You can’t hardly go to a country like Spain and not visit the very place that sells all the food you’ve been eating, right?
Ham Ham Ham... |
Rows after rows
after rows of ham,
cheese, nuts, fruits, meats, cheese, ham, ham, ham…there must have been 3
football fields of food stands in this market. And they were so elaborate and displayed so beautifully! You can tell this is a business that
the people take a certain amount of pride in. There are shops where you can purchase ham by the slice or
by the pound, stations where you can get your fresh meat, chicken and rabbit,
stations that sell fresh fruit smoothies and you pick out your fruit for them
to puree, and even a few booths that are set up as bars so you can sit and
eat/drink in the marketplace.
And so, just to
make sure we weren’t rude while visiting, we decided to eat at the organic food
shop. The choices of entrees were:
tacos with spicy meat (to which Todd pointed out the Spanish version of a taco
is not necessarily the same definition of a Mexican taco), “crepes” (I think
more closer to a tortilla) with queso fresco, empanadas, falafel, “orgasmic”
paella and “orgasmic” lasagne.
Ooh, this is interesting!
We each decided
on our lunch: for Todd and me, it was the crepes, for Matt, the not-so-Mexican
taco, and for Steph the falafel.
We expected to get our individual piece of what we ordered and be on our
way, but we were shocked to discover that in addition to our seemingly
substantial piece of food, they topped each item with the evidently “as great
as sex” paella, beans, salad of a sort, some sort of something with fruit mixed
in, fried cheese, and a whole other bunch of stuff that while not identifiable,
were actually quite tasty when all mixed together in the hodgepodge that they
served us.
But seriously,
a family of four could have eaten one dish and been full for the whole day!
Anyway, after
eating what we could and drinking it with a glass of Cava (the Spanish
equivalent to French Champagne), we continued on to look through the
market. And we came upon a ham
shop that sells “ham chips”. Ham
chips? Interesting! Despite my overfilled tummy, I could
not turn down a chance to eat some more delicious Iberican ham. So I went with my little 1 euro and
purchase a cup of ham chips (ham sliced so thin it comes out in small pieces,
thereby calling them “chips”). And
they were delicious!
And
so, with our oogling at the fresh food laid out before us at an end, we
ventured on to discover more of what Barcelona has to offer outside the realm
of food. But I will say that the
Barcelona market is definitely one to be envied; and I hope we can someday find
another one as tasty as this.
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