Martes del Campo

Russell and I are surfing the Internet at the local video arcade to kill time before round 4 of the food fest. I thought I would use the time to describe the festival yesterday.

I timed this visit to Spain to coincide with Martes del Campo. I´m not completely sure what this holiday is about, but my impression is that it is similar to Labor Day but only for the Municipality of Oviedo. There are other festivities leading up to the last day, but on Tuesday (Martes) everyone gets off work (providing they work in Oviedo - sorry, Host Dad) and heads to the park/countryside to have a picnic.

The traditional food to take with you on this picnic is the Bollo. The Bollo consists of a Chorizo sausage wrapped in bread and baked. They are delicious but quite rich. Now-a-days, it is common to bring along a variety of foods, but the bollo is always included. You see lines of people outside the bakeries on Tuesday morning waiting to buy their bollos.

Since it had rained all week, my host mom and sister were worried about eating in the grass. They thought it over and decided to take us to a park in a neighboring city where there were lots of tables (and farther from the center of Oviedo). We left early (1:00) but to no avail. All of the tables were taken. We did manage to get one of the last benches in the park, though, and we set up our picnic there.

Now came the food.

My host mom explained that we should try a bit of everything she had brought and then circle back through and pick at what was left. Here´s the basic cycle:

Bollo:
We started with the bollo (of course). We had two, so for the first round we just cut one into four small pieces. It was delicious.

Sidra:
Next my host mom poured us some Sidra. This is somewhat like a hard apple cider, but lighter and must be poured from above to get air bubbles in the liquid. You then slug it back quickly before it goes flat. So we had our gulp of sidra and then moved on to the tortilla.

Tortilla:
Spanish tortilla is nothing like South American tortilla. It is essentially a potato cake with onions and held together with egg. Its absolutely delicious, but cooked in olive oil, so its really a meal by itself. We got nice fat slabs of Tortilla made into a sandwich with baguette bread. Delicious and filling.

More Sidra

Chicken Fillet Sandwich:
My host mom had fried up some chicken breast fillets and veal fillets. We got to pick whichever we wanted and that was also served in a big chunk of bread.

Last of the Sidra; switch to water.

Manchego cheese:
Its possible to get Manchego cheese in the US, but its nowhere as good as it is here. Its a hard-ish cheese with a creamy light flavor. Its made of sheep and cow´s milk and its just divine. Espeicially with quince paste (membrillo). We nibbled a slice of this.

Repeat!!!

Yeah right, Host Mom. We struggled through tiny portions of tortilla sandwich and declared we could eat no more. About every hour after that we were invited to have more, but couldn´t eat anything for the rest of the day. Literally. Not even dinner. Not even at midnight. We settled on Camomile tea and antacids.