The full brochure.

The first pincho we tried was at La Marina Company. It was by far the most elaborate and special in a “you’re not going to ever make this at home” sort of way.

La Marina Company: Panacota de frambuesa con anchoas – That’s a cooked cream of raspberries with anchovies.

The presentation was gorgeous, but the combination of flavors was a little too bizarre for our philistine tastes. It came with a little dropper of Modena olive oil. There were too many flavors for my wife’s expertise in anchovy quality to gain any purchase.

A close-up of La Marina Company’s pincho. In general we were pretty displeased not only with the pincho, but also by the service. It took about ten minutes for the pincho to make its way down from the upstairs kitchen. By that time, we’d almost finished our wines.

La Casona: Suprema de buey – This “Ox Supreme” was described in the brochure as “Hamburger of ox meat with onion, egg and cheese”. After La Marina Company, our eyes were immensely disappointed when the tiny little burger rolls were plopped down before us. But wow, had hour eyes deceived us! The first bite had us both moaning with pleasure. The grainy bread, the tender meat, the sweet caramelized onions and the cheese made an excellent combination. Supreme, indeed!

It’s really not much to look at, but I could happily eat a dozen of these little treats.

Cafetería Colón: Hamburguesa de potro a la barbacoa – “What’s potro?”, I asked my wife. “Baby horse”, she replied. Whoa! Well, this is the place that had kangaroo meat in 2009. The ingredients listed were: sweet roll, colt meat, tomato, onion, garlic, pepper, parsley and barbecue sauce.

Like most foods with barbecue sauce, the sauce completely overwhelmed any other flavors, making this a very boring pincho to eat. The potato chips on the side did little to make it any more special. I’d certainly never have guessed that it was foal meat. It was a big let down after the previous hamburger in La Casona.

La Abadía: Destinos Pejinos – Apparently pejino is a local word meaning “a humble resident of coastal Cantabria”, so the title translates to “humble Cantabrian destinations”. Indeed, the primary ingredient was respigos, a local winter delicacy. The ingredients were listed as: pastry toast with cumin and respigos.

Visually, it looks like something your sick cat might leave on the carpet, but it was quite tasty in a humble, healthy sort of way. I didn’t care much for the “pastry toast” on the bottom; it reminded me of a bland granola bar.

The second night, we went to El Concept, but they were out of pinchos, and had enough business so that they didn’t really give a damn. Boo!

El Somera: Guiso de jabalí al chocolate – The name means “wild boar stew with chocolate”, and sure enough, that’s what it was. Unfortunately, for cost saving motives, there were a lot of potatoes, and very few chunks of boar meat. I must say, however, that I was impressed.

The little bowls were lovely. It definitely took second place away from La Albadía’s respigos.

A bore eating boar.

El Guti: Hamburguesita de ternera con salsa de queso y su guarnición – The title means “Little beef hamburger with cheese sauce and garnish”. The meat was fantastic, and the potatoes were fresh out of the frying pan.

The little burger looks insignificant, but the taste was powerful. I think it just barely edged out El Somera for second place.

Conclusion

Of the six pinchos we tried, I would rank them as follows:

1. La Casona – Definitely the best tasting pincho of all, despite presentation.
2. El Guti – Excellent flavor, though simple presentation.
3. El Somera – Wonderfully warm stew, with a slightly sweet chocolate tone.
4. La Albadía – Very hearty and healthy, but nothing spectacular.
5. Cafetería Colón – Too much sauce, but a decent snack.
6. La Marina Company – A lot of work put into preparation, but a very eccentric taste.

So concludes this year’s Pincho Week. I hope to do much better than a 33.3% sample size next year. ¡Hasta entonces! Until then!

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We started the morning with Erik’s Homemade Thanksgiving Apple Harvest™ scones.

Castro Urdiales is the eastern most town of any interest in Cantabria, close to the border with the Basque Country. The town dates back to Roman times, mainly as a port and fishing village. The French destroyed the town in 1813, but many of the residents were able to escape to sea with English ships.

My parents and daughter in Castro Urdiales.

The town is nothing if not photogenic. The fact that I accidentally left my good camera at home was very painful.

See that taller white building on the left? That’s where we had lunch.

The medieval Santa Maria church is a gorgeous bit of gothic architecture.

In the shade of an olive tree.

I loved these stairs that go nowhere.

