A Little of This, a Little of That... Part 2

            We Went Grazing

It was called “VIII Feria de Gastronomía Y Artesanía,” the Eighth Gastronomy and Craft Fair. Artisanal foods from around Seville and Andalusia, this part of southern Spain, were on display.  And for sale. 

The venue was relatively small, much smaller than the Independent Wine Sellers convention we went to in Paris this time last year. But it was reminiscent of that event, with eager-looking venders in each booth anxious to show off their wares and provide us with samples. After a quick overview we got started. First off, the gin distiller.

What? I didn’t even suspect there was a gin distiller in Seville. (In fact there are at least two; at the far end of the display room was another gin booth.) Ever since our first stop in England, where we toured what might be the oldest gin distiller in England (and, hence, the world, probably) we’ve been running into artisanal gin. In the Lakes District; in Dingle, Ireland; now in Seville. So we’ve decided to become gin aficionados.

It seems that Gin & Tonic is the new martini: the cool thing to drink today, with many variations. Many of the supermarkets here sell “botanicals” (dried herbs and plants) to be added to your own G&T creations. And, there is now flavored gin. This particular vendor had about six different flavors, including strawberry, blueberry, orange, and combinations, each delicately colored. Not being fans of flavoring, we bought a bottle of the clear stuff. (Turns out it’s not quite as good as the Plymouth Gin, but much cheaper and, hey, available!)

 There were olive oils to sample, and olives. We learned that the Spanish consider black olives to be inferior, which explains why we only see green olives in the market. (Their olives were good, but I prefer the spiced black olives we found in such profusion in the South of France.)

There was honey, and various sweets. And ham. The fabled Iberian ham. This seems to be highly regarded here in Seville; we see it everywhere: the hog leg, complete with black hoof, hanging in cafés and every supermarket (even at the Seville Costco, which stocks mostly North American goods). Not being ham eaters we can only speculate, but a bit of research shows that the legs come from the back end of hogs that roam freely in oak forests in the west of Spain, along the border with Portugal. Apparently acorn consumption (by the pigs, not the ham eaters) is a big part of the equation of extraordinary ham, as is being free-range (again, the pigs…). Prices for one of these hams run from €150 to €500, so they must be something special. 

Typical supermarket display of Iberian ham

And this ham is very popular. Every café has them hanging, and I have often noticed the waiter slicing off paper-thin strips of ham with a razor-sharp knife; plates of sliced ham are standard fare at most cafés. While at the food festival I was able to get a short video of ham being expertly sliced…

                                   https://youtu.be/-IfPyhrZBGI

The Guy waiting to slice more ham

OOPs, this one is almost gone! Time for a replacement...

In an attempt to better understand this ham thing, we talked to an olive oil representative who spoke good English (he’d spent a year in Southern California, and was really stoked by the experience). Turned out he was a vegetarian, so we didn’t learn much from him about ham. But he did slip us a few extra sample bottles of olive oil, and give us other insights into the culture of Seville.

Update: on Christmas Eve I had an opportunity to taste a bit of this fabled ham. Nominally a vegetarian, I’m not interested in ingesting large quantities of ham, but hey, a little taste? How can that hurt!

Surprisingly enough, I could taste the acorns. Of course the predominant flavor was salt – not unpleasant, but decidedly salty – and under that a flat, almost chalky taste. (Of course, to be sure I should taste ham other than belota – acorn, signifying that the pigs were allowed to eat the acorns as well as… well, whatever pigs eat in the wild – but I’m really not that into it!)

Then there was the Sherry. We did want to continue our Sherry education, so we stopped at a couple of booths to sample their product. The ladies presenting the products were quite nice, and gave us generous samples of some very good Sherry (I had to be a little careful since I had yet to recover fully from the gin samples). We took an immediate liking to the sweeter Sherries, but the dry ones will require a bit more time for us to fully appreciate.

           We Went to the Market
Farmer’s Markets are increasingly popular in the US; in Europe, it’s How it’s Always Been. We haven’t really found a good open-air market here, but there is a fabulous indoor market about a 20-minute walk from our apartment (seems like everything is a 20-minute walk – only a 20-minute walk – from our apartment). The Mercado Triana is, like most indoor markets, a large high structure full of stalls for the vendors. Here the same vendors seem to have occupied the same stalls for years: they have their names and stall numbers in glazed tile work above the stall.

