Today we went on an "excursion" to a nearby town, Cerdanyola del Valles, to have a calcotada. This is a Catalonian traditional meal where one eats calcots, or mild onion bulbs, grilled with romesco sauce. Like this:
They were delicious. You peel off all of the charred bits and just eat the onion inside. The sauce was great too. After being served the calcots we were also given cannelloni beans with pork belly (as near as I could tell), papas fritas (fries), grilled bread slices with tomatoes and garlic to rub on them, and lots of very good grilled meats. As soon as it arrived I exclaimed, "Blood sausage! I've been wanting to try this!" All the American girls around me were entirely horrified. The sausage was excellent.
Then after this incident (while by the way I'm sitting next to the one vegan in the group who has only recently become the less restrictive vegetarian) I realized that the piece of rabbit I am eating is not the hindleg. Can you tell from this picture what it was? (Blood sausage to the left.)
Yes, it is the rabbit head. Note the teeth and tongue lolling out. Of course I was quite delighted as well as a little disturbed, and I immediately flipped it over to try the brains.
By now the other girls realized what was going on and had looks on their faces beyond horror. It was like I was eating a seared kitten. One girl started talking about her pet bunny. Now that I think about it though, I'm not sure it was a rabbit. I mean, do rabbits have beaks like that? Weird. Our dessert was a very standard, overly large portion of crema catalana.
It was an interesting and tasty experience, to be sure. The huge coach bus had to careen down super wet mountain paths to get to this place. It was a random restaurant at the top of a hill. Before we ate we went on an hour-long trek through the nearby mountain area. The weather was wonderful and the scenery was super pretty. Barcelona has this California-esque mix of pine forests and beachy palm trees.
There was also a random "zoo" with one pen with a herd of deer, an emu, a peacock, and a bunch of goats and donkeys. All just chilling together.
A note on slang. I have been exposed to the world of abbreviations. Obnox people make me naus (nosh) when they make socially unpleasant situations awks. I will never be the same.
1 comment:
Oh yes, totally a rabbit profile. If you ever happen to see an equine skull, you will think it looks a bit like a beak as well. To make eating pounds of grasses easier, there's a gap between incisors and molars, and by the way, all those teeth keep growing and growing to counter the constant grinding against each other.
The horror of the other girls reminds me of a cocktail party Jamie and I attended. We were standing in a circle of people, one of whom was a rather vapid woman. Talk turned to animals (my career must've come up) and someone mentioned rabbits. Jamie, who hadn't really been paying attention, chimed in with how he LOVED rabbits, so tasty... and the vapid woman nearly went white with horror as she told us how dearly she loved her pet bunny. Oh well. He can't charm everyone.
I'm so glad you are blogging -- I'm looking forward to keeping up with your adventures!
Chelsea
Post a Comment