Gratitude. Things I'm Grateful For #15

Gratitude lately; my paean to modern living.


1. El Rocio, Granada

Saturday the 11th of May 2013 we drove an hour and a half east to Granada (capital). Living in Andalusia reminds me often of Los Angeles, where within a short distance one can reach the mountains from the shore. After meeting with the hellacious views of the protruding white-tipped Sierra Nevada mountains, we serendipitously landed in the city's center during the festival of El Rocio. A pilgrimage (walking, on horseback, or carrozas covered wagons) memorializing the virgin, Catholicism, tradition and Spaniards' general giddy and lighthearted demeanor.  

Hump Day: Jamón Carrasco, Iberian Hams from Guijuelo, Spain

This edition of Hump Day is brought to you by the letter 'J' (pronounced ho-tah):

wandering black foot

squandering the year's acorns

as you grew and grew, gluttony ensued

I ponder if you felt the weight on your ham hocks

when you're salted, hung and dry, we shall eat you

albeit 3 years we must abide 

not too soft, not too dry

carnal, animal, feral

Guijuelo, Salamantino, goes well with a barrel of Spanish wine 

Lots of umami await us! Jamón Carrasco; Guijuelo, Salamanca, Spain. 

Marou Faiseurs de Chocolat: Saigon, Vietnam

Do you remember the days when all you needed to satisfy a chocolate craving was a few Hershey's Kisses, a Twix candy bar or maybe if you were treating yourself to the good stuff, a Dove chocolate piece? What about when chocolate was simply broken down into three categories; dark, milk and white? Well we've evolved quite a bit as a species since then and thankfully our days of "chocolate" consumption can now be satiated by real chocolate, those finely crafted bars with a true punch of healthy antioxidants (cacao is rich in flavonoids), offering a quick blood flow boost for the heart and brain.

So you might ask what is real chocolate anyways and who is making it? Would you be shocked to hear that chocolate can be sourced from Vietnam? Yes, that beautiful rice paddy and pho soup paradise. During the 19th century cacao was introduced to Indochina, then sadly left and forgotten during the years of the war, only to be rediscovered within the last decade. The Marou farms are family owned along and throughout the Mekong Delta and Central Highlands. All of their dark chocolate is crafted using the highest quality local Vietnamese ingredients, created in the Marou workshop in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh),Vietnam.

Hump Day: La Movida 2010, Ávila, Spain

Commonly known throughout Spain and rather fresh on your parents' minds, La Movida was a radical social movement in late 1970s and early 1980s (above all in Madrid) towards liberation and rejection of social norms - those that had been previously developed and human rights that had been suppressed during Franco's regime. It was a movement, that paved the way for the future, towards a renewed identity, freedom of speech, and Spain growing with momentum towards new ideologies and thinking processes.

There is also an area of Castile & Leon known as La Movida, where similarly revolutionary things are taking place. Viñas y Vinos Maldivinas is a wine project of the 21st century, established in 2006 by Carlos Arenas and Guillermo Fernandez. A heritage land plot in Cebreros, Ávila, a total size of some 4 hectares, is now the breeding ground for these wine enthusiasts and entrepreneurs to rewrite some of the modern and industrial norms of wine production. Low yield vines, between 60-80 years of age, grown on slate and mineral soil, give yield to hand-collected, mule-plowed, small batched, handmade wine. It's a case of "return to the land," reinvention in an already traditional wine-growing region, which over the years had been neglected and abandoned by other generations.

Now they are working harvest after harvest to see that this organic unfiltered wine is the answer to consumers' and residents' most relevant questions; that the wine, through the use of biodynamic tending and care, speaks volumes of where it originated. That the biodiversity surrounding the vineyard - such as lavender, fennel, rosemary (the holy trinity of the countryside) -  is protected and respected, giving characteristics to their growing region, the often unknown mystery and romanticism of Castilla & Leon.

