Friday, December 16, 2011

The Spanish Lunch Experience

Yesterday, after 3 months of living in Spain, I had my first fully Spanish meal. And when I say 'fully Spanish' I mean that it lasted for 4 hours. And not just 4 hours of sitting at the table after a good meal and enjoying the company, but 4 hours of appetizerx5-entreé-desert-entreé-desert-desert-coffee-after dinner liquor. So I am not embarrassed to say that after this I turned down the chance to go to a bar with my co-workers and instead went home and fell asleep at 9.

Now that I've tried it once I can honestly say I'd like to wait a year or two before ever attempting to eat that much food again.

After school ended on Thursday all the teachers changed out of their work clothes and into dressy clothes. Then a party-bus-looking-school-bus picked all 38 of us up and took us to a culinary school in San Roque. (Meal time for us meant exam time for all the students who were studying to be chefs, waiters, etc. It was really cool!)

Fully enjoying a beer at my first ever work-related function.
Appetizer #1 - jamón ibérico, chorizo, and an unknown meat product

Appetizer #2 - fish noodle pasta salad (actually it was imitation fish noodles since the real fish is costs 200e/kilo)
Appetizer #3 - huevos rotos con chistora ('broken' eggs over potatoes with sausage)
Rosa (French teacher), Patricia (bilingual coordinator), and Eli and I

There were 2 more appetizers, croquettes and some interesting fish/shrimp spread stuffed in a red pepper.
Entreé #1 - cod with choco, cuttlefish* (see below)
All the teachers at my school! It never looks like this many when I run into them in the teachers lounge.

Desert #1 - Passion fruit sorbet topped with some sort of melted sugar, to cleanse the palate for the next round. By this point I was already comfortably full.

Entreé #2 - some unidentified meat. Delicious though.
Desert #2 - turrón topped with 2 candied grapes, decorated with a chocolate design, and a couple rasberries and blueberries. All sitting in a bowl of cava, a type of champagne. While eating the candied grapes Eli and I shared a moment, and then burst out laughing at the realization that we were eating the most delicious meal we had had thus far, and were now topping it off with candied grapes. All we needed was a palm tree in the back ground and a toga.

Desert #3 isn't pictured, but basically it was a plate of traditional cookies. A plate meant for 5 or 6 people. And Eli and I ate almost all of it. Come on though, we had to try everything!
Topping of this incredible meal was beer, red wine (didn't touch that though), kalimoxo, water, and several glasses of white wine. The waiter kept having to come over and refill my glass. Oops.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good! But I felt sick by the time I was done eating, my stomach is not meant to hold that much deliciousness at once, especially not that many cookies and glasses of wine. It was a great time though, the director of our school kept shouting across the table to make sure we knew what everything on the menu was, and to make sure we liked everything and were having a good time. (I say shouting because the table was really wide and it's a little hard to talk over 35 other Spaniards.)
The lunch really made me appreciate the people I work with, and that Eli and I are both working at the same school. Shout out to Eli :) I'm finally starting to feel like I have a place and a responsibility at the school, like I actually belong. Which is such a good feeling.

*cuttlefish - This is a cuttlefish, if you were wondering. Awwwwwwwwww! Cute cuttlefish :)

2 comments:

  1. So jealous! I had to laugh at unidentified meat :P

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fun! I actually thought the cuttlefish was frosting with fake googly eyes on it...yeah. This is also to comment on the aforementioned 3D show...no words! Jaja.

    ReplyDelete