El Pan Español

This is a paper I wrote for my class, as part of a longer ´radio presentation´we were to give to the class.

Here in Salamanca, January makes for a frosty and urgent clean air of the morning. After a brief snack many jet out into the biting cold air off to work while others meet up warmly with their friends in a ´tasca´ or tapas bar for a cup of café con leche with maybe a potato tortilla or other pincho. Pinchos or tapas are somewhat of a way of life here in Salamanca. It is very normal as the day warms up into the afternoon to meet up with friends or simply to go out to meet new ones at a tapas bar for a beer and several tapas, perhaps out in a lawn chair overseeing the mystically beautiful Plaza Mayor in its loud mid-day hustle and bustle which ironically means that it´s siesta time. There are young Spaniards with strange combinations of mullets, boots, leggings and shorts as well as old men with Irish caps and old ladies with their girlfriends in big furry coats, all having in common that they must eat. All are familiar with the flavourful, tender and at least ubiquitous famous Jamón Ibérico. There are in fact lots of shops specializing in Salamancan hams, easily recognizable by the large dried legs of Iberian ham in the windows and the overwhelming musty smell of preserved meat as you enter the door. Wide varieties of sausages are available as well, from the ordinary dried and cured salchichas to the strong and lasting lomo ibérico to the spicy chorizo tinted red from the paprika mixed in to it. Most of the good ham stores have a wooden interior and somewhat of a solemn serious feeling to them,, as if these meats held the last historical ties to the old Spain that is fondly remembered. One may welcome the small as indicative of quality meats of a newcomer may be overwhelmed by the strong tons of fatty dry pork. It is a thing not necessarily sweet to all palates.
One thing that anyone will definitely love is a pastry from one of the hundred of pastry shops dotting the city that serve heavenly delights to the bending communal will of the collective Salamancan sweet tooth. Very distinctive from almost any non-culinary store, the workers at Pastry shops are always friendly and generally of pleasant humour. This may be because they understand their position of upholding the childish fantasy of everyone who passes by. No matter what age you might be, you are irrevocably a kid in a candy store in a Salamancan pasteleria. Smelling of hitherto unknown delights, always clean and with every pastry looking more irresistible than the last, the pastelerias show the limitless sweet nature of Salamanca people.
In stark contrast, the diet is curiously limited and standardized, as a matter of the terrain and customs, everyone buys their bread from a bakery and buys meat from one of the many butchers, as well as their fish from one of the less-common fish mongers. If one goes into a grocery story, it is curiously absent of all the breakfast foods, flours, seasonings and variety one might be used to in an American market. Everything is very locally specialized and aimed towards a certain traditional food that a household might make, such as the vast amounts of rice, yellow colouring and seafood aimed towards the national dish of Paella.
Perhaps because of my background in baking or maybe in spite of it, it seems incredibly interesting to me how ubiquitous the delicious crusty Spanish bread is, and how difficult it is to find flour to bake with. Hardly anyone does baking at home, leaving it to the professionals, and yet it is always present at every meal. In the US we have all kinds of home baking, but how often do we actually have quality crusty bread to eat with dinner? Only maybe if we are eating out at a restaurant. Rest assured where there is a Spaniard eating, there also is bread.
It is also a curious thing to look particularly at the spices available. An American might only recognize four or five of them, and note that there are few beyond that even available. Chives for your baked potato? Sorry. Old Bay seasoning for your shellfish? No can do. But to taste the homemade food of Salamanca makes on easily forget the lack of familiar things. A Spanish mother can somehow coax maximum flavour from the minimalist list of ingredients such as an impossibly delicious veal and potato stew that will fall apart in your mouth or perhaps a chicken and shellfish paella, soft and browned on the bottom to mouthful after mouthful of perfection. Between the pinchos and home cooking, you may just send that mothers day spice rack back and reach for that loaf of Spanish bread.