Yes, I was in short sleeves. It was chilly, but more comfortable than with my sweater on.

Enough walking, let’s have some tapas!!

Goat cheese on ham and a tomato, sprinkled with balsamic vinegar.

Bacon and quail eggs.

This place, La Marinera, was quite nice.

My mother switched to coffee for a few of the wine rounds. Nora was happy to finish the last bit for her.

My parents love going bar to bar almost as much as their granddaughter does. Those are glasses of vegetable broth they gave us with our wines.

God, I love Spain!

Oh, yeah!

After lunch we continued our long walk back to the car, having fun along the way, of course.

And resting some.

The beach was very finely raked, but also had these bizarre footprints walking in parallel lines away from the water. WTF?

Nora, Poppy and Grandma.

Cool tiles!

We had a good time in Castro Urdiales. This is a very rare well-framed photo by a stranger.

In the evening, after yet more walking around Colindres, I did make my famous turkey pizza to celebrate the American holiday of being thankful for what we have.

My Thanksgiving was far from typical, but I ate too much and had a wonderful time with my family, so I guess I did pretty well.

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How Spaniards Fry Eggs

There are quite a few expat blog posts and YouTube videos about the unique way eggs are fried in Spain. A frying pan is filled with a considerable amount of oil. The egg is cracked into the oil, and then a spatula or spoon is used to splash hot oil over the top of the egg until a white film forms over the egg yolk. Then the egg is removed and served on the plate, maintaining an oozing liquid yolk – great for bread mopping! – when the yolk sack is broken. The egg is never turned.

Like most odd quirks you find living in a foreign land, it’s not necessarily better or worse…just different.

Other Spain Egg Trivia

In Spanish, the term huevo, for egg, is also used as slang for testicles. Clearly the term was not coined by anyone with any knowledge of reproductive biology. Here are a few interesting phrases using the slang:

One time I was at the supermarket checkout and the cashier asked me how much of the stuff on the conveyor belt was mine, and I replied, not thinking about the double meaning, “Hasta los huevos“. We both laughed.

I hope you enjoy the video.

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At twelve noon, a firecracker sounded, just like in Pamplona, to notify everyone that the gate to the bullpen was open, then another to signify that all the bulls were out. Unlike in Pamplona, the Ampuero bull run is a circuit rather than a straight run, so they run out of the bullring, run through town, and then back into the bullring. I wasn’t prepared for the rush of people, including one quintagenarian, trying to scoot under the foot-high gate clearance. This is a problem in San Fermin as well, where people will “safely” enter the bull run area just to get into the bullring without paying the entrance fee. Just before the bulls returned, a noticeable tension rose in the crowd, I ducked low on my now aching knees, my camera in rapid fire mode, and held down the shutter. Click-click-click-click! And then it was over…faster than a bicycle race.

Marga and Nora stayed back, able to see over the gate to the bulls running on the slightly elevated street behind it.

Yikes!

It turns out that these aren’t even “real bulls”. Well, they are called novillos, not toros, because they are less than three years old. Bull calves. Either way, I was happy to be on my side of the steal barrier.

They used to use full grown bulls, but then five years ago, the year before we first went, one of them escaped the barriers and killed three people. It’s one thing if a runner gets hurt, but spectators have a higher expectation of safety. Truly tragic.

After the firecracker sounds letting everyone know that all the bulls are safely back in their pen, the people flood the streets. There was one goring; a 44-year-old veteran runner got a horn to the bum (photo here). It was on the outgoing run, and he got pulled under a barrier before the bulls came back. He was treated at the scene and then taken to the ICU. In the four bull runs during the festival this year, six people got ambulance rides.

Nora had a great time seeing all the people and dancing to the music.

She particularly loved these dancing giants, which she improperly calls cabezudos (this is a real cabezudo). They are really well done, made of very lightweight materials, and controlled by an operator between their legs. If you stop thinking “This is really a puppet!” for a second or two, you really do start to perceive them as enormous dancing giants, making eye contact with them, etc. Nora enjoys them at a distance of between five and twenty meters. If they’re too far, she begs to “Go see the cabezudos!” and if they get too close, she cries and buries her head in a parent’s chest.

