to replicate when we get home (up to ingredient availability and our own culinary fu):

• Pisto manchego: Naively, through the “US grocery store food lens”, I thought of “manchego” as meaning “Spanish cheese”.  Of course, it really means “In the style of La Mancha” (region in central Spain, south of Madrid).  Duh.  So there are many non-cheese foods that are manchego.  Pisto manchego is Spain’s answer to ratatouille and, IMNSO, is far better than the French version.  (Largely because the French version tends to be very tomato-heavy and more acid than I like.)  Susan succeeded with a very creditable version of this already.  Whee!
• Salmorejo: A thick soup-verging-on-dip.  Similar in construction to gazpacho (which is more familiar in the US, I think), but containing a large amount of bread blended in.  It must be the bread that makes it come out with a thick, incredibly creamy texture and flavor.  The first time we tried it, we swore that it had to have a ton of cream or cheese or something in it.  Nope — as far as we can tell, it’s just veggies, olive oil, and bread.  We wanted to try this at home, but our pathetic kitchen here, of course, has nothing like a blender or food processor and this stuff would be excruciating to try to make manually, I think.
• Calamares: Calamari.  The Spanish, by and large, have seafood nailed.  You can get calamares almost everywhere here.  You walk down the street and random bars have calamares plates and sandwiches.  (Yes, that’s breaded, fried calamari on a hoagie roll.  No sauce, just bread with your breaded cephalopod.)  But, on average, they do it really, really well.  The mediocre preparations here are roughly equivalent to the all-but-top-tier calamari preps that you’ll get in the US, and it’s not at all unusual to get calamares here at random pubs that rank with the best we’ve had in the US.
• Palmeras: Palm-shaped pastry cookies.  They seem to be made of something like rolled phyllo dough, baked crispy, and then dipped in chocolate or some other glaze.  (Had a v. nice strawberry one the other day.)  There’s a divine pastelería (pastry shop) just down the street from us.  This fact is very, very dangerous.
• Cocido: A stew made from (what else) salt pork, chorizo, blood sausage, onions, and probably some spices I don’t know.  In madrileños (Madrid-ian) style, also includes chickpeas.  Obviously filling, so it makes a good fall/winter food, and yummy.  (If you like pork, of course.  ;-)
• Croquetas: The Spanish version of French croquettes.  Bechamel mixed with (of course!) ham, breaded and fried.  (Did we mention that the Spanish really seem to like deep frying?)  Little balls of cardiac doom, but so yummy…
• Pulpo gallego: Galacian style octopus.  See above about Spanish mastery of seafood.
• Paella and other arroz dishes:  You can get decent-to-good paella in the US, so it’s familiar to many of us.  (Though it helps if you have a madrileña postdoc.  ;-)  But rice is a kind-of religion here.  There are restaurants that appear to specialize in rice dishes and whose menus list like 30 or 40 different rice dishes (and nothing else).  We have not yet taken the chance to try them, but that’s on the “to do” list.
• Aceitunas: Spanish olives.  Oh.  My.  God.  My new addiction.  I have always hated green olives, but that turns out to be because the green olives you get in the US suck.  Olives are also big biz here and the green olives you get here are lovely.  Smooth and mellow and rich, essence-of-oliveness flavored.  You can get them whole or, my favorite, pitted and stuffed with anchovies  (Aceitunas rellenos con anchoas).  Yes, even if you think you hate anchovies, you should try these.  (If you can find them, that is.)  The salt does lovely things for the olive and it’s a dreamy combination.

I’m sure there are more things that I should mention, but it’s late and I’m sleepy, so I’ll call it a post here.  Maybe we can come up with more later.

Bon appetit!