Sunday, November 25, 2012

Spanish Thanksgiving


Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating with friends and family! My Thanksgiving was a little bit nontraditional, but it was an enjoyable evening nonetheless.

Explaining Thanksgiving to Spaniards was a little interesting. I could explain the historical origins just fine, but trying to explain what it means in general as a holiday was a bit harder, and I basically just summed it up as a day of gathering and giving thanks for the most important things in your life. Food was also REALLY hard to explain. I mean just think about stuffing. Also the word calabaza is used for any type of gourde, and I think some Spanish people thought that Americans make squash pie on Thanksgiving...


I still had class on Thanksgiving day, which felt a little strange, but mostly it just felt like any other week. It actually was weirder to see people's facebook statuses about Thanksgiving and going home and celebrating; I definitely felt very detached. Though not detached enough to not go out for dinner with my fellow Americans! My friends Rachel, Matt, Katie, Michele, Brett and I met up and went to the most American place we could find: TGI Fridays. Yup, they exist even here in Spain! The traditional Thanksgiving meal was a wee bit pricy so I got a good ol' bacon cheeseburger with a side of cheesy mashed potatoes. Quite classy.

'Murica on a Plate

I don't really like pumpkin pie much to begin with, so I split a chocolate brownie with Michele for dessert. Fantastic choice. 
yummmm

Overall, I would have to say the food was a bit lacking (nothing can compare to home), but the company entirely made up for that. We had a grand old time, chatting, laughing, and living it up.

Study Abroad Family!

Since it is Thanksgiving, I figure it's the perfect time to blog about some of the food I've been eating here in Spain. My host mom, Macarena is an absolutely fabulous cook, and my goal is to learn some of her cooking secrets before I leave!

In Spain, the biggest meal of the day is not dinner, but lunch, which is usually served around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Lunch at Macarena's house usually consists of salad, a HUGE plate of whatever the main course is, and a side of fruit or vegetables.

Here are some of my favorite dishes:

Lentejas (Lentils)


This might be my all time favorite dish that Macarena makes. It's a lentil soup with carrots, sausage, and sometimes eggplant. It's such a hearty meal, and I am always stuffed afterwards.

Pisto:
The best way I can describe pisto is like a Spanish version of ratatouille. It contains tomato, peppers, eggplant, zucchini. I usually end up taking second helpings of this dish. 

Sopa Mexicana:
My host mother lived for 10 years in Mexico and learned a lot of fantastic recupes while she was there. She oftentimes just calls this blackbean soup Mexican Soup. It is AMAZING. It's served with a variety of toppings (onions, rice, parsley and meat)

Verduras con Aceite:

This is a side dish that is so simple but so delightful. All it is is tomatoes and cauliflower seasoned with olive oil and pepper. 

Empanadas:


Macarena makes homemade empanadas, which is just a fancy name for stuffed bread. Some empanadas are made with tuna, some with chicken, some with cheese; it depends on the day. All are delicious.


Spanish dinner is usually served around 9 or 9:30 and is smaller than lunch. If there is dessert, it's usually fruit. I've grown fairly accustomed to having either orange or melon for dessert. And let me tell you, Spanish oranges put Florida oranges to shame. 

Here is a typical Spanish dinner: 


The omelette looking thing is called tortilla de patata, or tortilla española. It is kind of like a potato quiche. All it consists of is egg, milk and potato. Tortilla española fills you up really well and we have it a lot for dinner. The side dish is white beans with tomatoes and peppers all doused in olive oil (olive oil is used SO much here; it's great!) Also on the side is jamon serrano, or spanish ham. Spanish ham tastes strikingly different from deli ham in America and is much more salty. 

And that's all I have about food today. Seeing as Christmas is coming up soon, and there are a bunch of traditional Christmas noms, I'm sure I'll be blogging about food again sometime soon!




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