At one point, I went into a bar to order some drinks, and this group of gentlemen came in and one of them asked the bartender for a Bordón, an excellent crianza red wine from Rioja. The bartender said he didn’t have any, so the customer begrudgingly settled for an Añares. The barkeep pulled out a glass, and the customer said, “No, we want the whole bottle.” I smiled. They did have six or seven men in their group, and a bottle of wine falls fast with six glasses. We went outside to the street to drink our drinks. A few minutes later, the singing began.

What a glorious way to spend your time, entertaining yourself and others in bars drinking wine. From what I can tell, these are traditional Cantabrian songs. The lyrics to the last bit are:

No sueño ricos tesoros,
ni sueño barcos guerreros,
sueño con las velas blancas,
sueño con ser marinero.
Tener en noche de calma,
la luna por compañera,
una guitarra en los brazos
y en mi boca una habanera.

I dream not of rich treasures,
nor of war ships,
I dream of white sails,
I dream of being a sailor.
To have a calm night,
the moon as my companion,
a guitar in my arms
and, in my mouth, a habanera.

This lovely lady was cooking a paella to serve in small rations to partygoers.

I opted to try eating goose barnacles for the second time. They were very good, but impossible to eat standing up while holding a beer, and the shells were too bulky to feel comfortable dumping on the street like sunflower seed husks, so I found a bar to eat them at.

They were so fresh, they still had seaweed and tiny baby mussels on them.

Nora demonstrates the proper way to wear your red scarf. We bought three. They are pricy, but good for many years.

We had a great time.

¡Viva Ampuero!

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Oh yeah! This looks like the kind of place I’d like to spend my Sunday! We put on a little sunscreen, grabbed a bottle of water and hopped in the car for a ninety-minute drive west to The Oldest Town In Cantabria.

On the way there, we passed all these gorgeous quaint little villages, some clearly having festivals, with people sitting out on the terraces of bars and restaurants soaking in the August sun. It was really hard not to stop and just enjoy one of those towns, but we persevered through the windy mountain roads up to Bárcena Mayor. Just when my GPS navigation unit told me we were 200 meters away from our destination, we saw a sign into the Bárcena Mayor parking lot. No village was in sight. We parked among the 60 other cars and walked up a little path. What was the first sight we saw?

Hey! That looks familiar!

By this time it was 2:00 PM, i.e. approaching Spanish lunch time, and we thought was should find an eating establishment. Google only listed one place, and there were a couple dozen tourists around to compete with, so I suggested urgency.

Ooh! I see a restaurante! Plus, they’re advertising “typical cuisine”!

We ate at La Franca.

For the first course, I had beans with wild boar. It was delicious! Spaniards eat quite a bit of wild boar. I’ve never seen it on offer anywhere in the United States.

Continuing the “not everyday meat” trend, I had a fillet of venison for my second course. Doe, a deer, a tasty, tasty deer.

Bellies full of meat and red wine, we wandered around town in a contented stupor. All the buildings were very old. I pointed out the wires running along the wooden beams of the restaurant, commenting, “Hey, check it out. This building was built before they had electricity!” My wife shrugged and reminded me that her parents grew up in a house without electricity or running water. Oh yeah. I often forget how far Spain has come in just fifty years.

The cobblestone streets and combination of wood and stone house construction made it feel like we’d been transported back in time several centuries…until we turned the corner and saw a Prius.

That every house was decorated with blooming flowers definitely added to the general pleasantness of the town.

Another restaurant we might have preferred for the view if we hadn’t just chosen the first one we saw.

We crossed a bridge and discovered a hiking trail. If we’d had better shoes on, we might’ve walked a few kilometers of it, but we hadn’t come prepared for that. Sounds like a good excuse to go back!

Looking down from the bridge. I’ve been wanting to do one of these long exposure water flow shots for some time. I was surprised that just a half second is long enough to get the nice blurring effect.

Looking up the staircase inside the church bell tower.

It became clear that the town’s only industry was tourism. Why anyone would want to buy a wooden pitchfork is beyond me. We did end up buying some Cabrales cheese. The guy at the orujo (liqueur) stand was so generous with his little tasting cups and we ended up buying some yogurt liqueur. It’s really quite tasty. We even ran into some Americans at that shop and helped translate a few things for them.

There were just the right number of tourists around: enough to give you the feeling that the town was alive, but not so many where you couldn’t avoid hearing their conversations. I can’t imagine what the town must be like in the middle of winter. Perhaps we’ll have to book a room at one of their quaint little posadas and see.

