el Mercat de la Boqueria

I was recently in Barcelona and made a stop at this world-famous market in Las Ramblas, la Boqueria. It is tempting, colorful, and odiferous. The merchants were all pretty friendly at 8 am (we went early to avoid the crowds). From what I could tell, shoppers include restauranteurs, residents, and tourists. I'll never forget the image of a butcher throwing an entire pig leg, toes and hairs akimbo, on the scale for someone to buy.

After a big of oggling and sniffing and poking around, I found the magic phrase that would make vendors happily chat up their products and eventually offer me a taste of the goods: "Tiene algo tipico de Barcelona?" (do you have something characteristic of Barcelona?)

The highlight for me was tasting this cured Spanish ham that I can't find the name of (due to my poor Spanish skills and lazy googling efforts)... it was shaved off a huge thigh, deep red in color, and super duper chewy. The butcher instructed me to eat it by pulling it apart into little shreds with my teeth. The taste was heavenly -- meaty, not too salty, a little oily.

The produce was enormous but coming from California (and spoiled by the selection of Berkeley Bowl and Alemany Farmers Market, and the perfect displays of Whole Foods), I wasn't all that impressed. The dried fruit was pretty good, all super sugary. They even had dried strawberries (fresas) which were strangely moist for dried fruit, but good!

Hares and chickens and pheasants, oh my!

Oink.

Enormous emu eggs

More meat stands than you can shake a stick at

Row of squirming sea creatures. The critters next to the lobsters (and approx. the same size!) were enormous prawns famous in Barcelona. The women working the seafood stand were so bad-ass. Cold as ice.

I want to live in this candy hill.

Some "especial" cheese that tasted like cheddar, dragon fruit that tasted like nothing, and some pretty good bread.

Huge ass pear

Spain...On the Road Again and Asleep the Whole Time

KQED and KCSM started airing the first episode of "Spain... On the Road Again" in the Bay Area last week. The idea of two respected foodie personalities, Mark Bittman of the NY Times and Mario-need-I-say-more-Batali traveling the hottest food paradise in Europe right now, is, in theory, irresistable. I imagined the two men making countless visits to colorful outdoor markets and tapas bars, learning how to create vivid and mouthwatering dishes from Spanish cooks in their kitchens, and plenty of informative, witty banter about food. Alas, the first episode failed to bring its audience deep into the world of Spanish food, bringing us, instead, deep into comatose.

Where the show really mucks up is the addition of Gwyneth Paltrow and lesser known, but also pretty, Spanish actress Claudia Bassols. Although Gwynie may be somewhat of a foodie, her prissy comments about only eating birds that grew up in the wild and that were slaughtered naturally, and how she's going to gain 10 kilos on the trip were totally irrelevant. I'm not sure why the producers thought it would be a good idea to split Mark and Mario up for most of the episode, forcing each to participate in vapid chit-chat with one of the actresses while driving around the Spanish countryside in Mercedes convertibles. Neither actress had any opinions of value to contribute and watching either of them try to eat is quite painful. The two minutes Mario and Mark did get to spend alone together at a seafood market was unjustly cut short; I found myself grasping for more M&M time. All of this, topped by the constant musical interlude of Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" (an absolutely inappropriate soundtrack for a Spanish vacation), in places where it seems they just couldn't find enough interesting dialogue to keep audio busy, made watching this show an utter chore.