Post Holiday Ruminations on Food

 Post Holiday Ruminations on Food

A comparison

As I have talked about before the pedestrian nature of or lives has led to a drastic change in how we shop. It involves almost daily trips to the shops and a very detailed list of items to purchase. Our extremely small, by American standards totally normal by Spain standards, kitchen limits what we can even store. The other obvious factor is what is even available to buy.

Staples and Food Waste

We have a full sized fridge by Spain standards but it is 1/2 the size of our fridge from Louisville. So we have less room for leftovers, meat, dairy products, anything else that you might want cold. And we have one 4ft tall, 2 ft wide and 1 ft deep white mesh metal wrack where we store overflow dishes and baking where and potatoes. Then we put one of our wooden book shelves that is roughly the same size to act as the pantry. We had multiple cabinets, an actual pantry and more food storage in our laundry room that we affectionally called the way way back.

This great down sizing had shifted what we consider to be staples. I have jars (a few from the US and more bought here or turned into dry storage after emptying a jar of sauce etc.) of dry goods and canned items. 

Rice: I keep 2 - 500ml jars of rice; basmati and pearl (think risotto). I have seen rice sold two ways. The grocery market sells 1 kilo bags that is it no other options. The dried sundries store sells it in bulk and put it in a paper bag. Most people seem to buy exactly what they are going to use that night. I like to have extra just incase our plans change. 

Beans: I have 3 types of beans and 1 type of lentils. Ours are all dried and stores in jars. We currently have black beans, pinto beans, red beans, and brown lentils. In the summer I will start buying white beans and not the red beans. Beans are sold like rice in the 1 kilo prepack at the grocery, and in bulk from the dried sundries, and canned in glass jars at the grocery and sometimes in the fruit stores as well.

Tomatoes: Canned tomatoes come whole, puree/sauce, and pureed & fried. There is no wall of past sauce. If you want spaghetti you make a sauce. So I keep 1 of the large cans of tomato puree and 2 small cans. I have found the fried puree to be too oily for anything that I tend to cook. In the summer fresh tomatoes are more in the mix and are starting to pop up in the fruitarias already.

Dried Fruit, Nuts, & Olives: All 3 of these are sold in bags and we eat tons of them. So I keep them in small glass containers on the pantry shelf or in the fridge once we open the olives.  You can buy black olives canned, and we also like the specialty stuffed olives that can be bought in cans at the store (roasted bell peppers, jalapeno, or lemon rind). At any given time we have 4 types of olives in rotation, 3-4 types of dried fruit (so fresh and cheap) and 3-4 types of nuts or other seed (again so cheap).

Milk: Yup I said milk. It is all shelf stable and does not need to be refrigerated until opened, Right now we have 2-1L boxes of regular milk, 1-1L box of oat milk, 1-3pk of 200ml boxes of cream, and a can of coconut milk.

Everything Else: I like to keep 1 can of artichoke hearts, tea ( we have 2 boxes), Coffee (1 jar), honey, sugar, sliced bread, 1 box of cereal and 1 canister of granola.

Now I do keep a bottle each of olive oil, vinegar, red wine, and sunflower oil on the counter. I have a 5kilo bag of flour in the narrow storage space above the oven to the side of the vent. and out side of that just spices and tiny amounts of backing things like yeast, and baking powder. We also have a wooden wine box on top of the fridge that holds chips or crackers.

Because we are forced to contemplate our shopping and storage to such detail we have almost zero food waste. The occasional piece of produce, and 2 times I have bought meat and did not get it cooked before it was too sketchy to use. Spain even has a public service campaign about reducing food waste. 

 

Big Food....yup still no.

Every Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter in the US I would see the 20 lb turkeys and hams. People would often buy multiples. I get that they were a good price per pound. But I never had a way to cook or store items that large. So I would buy and roast whole chickens or just grab a small turkey breast, or a small end of a ham (which we almost never finished.)

I have not seen any of those things for sale here. But Spain does have a big food item. A whole cured ham. You see them hanging in the windows of fine restaurants, delicatessens, and the deli counters of grocery stores. But right around Halloween huge displays popped up in every grocery market and meat store in town. These are not small or inexpensive. The vast majority costing over 100 Euros. Families buy these and have a special stand where it sits out in the kitchen and they shave slices off on as as needed basis.

 

The market we frequent has at least 2 full time employees who do nothing but shave jamon and package it in nice little containers all day. So we just buy the pre-shaved ham and get to sample lots of different items. Plus they easily fit in the fridge, require no maintenance and at the rate we eat will cost well under 100 Euros in a year.

A New Palate

Americans do not use enough Paprika. I always thought it was a tasteless red dust. Here I have 3 kinds in my spice cabinet; spicey, smoked, and sweet. I bought pre packaged spice containers the first round and have already had to buy bulk of all three to refill them.

Turmeric is another one that falls into this category along with cardamom, saffron, and bay leaves.

Lemons. I used lemons in the US but I seriously use 3-4 lemons a week here. We eat the whole thing in dishes; rind and all. I love the NYT recipe for quick preserved lemons they add an amazing savory, tangy, and sweet zip to chicken dishes.

Anyone who knows me knows that I do not particularly love onions. Raw onions and I do not get along. I fisrt fell in love with the red pickled onions found in Mexican cuisine, then super cooked in French onion soup. We use them but they must be well cooked. Cinnamon  is another one of those things that I will eat but don't love. So when I found a recipe that had me add a teaspoon of cinnamon to cooking onions I was dubious. But all I can say is its amazing! North African and middle eastern flavors are easy to cook here due to the proximity to Spain. And I can say we are fans. 

The mix of traditionally sweet spices cooked in savory dishes frequently with dried fruit and definitely lemon have taken the place of the Cajun dishes that I have cooked for years. I can't by tasso ham, or andouille sausage, or filet powder here so we have shifted continents.