A suckling pig is a piglet slaughtered between the ages of two and six weeks—before it is weaned. Suckling pig is traditionally roasted whole, and often reserved for special occasions. Next time suckling pig is on the menu, be sure to taste the skin, brains, and ears.
I spent most of my morning in the granite-floored kitchen, piling logs into the stove and cooking with the Botín employees, none of whom is younger than sixty. Hanging out in the kitchen has its perks. I scarfed down as much pig as I could handle, as well as plenty of baby anguilas, freshly plucked at night as they make their way up from the Sargasso Sea. The kitchen staff prepares the delicacy using a simple glazed clay pot about five inches wide, heated to 600°F. Once the pot is hot enough, they add olive oil, garlic, and a single dried hot chili. Next, they dump four or five tablespoons of these baby eels, which look a lot like vermicelli noodle pieces with eyes, into the pot and swirl the contents around with a wooden fork. By the time the dish comes to your table, the eels are cooked. It’s quite a treat.
After spending some quality time in the kitchen, I headed to a table to enjoy my whole suckling pig. More baby pigs, which are usually under a month old or weigh less than seven pounds, are consumed in Spain than in any other place in the world. The staff there were quite proud of me; they looked on as I pried open the skull and made quick work of the ears, snout, cheeks, and brains, saving the tongue for last. Everybody in Spain eats this way, so I wasn’t the only one in the dining room getting up to my elbows in pig head. Eat first, ask questions later.
Make the floor your garbage can! It’s common to throw used napkins and other waste on the floor. In fact, nine out of ten Spaniards agree that lots of trash means a good and popular bar.
Importing Iberian ham was illegal in the United States up until 2008. If you find a slab of this delicious porky goodness at your local butcher, you ought to try some. But buyer beware: at a hundred dollars a pound, jamón ibérico is one of the world’s priciest meats.
ONE OF THE FEW REMAINING TABERNAS
I was in town only a few days, so, in true Spanish fashion, I headed to La Bola for a second lunch. La Bola isn’t as old as Botín, but it’s been open since the late nineteenth century. As I walked through its door, admiring the gorgeous woodwork and old-world leaded windows, I imagined what Madrid must have looked like two hundred years ago. The city used to be filled with tabernas, or taverns, somewhere in the range of eight or nine hundred. Today, they’re a culturally endangered species. Only sixty or seventy tabernas remain, which is very sad. La Bola boasts an all-female kitchen, with a median age of seventy years. Everybody, and I mean everybody, heads there for one reason only: the legendary cocido madrileño.
Cocido madrileño is a very rich dish, and it makes for a one-pot progressive meal that every braised-food junkie needs to check out. The women start with a large decorative but highly functional clay pot, which resembles a pitcher, and fill it with lamb, pork, poultry, sausage, vegetables, and chickpeas, topping it off with a homemade broth that in and of itself makes a stunning restorative. They stack these pitchers upright, allowing them to essentially percolate on a wood-burning stove for hours. Once you order your cocido, a server takes the pitcher directly from the kitchen to your table and pours the broth into a plate filled with cooked fideos, thin Spanish egg noodles a little bit thicker than angel-hair pasta. It makes a lovely soup, and you eat that part of the dish first. When you’ve finished your soup, they dump the smoked meats and chickpeas into the plate, serving small pots of sea salt, pickled hot peppers, and a puree of smoked and fresh peppers as condiments. Add the baskets of crusty bread to the table and you have a meal of legendary proportions.
The crew and I ended up spending the better part of the night at a restaurant that moved me like no other I’ve visited before or since. It was a crumbling establishment named Taberna de Antonio Sánchez, after the son of the bullfighter who started the restaurant in 1830. The place has been owned by a succession of bullfighters, passed down from one to the other like a family heirloom. Today, it lies in the hands of a seventy-year-old former bullfighter named Paco. Located near the Plaza de las Cortes & Huertas, at 13 Mesón de Parades, this classic taberna is chock-full of bullfighting memorabilia, including the stuffed head of the animal that gored the young Sánchez.