At the time of our tasting, we were surrounded by family and plates full of deeply rooted Spanish cuisine. The wine's effect on the nose was pleasant, not overwhelming; dark and tart red fruits, anise and fennel like qualities. The rest I won't go into details, because I believe this is a case of things to come. It's a bodega to watch and their progression will be interesting to note in the coming years, as the land gives way to its particular personality and style, the producers gain confidence and tact, and new wine standards are broken and/or replaced, just like any important movida would do.

Ground Breaking News: Joel Salatin of Polyface Farm Visits Spain

It takes a village. Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms, Virginia, visited Ronda, Andalusia this past weekend, giving his first conference and appearance in Europe at Finca La Donaira. 

His words sent chills down my back. It's easy for me to sit on my soapbox and grumble over the lack of interest in organic lifestyle. I never created this site to harp on the bad, but to highlight the good that people are doing, those going against the grain in a true position of minority; Crica in Valladolid, Rio Grande of Malaga, or my latest meeting with Huerta La Vega in Asturias. But finally the moment came, the "world's greatest farmer" in my neck of the woods, chastising the current agriculture situation in Spain, and he seems to have struck a cord. The word is out, Spain will have its moment to decide the future for the health of its citizens, for the conservation of its land and biodiversity, and for the preservation of farming generations to come. But this change, this alter of perceptions must come from the citizens, from the consumers. Will we be ready to stand up and fight for good? Will we battle pesticides, herbicides, cancer causing agents, and harmful water runoff into the peninsula's vast oceans? I sure hope so.

I hope you'll take the time to get to know where your food comes from, the people that dedicate 12-14 hours a day to livestock, land and sea. I hope we'll begin to see that organic isn't expensive -- (last week at Aloe in Malaga I purchased avocados at 3.15€ a kilo and oranges at 1.25€!!!) -- it's the intermediary spokes of the wheel that suck the highest % from the consumer and leave the farmers with cents per kilo. Many of us/Spaniards come from pueblos, we/they still visit our/their birthplaces or vacation homes on the weekends. I would guarantee that if you looked closer, investigated a little further during your next visit, you'd be amazed at how gracious and ardent the toda la vida farmers and agriculturists of our society are; pull into the olive oil estate, ask the shepherd if he'll sell you some milk, offer your afternoon to harvest almonds. Through this thought process, the future looks very bright, the community is that much stronger, and the power over your decisions is yours, not the puppets controlling la bolsa (stock market) or your bolsillo (wallet). It takes a village.



Read below his summary of feelings while in Spain (or read the original text here):


"I arrived in Spain on Friday (April 19, 2013) to do a two-day seminar for RegenAg, an international
organization devoted to pollinating the world with the best agricultural ideas available.

I flew into Malaga in the south of Spain, then drove an hour and a half inland to Ronda,
a city of about 35,000 that straddles a famous canyon, is the gateway to Andalucia, and
home of the oldest bull fighting arena in the world. In the canyon right under my hotel--
my room is perched literally on the cliff of the canyon wall--is a holding cell where the
Conquistadors kept Montezuma (yes, THE Montezuma from Mexico) for a few years.

This area was invaded and held by the Romans--on the edge of town is a military installation
built by the Romans to house two legions of soldiers. Later, the Moors (Muslim Arabs) took
over the area. Essentially, this area skipped the industrial revolution, then had a republic
that Franco overthrew, and today is a Socialist Democracy paying the price for government
expansion.

Unemployment is 27 percent. In the age bracket of 18-25 year olds, the unemployment is
50 percent. Every day several people commit suicide by throwing themselves off house and
apartment balconies. It's a country in deep despair. The conservatives (Democrats) have
taken power and are trying to shrink government, but it's a tough battle with so many people
on welfare, unemployment, and government payrolls and pensions. Here, the Republicans
are the liberals. In a country of 43 million
people, the easy money after joining the European Common Market created a building boom
with government money that crashed the economy. Today, hundreds of thousands of empty
homes, brand new, sit in massive urban developments around the country. By some estimates
1.5 million homes and apartments are unoccupied. To put that in perspective, an equivalent
number in the U.S. would be about 13 million. Massive projects, half built, have been
abandoned. In some cases, the cranes still sit in the half-finsihed skeletal hulks, waiting for
better days.