One of the produce aisles of the Marcado Triana 

Beautiful, fresh produce, in January!

We like to go there for lunch, as there’s a couple of cafés that serve great, fresh seafood. We even have a favorite café there; it’s closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, as we found out last Tuesday.  It’s a joy to walk through the market, past stalls overflowing with bright, fresh produce, and fresh iced fish, and take our table in back. Things are a bit quieter there. The beer is cold, the food good. The waiter is attentive, the people friendly. 

The fish aisle, where the cafes get their fresh fish!

Ah, but no trip to Mercado Triana is complete without a visit to the fish lady. There are several fish vendors (do we still call them mongers?), but only one sells the fresh tuna steaks we like. She took the trouble to explain to us, in her expressive and expansive Spanish, that her favorite part of the tuna comes from the body; the nose meat is slightly less expensive but not, in her opinion, nearly as good. (And how did we understand all that, anyway?)

The Fish Lady at Triana Market

Here's lookin' at you, squid

            Next stop, the pasta maker from Milan. We spent some time talking to him, too. His pasta machine is in the back of his stall, so we know his ravioli is fresh! We spoke with him a bit after our trip to Rome. He, of course, is familiar with Rome; NOT his favorite city. There’s a reason why he lives in Seville, a much smaller and quieter place than Rome (but still lively!) 

Paula has offered – only half joking – to become his unpaid assistant to learn how to make fresh pasta. He just laughed and muttered something about how then he could go off to Costa Rica. In any event, we bought some salmon ravioli, opting for the ones that were black on only one side, passing over the ones that were colored with squid ink on both sides. And, we ordered some vegetarian lasagna for Christmas Day dinner.

Finally, we reward ourselves for a fine day of shopping with lunch at the bar in the back of the market. A small glass of beer, a glass of wine, and a couple of tapas. Perhaps tuna, or some other local fish. After a leisurely and relaxing lunch, we pay the (quite small) bill and wander back through the market. We might pick up some vegetables. Or, perhaps we just look at the amazing displays.

Then it’s out the door and back on the street, across the bridge and back into the always crowded, usually amazing, and often very surprising city of Seville for the 20-minute walk back home.

View from the bridge of La Giralda and the cathedral on such a winter's day...

We Went to the Dentist

One thing we are concerned about as we travel along is our health. In general we are quite healthy but after 60-plus years things do start to wear out. And we want to stay on top of the wear and tear. Before we began this extended trip we kept up with regular doctor visits, and we certainly wanted to continue that.

The medical system in France – in fact, in Europe as a whole – is less formal and considerably easier to deal with than what we are used to in the US. We just found a doctor with office hours and walked over. After the usual wait in an overheated room (some things are the same everywhere) we met the doctor, a very nice young woman. She asked the usual questions and gave us each a quick physical exam, then the prescriptions. I think we paid her a total of $50USD. After that, with signed and stamped papers in hand, we made appointments with the required specialists, a physical therapist for me, and fot specialist for Paula.

And how did we find the required specialists? Well, that took some time. We did the usual: asked around, talked to locals we knew, and walked in off the street to offices we passed on our wanderings. We found some practitioners near our apartment and made appointments. It was a bit confronting to take up our “travel time” with matters such as physical therapy and foot examinations. On the other hand, it was also incredibly empowering to meet these challenges, find the resources we needed, and ensure we were taking care of ourselves. And we found the examinations and treatments we received were of high quality, and very much less expensive than what we’d pay back home! Physical therapy for my leg was about $30USD per session, while Paula's new orthotics were a bit over $100, examination included.

So now we are visiting a dentist in Seville, a lovely young woman from Peru who came to Spain to finish her PhD, and ended up married to a local. We got our teeth cleaned (at first, she had a hard time understanding why we were there: apparently, very few of her patients are so proactive!) and our teeth checked out; no problems. We’re good for another six months!

OK, so this photo has nothing whatever to do with our theme. But I like it!

Another nice off-topic photo