Among many tours that were offered in Seville, we opted for couple of them; the free walking tour, a boat tour and a food tour. Of course. Although we tend to do our own research when it comes to the local foods and ingredients, here and there we pay someone to guide us through the experience of eating. Especially if that experience bears a quite unusual name; like the Ugly delicious food tour.
The two and a half hours tour in English guided us across the Triana neighborhood through the centuries of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish culinary traditions and influences.
We enjoyed the company of several other curious participants while our guide shared a rich detailed history of not just the food, but the city itself.
Food culture is gigantic in Spain. The more south in Europe one goes the eating habits are not just pure surviving related but actually socially oriented. The food quality matters of course and quite often ingredients are local and homemade.
What differs Spaniards from other European cultures is spending time together with family and friends over a simple meal. For hours on end sometimes. For example, it occurred that we booked a table for lunch around 3 pm, close to closing the restaurant before again opening later in the evening. We came to a full restaurant with businessman and people straight from work that have obviously been there for hours, judging by the amout of plates and wine glasses on their table.
Finding out from our guide t’s not unusual to go out with friends after work and going to a tapas bar for couple of snacks and few drinks. Than after a while you go to another tapas bar for couple of snacks and few drinks. Than to another. Every time the group would order several different tapas dishes and share the bites and the bill. After couple of stops, you’re actually full. And so were we.
Two stops and numerous tapas dishes with drinks were enough to confirm this theory. The bellies were full, the plates were empty and our idea of Spanish way of living was even closer to our mind
We started in a local tapas bar, La Muralla, at Mercado de Triana with already familiar sherry wine and some already tried (espinacas con garbanzos and pinto) and some new and unfamiliar ones like caldereta del toro and sangue.
Chickpeas and spinach with toasted bread are very common tapas dish in Andalucia quite simple to make at home, of course if you have sherry vinegar. I mean you can use apple vinegar as well, but the one from Jerez gives a special flavor. The old boring spinach got a completely new aspect now with oriental mixed chickpeas and tons of spices.
Pinto is a vegetable stew enriched with a fried egg. Quite similar to huevos rotos but without meat. Again very tasty and simple.
The next to dishes were a bit more exotic than the usual tapas offer and it included a bull’s tail stew (caldereta del toro) and cooked blood (sangue).
Although one would, me of course, imagine that such dish would be a meter long tail of an animal, it’s no such thing. The meat from the bulls ending is cooked in a combination of different spices to give the better flavor to something that might not tastes as delicious as entrecote let’s say.
The bull tails were food for the poor, the ones that could not purchase better quality parts of the animal and that goes for the blood as well. The coagulated pigs blood cubes are served with glazed onions and sauces made from different spices to mask the possible jucky taste. But there was nothing that would mask the idea of eating blood as well.
Using blood in traditional often poor villagers’ cuisine is not unusual. Just think of blood sausages, but cooking and serving blood cubes would be next level for me.
But the rest of the dishes were kind of a hit although again quite exotic.
We visited a local Las Codornices tapas bar, one of the few in Seville that serves snails and quails on a daily basis.
The most popular snails for this occasion are called caracoles. They are small, with a shell no bigger than a thumbnail cooked in a broth with sweet Middle Eastern spices like cumin, bay leaves, black pepper, and garlic. Although spicy they taste quite sweet. And hard to pull out of the shell. If not slurped one had to pick them out with a toothpick.
The fried quails were next on the list while we were sipping the refreshing tinto de veranos. Tinto is my favorite Spanish drink beside sangria. It’s a mix of red wine with lemon, usually Sprite kind of drink something similar to Croatian mish mash (red wine and Fanta).
Although quite unusual the quails were kind of small chicken taste and hard to get full just by eating half of it. But luckily than came the pringa sandwich. Once again kind of poor mans dish, the pringa is made of boiled mix of leftover not so tasty meat parts like pork shoulder, beef roast, chicken thighs. Cured sausages such as chorizo and morcilla, the blood sausage, are added to create a bit of richness and everything is toasted in a bread bun creating a tasty, a small ready to serve / eat sandwich.
By the end of the tour we were completely full, ready for some sweet dessert on our own while we meditated through the Triana quarters thinking on how simple yet rich the Andalucian cuisine is. And contemplating on where to have dinner later that evening.