Today bullfighting is big business in Spain, with the top matadors earning salaries comparable to those of the nation’s top soccer stars and rock idols. Though the sport is a national pastime, animal rights activists are fighting to end what they deem unnecessary cruelty to animals.
For the most part, the bullfighting season in Spain runs from April until September, with most major cities having one event a week (usually on a Sunday).
A VIEW OF HISTORY
Paco showed me around the tavern, pointing out the tables where famous writers like Ernest Hemingway had come to eat, drink, and write late into the evening. The décor in this place is all original—tables, chairs, and even the wineglasses. They still use the ancient dumbwaiters, as well as the old kegs where they store the famous Valdepeñas wine the taberna was renowned for, and still serves. Paco led me by the hand to the dark-paneled walls where three unique works by the famed Spanish artist Zuloaga still hang. Zuloaga had his last public exhibition in this restaurant.
Nothing has really changed over the years: the zinc countertops on the bars are still in use, photographs of old-time bullfighters like the legendary Frascuelo or Lagartijo still hang on the walls. The marble pedestal tables are the ones where the authors of the Generation of ’98—the group of creative writers, born in the 1870s, who are known best for their criticism of the Spanish literary and educational establishments and whose major works fall in the two decades after 1898—argued late into the night. There are still the crumbling old posters advertising “torrijas”—the equivalent of American French toast—for fifteen cents or warning customers that spitting on the floor is forbidden.
After the tour, we pulled up a stiff, rickety seat at a small table in the corner to enjoy a house specialty. Bulls are revered not just in the taberna’s décor and history, but on the menu as well. Callos, a casserole made with blood sausage and tripe, is a traditional comfort food of Spain. This version was unlike any I’ve experienced—so rich and sticky and filled with so much collagen that if you kept your mouth closed too long, your lips would actually stick together. Just like the history and décor, the dish was absolutely incredible. We ate chipirónes en su tinta, which are tiny squid cooked in their own ink, and other classic dishes that the restaurant has been serving almost without exception since the day it opened for business: stewed snails, San Isidro omelet, bacalao with onions, fried eggs on a bed of crisped potatoes, and the famous oxtail stew.
Now, if only the Taberna de Antonio Sánchez could attract customers. I visited it on a Thursday night. Not a soul was in the joint when we arrived, not a body came through the door the entire two hours we were there. It was downright depressing. The streets around the taberna used to bustle with activity; now, too narrow for most cars to navigate, they lay silent. This used to be the neighborhood where bullfighters came to see and be seen; now, they’re regarded as rock stars, touring the Costa Brava on ostentatious yachts with their supermodel girlfriends. Additionally, the food that Paco serves is not as popular as it once was. The restaurant seems doomed.
Whether or not you’re opposed to bullfights, they do play a part in traditional Spanish culture. If you go, here’s what to expect:
~First, the bull is let into the ring. The matador looks on as his assistant waves a yellow and magenta cape in front of the bull. This causes the bull to charge and allows the matador to observe the bull’s demeanor.
~Then a trumpet is sounded, and picadors, a pair of horsemen, jab the bull with a lance. This is intended to straighten the bull’s charge, weaken the animal, and lower his head for the next phase of the fight.
~At this point, the matador takes over. He begins his faena, the series of passes performed prior to
killing the bull. The matador carries a muleta—a piece of crimson cloth hung from a stick, which both encourages the bull to charge and obscures the matador’s sword. The bull repeatedly charges the matador in this dramatic dance with death: One wrong move and the matador becomes a human kebab. The faena continues until the matador proves his superiority over the bull. Once that is accomplished, the bull is to be killed.
~The matador stands ten feet from the bull, keeping it fixated on the muleta. The matador then attacks the bull, pushing his sword over the horns and deep between the shoulder blades. This is intended to sever the bull’s spinal cord, causing the animal to drop to its knees and die.