To answer the question I raised at the beginning, according to the information plaque, Bárcena Mayor dates back to the ninth century (CE), and was the site of various monasteries over the centuries. Of course claiming that your little 1200-year-old mountain valley town is the oldest in a region that was part of the Roman Empire is pure nonsense, but you’ve got to admit, it makes for some really excellent tourism marketing! If you’re in Cantabria looking for a well-preserved historic village to visit, I highly recommend Bárcena Mayor.

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This is what a typical tapas bar looks like. It’s not a good food for mysophobes.

Hake pudding.

The old standby: Spanish ham in a small baguette. This is the most common food you’ll find on bars all across Spain.

Stuffed peppers (probably stuffed with fish), breaded and fried. Those are bacon-wrapped sausages in the background.

I’m a sucker for goat cheese, especially when it’s sandwiched between some Spanish ham and peppers.

Mushroom omelet on bread.

Mmmmm… Hot peppers.

I wish I had a wall in my house like that.

Potato rounds, fresh foie gras, and sauteed mushrooms. Most places don’t have labels, but the ones that do are very nice, especially since you don’t have to go around examining each one.

We really liked this place dubbed The Shish Kebab Cathedral.

Here, all the tapas were raw, and you had to wait for them to be grilled. It made them all the better. I had this one: shrimp, banana, ham, sun-dried tomato with a parsley vinaigrette. Okay, so I ordered it because of the banana…which was quite a tasty combination.

More shish kebabs. Calm down, my anglophile readers. It does say “rape bacon”, but rape is Spanish for monkfish.

Goat cheese, smoked salmon and peppers. Who else is getting hungry?

Squid kebabs.

Left: eggplant stuffed with crab meat, right: eggplant, ham, peppers, and cheese.

Quail eggs are so cute, and just the right size for tapas!

Our grilled brochettes. Mmmm!!

Who’s up for a tapa-hunting trip to San Sebastián?

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Two of my most favorite foods in Spain: morcilla (blood sausage) and goat’s cheese, topped with a bit of balsamic vinegar. This tapa could easily have been the best thing ever, but the slices of both ingredients were very thin, and it was served cold.

More goat cheese, raspberries and walnuts.

A bit of chicken on a stick.

Some sort of meat (chicken or pork?) topped with a mustard sauce. I didn’t eat this one.

Bread topped with tomato, ham, white asparagus, chives and an anchovy. White asparagus is about the only Spanish food that I don’t like.

More tapas on display. On top, those are sandwiches of breaded calamari.

Octopus with boiled potato and paprika. Very Galician.

Squid on bread.

Oyster mushrooms with garlic.

My mushroom tapa and wine.

“We have sangria!” What a great sign.

Spanish Iberian ham, with paté and quince jelly.

Cecina (smoked beef) on fried onions.

My companion, waiting for me to bring her a tapa.

Goat cheese, walnuts, and balsamic vinegar. I ate the red one in the back, which had raspberry sauce, I think.

A simple one. Cheese, pepper, cherry tomato, anchovy and a black olive.

Smoked salmon on a bed of mayonnaise.

When we were full, we decided to take a touristy cruise around the Santander bay, around the Palacio de la Magdalena, Santander’s principal tourist attraction. We enjoyed it a lot, and it was nice to sit out in the sun and cool breeze.

Some of us enjoyed the sun more than others.

Upon disembarking (or is it deboating?), I had the opportunity to take this stereotypical shot of Santander. It’s so stereotypical, in fact, that it was used as the image for the festival this year.

We had a great time, and I’m already looking forward to next years tapa-fest!

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Compare these to last year’s similar introduction to strawberries.

“Okay, can we stop now?”

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No related photos.

Nevertheless, I’m quite satisfied with the outcome. One unforeseen, but obvious in retrospect, consequence was that the lamp immediately dried out the strawberries, causing them to shrink, and also provided the mold with a less than fungi-friendly environment. Oh well. Perhaps next time I’ll try using a flash like I did with the larger fungi.

For full berry-rotting excitement, it can be viewed at 1080p on YouTube or Vimeo.

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The taste is really wonderful if you like strong cheeses. On her initial tasting, Nora spit it back out, but over the week it took us to consume it, she learned to like it. On the last day, she ran into my office with a piece of it and pronounced, “It has a strong flavor!” Very true.

Yes, I did cut the mold off before eating.

It almost looks like a rocky landscape.

Yum!

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