(Note: This post was supposed to have more pictures. The pictures never arrived so it’s mostly a long story about some food and politics. Sorry. The next post will have more pictures.)
Our tour began, as all things do in Spain, with jamon. Well it actually began with meeting our guide, a Londoner, and the rest of our tour, an older English couple from York and a young Scottish couple.
After the introductions, the jamon started flowing. The first stop was a highly rated tapas bar with the “best” jamon in the city. Expensive to be sure, but “best” is obviously subjective. It was very good, as were the olives, potato chips, and tomato bread. Vermouth was paired with these items.
The tour guide began with a history of tapas, how tapas should be eaten, ordered, etc. The exciting part began with a dialogue between the Londoner and our young Scottish bloke.
A remark was made by the Scottish man about eating and drinking. The Londoner replied about his abilities because he is British. Before she can return to her talk on tapas, the Scotsman immediately retorts that he is Scottish. She continued with tapas as if he had said nothing (and maybe she did not hear him, but I (Clay) heard it all). And thus was our introduction into local opinions on the Scottish secession movement.
For those unaware of the international political landscape, Scotland and Catalonia have both recently held votes on seceding from their larger countries, the United Kingdom and Spain, respectively. We will learn about the Catalan opinions on it’s on secession movement when we visit Barcelona. For now, we return to tapas.
Stop two on the tour took us to a lovely little tapas venue where all the food is cooked upstairs in the proprietors personal kitchen and served down in the bar. Here we had freshly pickled anchovies, a blue cheese and cider smothered bread, and some off menu meatballs with jus. More local vino of course. All tasty and we enjoyed soaking up the sauces with more bread.
Stop three is where we ate some exceptional mushrooms. This place pretty much focuses on mushrooms done one way. Griddled in olive oil with a little piece of chorizo where the stem has been removed. Sprinkle with salt, some parsley, maybe a bit more of olive oil. Hot off the griddle, these were outstanding. Adorable little morsels and paired with sangria even in winter.
Between stop three and four is where the American politics talk began. It can be summed up with saying fear and Donald Trump. The Scots and English are as worried as the Spanish are. I diffused the talk with a few stupid jokes/remarks and we all laughed and headed to the next stop.
Four is another spot that serves basically one dish, garlic shrimp. Drop the smallest shrimp you can find (used so the oil can penetrate the shrimp deeper), into bubbling oil filled with garlic and a little chili powder. Sop and scoop with bread (always bread). Enjoy with a local red.
At stop five we encountered a menagerie of grilled items. Peppers, pork loin, kidneys, intestines, and thymus gland (sweetbreads). And too many other items to count. All of which were exceptional. Paired again with red wine.
Here though is where the Scottish Independence debate really developed. It was mentioned briefly around the table between the older English woman and our young Scottish bloke. Suffice to say she could do nothing but shake her head in disgust as the voice of a free Scotland tried to explain why he felt the need for Scottish Independence.
The talk died down as food hit the table, but in about 10-15 minutes I, could not help but poke the hornet’s nest. I posed a few questions to our Scotsman, and he took off. The English woman, representing the Crown, said little other than occasionally adding some form of admonishment of the Scottish people and how good they have it at present.
This discussion was occasionally broken up with more tapas and then from our guide. She went on to discuss watching a pig get its throat slit. A perfect conversation ender. The pig death was a part of a Madrid Bizarre Foods episode she is set to appear on with Anthony Zimmerman.
All in all it was a great tour with very exciting conversation. But the night would not end there, as we said our goodbyes, the Scots offered to head out on the town with us. We immediately accepted their offer. Since we are planning to visit Scotland in a few months and they are planning a honeymoon next year to the US, we exchanged opinions on locales and destinations. Sadly, Alabama was not on their itinerary, but we didn’t blame them.
A good time was had by all. They were wonderful, pleasant people and were fine representatives for Scotland. Hopefully we were fine representatives of the States. The Scotsman said that he felt like he was in an American movie. We’re not sure if that means we did a good or bad job as ambassadors. We arrived home a little later than planned and slept in later too. Luckily, we had nothing schedule for the next day so we didn’t mind.
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