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| Oranges with onion and parsley |
This was
SUCH a needed respite from protein. Instead of learning a skill we dove mouth
first into a cuisine. A whole cuisine. A fully formed palate that came from
people in a place that was influenced by their history, economy, heritage and
culture. This food had soul unlike the dozen fish recipes because we learned
about the people who made the food and why. The why, I think, will be the
important thing for me. I love learning about the story of these foods. I love
knowing that paella came from poor people who were given rice as a portion of
their payment for working in rice fields. They would get whatever protein they
could find; snails, frogs, poultry or fish to create a simple quick dish that
they could eat and use the rest of their break to relax for the remainder of
their hard working day. That gave me a better foundation for making the dish
than any demonstration ever could. Long gone were my ideas of rice stuffed with
four types of meat and a handful of vegetables. Along these lines we learned a
great deal about sherry. We learned the yeasty process of making the complex
wine and so much more.
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| My favorite sherry out of our sherry tasting |
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| Orange scented olive oil cake |
In the
afternoon we made a series of dishes that culminated in the paella. We had
roasted red pepper with olives, a potato and salt cod mixture that was spooned
on bread and a salad with sliced oranges, onion and salt cod. The main event
was the crusty, crunchy rice dish that we made with delicious rabbit. After
that we enjoyed an orange scented olive oil cake.
I am proud of making a meal surrounding an idea, not just a
list of ingredients
I need to work on the olive oil cake. It is delicious but I
need to perfect the technique and the cooking time listed was wrong.
Take aways
·
Think of a dish in a context, not just a page
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