By Dr. Steve Best -
[email protected]
I just returned from a three week trip throughout Spain, which
prompted reflections on both Spanish cuisine and bullfighting culture.
This is the first of two articles.
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Like the Americans, the Spaniards love their meat and
dairy. Con mucho gusto, they consume ducks, sheep, cattle, chicken,
pork, and seafood. Spain is an integral part of the Mediterranean
cuisine touted for its taste, variety, nutritional completeness, and
health benefits. The Mediterranean diet centers around wheat, rice and
legumes, greens and vegetables, cheese and yogurt, fish, meat, and eggs,
garlic, olive oil, and fruit. It is laced with delicious wines from the
grapevines of fertile hills and valleys. Although Spanish cuisine in
particular is renowned for its quality and variety, these delights are
targeted for the palate of carnivores.
While European Union countries are ahead of the United
States in their treatment of farmed animals and regulation of genetic
engineering and agricultural chemicals, Spain and its neighbors are far
behind in the availability of vegan alternative products. Having
traveled throughout the European continent, I find that eating vegan is
the most difficult in Spain. With all its Indian and Thai restaurants,
London is one of the easiest places for a vegan to eat. In France, good
fruits and salads are abundant. In Italy, there is always excellent
pizza and pasta. Germany is rough, but major cities like Berlin have
world cuisine. In Spain, however, the vegan meets the true test of
principles.
Importantly, there are a growing number of vegetarian
restaurants in Spanish cities such as Barcelona, Madrid, and Toledo, but
they are still few and inconveniently located. Throughout Spain, one
finds the amalgam �bar-restaurant� that is not much of either, and the
�cafeteria� that is more like a bad diner that serves liquor. Many
places don�t even offer meals, but rather the popular menu of �tapas�� a
selection of snacks that are all meat or seafood with the exception of
bad patatas fritas (French fries) that a high school cafeteria would be
ashamed to serve, or patatas bravas, fried potatoes drizzled with hot
sauce. Not bad at first try, but a little goes a long way.
If you find ensalada verde, the green salad, you might
think you will luck out with some bulky spinach or dark greens mixed
with other fresh vegetables. Instead, you will likely get chopped
iceberg lettuce with a couple of tomato slices and maybe an olive or
two. One edible concoction you can sometimes get is �tostada,� French
bread with aceite (olive oil), and some places might even throw on some
tomate (tomato sauce) so that you can fantasize you are eating gourmet
pizza. You do sometimes find pizza and pasta, but they suck and you may
not be able to count the number of times the server�s eyes roll when you
ask for pizza sin queso.
Very few restaurants serve fruit; for that, you have to
find a produce market. One of the best bets is vegetarian paella, a
tasty baked vegetable and rice dish served in a round skillet. Also
relatively easy to get is gazpacho, a cold tomato-based soup. One
delicious cold drink easily available is horchata, made of boiled
almonds flavored with sugar, cinnamon, and lemon. Blessedly, olive oil
is a staple in recipes and I quaffed gallons of it with stale rolls. But
you can forget about chips and salsa, for that great tradition is hecho
en Mexico.
To have any luck at all ordering vegan, you need some
Spanish as very few people in the service industry or otherwise speak
much English. You must commit to memory, �Yo soy un/una vegetariano/a
extremo/a.� You unavoidably stigmatize yourself as an extremist, but
�vegan� just doesn�t translate. To elaborate, you must say, �No leche,
no queso, y no mantequilla� (butter). Despite repeating this mantra at
least four times at an Indian fast food joint in Madrid, I received a
falafel platter with a sauce obviously contaminated with mayonnaise. I
cried, �Senor, dijo que no leche!� to which the clueless waiter replied,
�pero es mayonnaise.�
I fled the restaurant in disgust only to encounter yet
another obstacle to gastronomic satisfaction sure to frustrate the vegan
gringo. It was 4 pm, and I had already put in a long day of walking with
nothing in me but a couple of apples. I felt like the emaciated figure
in Kafka�s short story �The Hunger Artist.� I was roaring to eat, but it
was siesta time! Restaurants close from around 3-8 pm, or even later.
Where Americans like to dine around 6-7 pm, Spaniards don�t eat dinner
until mid or late evening. For hours I walked the streets aimlessly in
search of at least some more crappy pizza, but to no avail. Around 8 pm,
I gave up and settled for a bland falafel sandwich with ketchup at a
Turkish fast food dive.
Unlike Americans, who intently close their eyes to the
graphic details and images of slaughtering animals for food, Spaniards
do not blanch at the thought or sight of eating a rotting corpse.
Typical of bar-restaurants is the spectacle of pig legs, from the top of
the thigh to the bottom of the foot, hanging behind the front counter.
One of the grisly legs is ensnared in a cutting block to slice pieces of
flesh for the sandwiches or tapas. The Spaniards apparently love ham, as
one regularly passes ham specialty shops called Museo de Jamon that,
true to the name of �ham museum,� look like a slaughterhouse inside and
feature every imaginable way to dismember, display, and consume a pig.
If pig is not to the Spaniard�s taste, there are always the seafood
shops that feature a glass window of lobsters, crabs, squid, and other
ocean delights waiting for the human command to boil them alive. Author
Carol Adams writes about the �absent referent� of animal bodies in food
consumption in order to mask the reality of death and suffering. While
this may be true for Americans, the animal referent is unflinchingly
present for Spaniards enjoying menu delicacies such as �blood pudding�
and �brains.�
Like other European peoples such as the Italians and
French, Spaniards smoke and drink copiously. But to my observations,
Spaniards suffer far more obesity than their continental counterparts.
The many obese children and adults I thought were American tourists in
fact were natives who have joined the unfortunate ranks of the Chinese,
Japanese, Indians, and other cultures in embracing the American-style
diet high in animal fat and centered around fast food. Needless to say,
McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy�s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and other
American fast food franchises litter the Spanish landscape, both in
large cities such as Barcelona and Madrid and in smaller towns like
Segovia.
Europe is hauntingly beautiful in its preservation of an
antiquity unknown to citizens of the US. Europe has maintained its
medieval towns and castles, and in cities like Granada one can behold
the stunning interplay of Renaissance and Moorish architecture. In Rome,
the visible traces of history date back not only five or eight
centuries, but 25, whereas in the US little can endure the juggernaut of
incessant development and the race for the next strip mall.
But Europe increasingly is ensnared between competing
cultures of antiquity and modernity where the beautiful architecture is
the backdrop of a traffic jam, where cell phones rudely ring in the
cathedrals, and where American empires such as McDonalds and the Gap
encroach ever deeper into ancient geography and cultures.
There are many signs of hope, however. As noted, there
seems to be a steady increase of vegetarian cuisine and restaurants in
Europe. More than in the US, there is sensitivity among the politicians
and general public about the need to regulate factory farming. There is
widespread opposition to globalization, genetic engineering, and the use
of chemicals in food, as the US insists on peddling its poisons and
Frankenfoods abroad. As evident on sites such as World Animal.Net, there
are many organizations in Spain and other European countries attacking
bullfighting and other hideous forms of animal abuse.
So if you haven�t been to Spain, go, it is gorgeous. But
if you are a vegan, vaya con Dios!
Go on to The Best of the Best
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