~The matador receives flowers from the crowd and is given trophies from the animal—often the ears, the tail, and a hoof.
But Paco soldiers on, showing up every day to make the best callos in Madrid, giving anyone who will listen a history lesson from a guy who lived and loved in a way that doesn’t exist in today’s disposable pop culture world.
Running all over the world, hunting bats in Samoa, fishing with a Sicilian family, cooking donkey in a restaurant in Beijing—trying to experience food and share culture can lead you into some lonely territory. I often find myself spending time with folks living on the verge of cultural extinction, which can get downright depressing. However, the great thing about traveling is that for every sad story I unveil and undoubtedly sit with for a while, I find another person, ingredient, or culinary tradition that is all about revival and redemption.
My recent trip to Nicaragua was all about this positive spirit, reminding me of the National Geographic documentaries I used to watch as a kid. I’d be mesmerized by the schools of salmon swimming upstream to spawn at the top of our Northwestern river systems. Without fail, there is always that last fish you’re not sure will make it, and the cameras always made a point of telling his story. If you’re anything like me, you’re always rooting for that fish. Nicaragua, despite a century of constant struggles and hardships, is finally reaching the top of that proverbial stream.
Nicaragua is Central America’s largest country and is bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south.
Nicaragua is an overlooked destination for travelers, to say the least. Roughly the size of New York State, the country boasts two huge freshwater lakes, Managua and Nicaragua, as well as ocean borders to the east and west. In fact, it’s believed the name Nicaragua means “surrounded by water” and stems from one of the many indigenous languages. The country is visually stunning and scenic, with tropical lowlands, sandy beaches, and narrow coastal plains interrupted by volcanoes. Hundreds of small islands and cays lie on the eastern shores, providing some of the best “let’s get lost” islands in Central America.
A LITTLE HISTORY …
In 1972, a massive earthquake destroyed the downtown in the nation’s capital, Managua. Much of what had been there needed to be rebuilt in a new location. The old downtown is nearly deserted. The businesses all moved, so the residential area around the old city center is nearly abandoned. The old presidential palace, Hall of the People, and the national museum are overrun by squatters. Nobody thinks it’s safe. So with the new city that was erected five miles away, it’s sort of an odd town, missing a vibrant cultural center. Additionally, the area has been plagued by hurricanes, most recently 1998’s Hurricane Mitch, which devastated the country.
The people of Nicaragua experienced a huge political transformation as well. Although Nicaragua declared independence from Spain in 1821, it wasn’t able to stand on its own two feet until recently. The country was mostly ruled by the Spanish elite until the Sandinista Revolution in 1979, which resulted in a short-lived civil war that brought a committed band of Marxist Sandinista guerrillas to power. Although the country’s free elections in 1990, 1996, and 2001 all defeated the Sandinistas, it wasn’t until Daniel Ortega’s reelection in 2006 that the country could seriously start rebuilding. Nicaragua seems well on its way to greatness. I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that there are no more natural disasters, no more revolutions for a while, and that Nicaragua will get a chance to bloom on its own.
Nicaragua has the lowest crime rate in Central America. It is also the second-poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, after Haiti.
What I love about this country is that despite the hardships, earthquakes, storms, and revolutions, Nicaraguans are some of the most resilient, kind, caring, and open people I’ve met. They are for the most part poor, and yet everyone shares everything with guests. On my first day there, I met up with Sergio Zepeda in his small town of Masaya. He’s a guitar maker now, but he used to be a famous musician in a boy band, sort of like the Nicaraguan Menudo.
Sergio asks if I’ve had a chance to eat the iguana eggs. I haven’t, so he leads me over to a table tended by a crone with three bowls in front of her, each filled with a light tomato porridge. Floating in the bowl are a dozen small golf-ball-size eggs. The embryo is encased in a soft, fibrous shell that you bite into before you suck out the contents. A horrific methodology, but pretty darn tasty. Very much like a chicken egg, but smaller and with a thinner, metallic flavor.
