Tuesday, September 30, 2014

The Food Blog

    Things are starting to get busy around here! My classes have settled into place, I've actually got homework to do... I'm going to have to remember how to do school again! But I'm not going to talk about school right now. I'm going to talk about food.
      I love the food here. I haven't found it to be super different from the food in the US, but it's definitely more healthy. There is always a vegetable element to the meals here, whether it's a salad, carrots, cucumbers, potatoes or green beans, there is some type of vegetable. I like how that is incorporated into the meals here, it's such a healthy option and I hope that I keep up the habit when I come back to the US.
This is some of the ham I
talked about that tastes like jerky.
      Something else that I love about the food here is the meats, specifically the ham. There are a bunch of different types of ham here, that I don't really know the difference between, but from what I've tried, it's all really good. There's this one kind that tastes kind of like jerky, but it's not dried or anything like that, it's just how the ham is treated. Something else that goes along with the concept of meat is how it's shown in the stores and markets. They have the legs of the meats (cows, pigs, etc.) that hang behind the counter of the meat section/market stall. They just hang there. I think it's really cool because that's not something that you see in the US. It's so different to see the meat still attached to the leg instead of seeing it neatly packed into a Styrofoam container with shrink-wrap. It's the same way with the fish,  a lot of the time it's the entire fish sitting out for the customers to see. It's so cool to me.
This is a kinda crappy picture
of the street market I saw.
        Going off on another tangent from this one, there is a really cool street market not far from me that is on Thursday and Saturday mornings that has everything from food, to clothing, to cloth, and other random odds and ends. I walked around it last Thursday and I was amazed. They had so many different fruits and vegetables and they all smelled so good! And the prices seemed really good too! Maybe one of these days I'll buy some stuff from there to try since they have such a variety that I don't get to see as much in Michigan because of the difference in climate.
This is a chorizo bocadillo from a cafe.
        To end, I'm going to talk about the sandwiches they have here. In Spain they call them bocadillos, and from what I've tried they usually come on a sort of hard, crusty bread with whatever you order. They come with all kinds of meats, like ham, chicken, and chorizo which is a Spanish sausage, but they also come with stuff like salmon, calamari, and potatoes. They are really good and I would eat them every day if I could! Sometimes they come with tomato pressed into the top of the bread, leaving the juice and flavor behind, and that is something that originates from Cataluña, which is the province north of Valencia, which is the province that has Alicante.
        Moral of the story: the food is really good here. I still miss a good, fatty burger and a milkshake, but I know I'll be able to survive here just fine :)