A DELICIOUS RIDE
I spent the next day on a bus from Managua to Estelí, a town high up in the mountains. You catch the bus at Mayoreo Market, roughly ten minutes from the airport. The buses are big American-style school buses, circa 1968, and I finally selected mine, a shimmering red-and-silver beast named Tranquilo No. 7. Every bus has a slick name. Before we hopped on our selected bus, we picked up some nut brittle from one of the hawkers, then set out on the Gringo Trail and headed north on the Pan-American Highway.
I quickly discovered that a lengthy Nicaraguan bus ride is like a mobile progressive meal. Every time we stopped, kids and older men rushed onto the bus carrying pieces of fruit, chopped watermelon, doughnuts, whatever it might be. By the time you reach your destination, you’re stuffed. We ate quesillo, a white cheese served in a plastic bag with vinegar chilies and tortilla, as well as cuajada, a curdled cheese made at a farm on a hill high above the highway. My favorite dish was vigorón. It was shredded cabbage topped with pork cracklings and dressed with lime and orange juice and bits of sliced tomatoes. It was fresh and crunchy, and it totally hit the spot after I had spent the day in a hot bus. After disembarking, I wandered around Estelí, checking out the amazing produce market there.
Later, I hooked up with a pal who lives in the area. We hung out in Estelí for a while, eventually making our way north into the foothills of the Cloud Forest. We stopped at a truck-stop place called Don Juan Papaya’s for a little bowl of soup, and a short while later at Antojitos, where I met some of my friend’s Peace Corps buddies. We ate some grilled armadillo and grilled boa constrictor in a restaurant that specializes in this local fare; the food was superb, and I was full.
A PERFECT CUP OF COFFEE
We spent that evening at a place called Selva Negra, an old coffee plantation turned eco-hotel. The howler monkeys kept me up most of the night, but it was worth it to wake up in absolutely stunning surroundings, with a dense tropical rain forest high above the hot plains. We finished the drive to Matagalpa that morning to hit the Sol Café. If you’re a coffee connoisseur, add a visit to Sol Café in Matagalpa to your bucket list. The coffee business in Nicaragua is fascinating. Here is a food item representative of the campesinos’ years of struggle against oppressors who’ve exploited their livelihood. However, like the rest of the country, this industry is bouncing back.
The Thanksgiving Coffee Company, which operates out of the Sol Café, is a conglomerate of hundreds of local farmers, some of whom have only a few acres of trees to pick beans from. As a co-op, they sell to coffee companies all over the world. Starbucks, Newman’s Own—you name it, they’re buying coffee from Thanksgiving Coffee. The coffee association hired tasters and blenders to help craft a signature coffee style from beans that hail from different farms. When you see how slick and innovative this system is, you become a believer. This is go
ing to work. They are a fair-trade coffee company and they receive a fair market price for their goods. A certain percentage from each sale goes to civic works projects such as local clinics or helping rebuild schools. We toured the facility at Sol Café, where local farmers bring their beans to be dried in the sun, graded again, and bagged for selling. Hundreds of laborers work in superb conditions, with benefits, and earn about 20 percent more in their pocket than at other agrarian enterprises in Matagalpa. It’s a really positive story, and just more proof that Nicaragua is a turnaround country.
TO THE BLUEFIELDS
One of the great experiences along those lines came the next day when we flew to Bluefields, located on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. Bluefields is a Creole community, where everyone speaks English with a pronounced Creole lilt. And since there are no roads to the area, Bluefields is cut off from the rest of the country. You can get there only by boat from another port or by taking the one plane a day that stops in the teeny town on its way to Corn Island, a tropical paradise popular with the beach freaks. We spent the night in a hotel above a casino and journeyed the next day to the home of Edna Cayasso, a local grandma who specializes in the traditional Atlantic coast cuisine developed by the first Africans in Bluefields.
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