This despair has created a tremendous interest in the Polyface message of land healing hope
and agricultural opportunity. The seminar hosts hoped for 50 registrants, and had 107. The
thirst and hunger for a better way and new opportunities is palpable. The people are warm
and friendly, and treated me to a Flamenco party last night. Preserving the cultural traditions
of the Arabs and Spanish into the Gypsies, Flamenco music and dance is a cultural icon of
this region.

The U.S. influence is remarkable. Some 300 yards from my hotel in Ronda, arguably a central
point of heritage culture, is a McDonald's. This morning in the vestibule of my hotel an American
family readied their belongings to check out and a 6-year-old boy dutifully carried his McDonald's
helium balloon--why would an American family come here to Ronda, Spain, and eat at McDonald's?

To say that this Mediterranean countryside is unique and beautiful is an understatement--olives,
vineyards, and lots of rain this spring to make it really green. BUT, it's a desertifiying, soil-losing
landscape, desperately in need of organic matter, perennials, hydration, ecological massage.
Grain fields are everywhere on hills so steep it's hard to imagine how a tractor can even stay
upright on them. Deep gullies, raw scars, course down these fields.

Amazingly, ponds are illegal because the powers that be don't want anything to interfere with
the flow of water heading downhill. Dear people, ponds will keep the water from rushing downhill
and create a hydration system to keep springs and streams flowing during dry times. I've been
working on La Doneira farm on the outskirts of El Gastor, a working village of 1,500 people. This
seminar, drawing all these people from around Spain, Portugal and even Sweden, created quite
a stir in this town and created a literal one-day turn-around among the mayor and local bureaucrats
to get out of the way of La Doneira's plans to develop a grass-based farm as an agritourism mecca.
Not on everything by any means, but on many.

The rules are amazing. It's illegal to have hay in chicken nest boxes. Imagine, chickens cannot
make a nest when they lay eggs. The farm's eggmobiles cannot have ANY wood in them--they
must be constructed completely of metal. Chickens may not come into contact with wood--these
are sanitation requirements. The list doesn't end, and a host of environmental police routinely
cruise farms to see if an infraction has occurred. My hottest selling book here?--EVERYTHING I
WANT TO DO IS ILLEGAL.

Desperate to maintain things as they are, the preservationists have convinced politicians to pass
laws that forbids salvaging and rebuilding tumbled-down homes. The picturesque countryside
is littered with these old skeletons that cannot be salvaged, lest it undermine the rustic naturalness
of the landscape. My hosts, as they explain all these things, simply laugh gaily and say: "This is
a crazy country." Only the Spanish could laugh about such idiocy. It breaks your heart to see these
fun loving, smart, romantic, creative people so suffocated by bureaucracy, EU regulations, and UN
agendas that it rips the soul out of their indigenous food and farming. These farms that used to
make goat cheese and cure acorn-finished ham can no longer do so. Meanwhile, I've met many
farmers desperate to relocalize their food system and create a place for the next generation on
their farms.

Indeed, it's far more like the U.S. than you can imagine. And that's the report from Spain.
Bendiciones (Blessings)."

Gratitude. Things I'm Grateful For #14

Warmer weather, a healthier appetite for salads and fresh fruit, a brighter outlook for the week ahead. Our moods are certainly shifted by the rotation of the earth, the ability to walk outside without a coat, the gatherings that opt for the terrace as opposed to the interior, birds singing their love songs, not to mention the amazing "spring greens" that are asparagus, artichokes and peas.

Here's what I'm grateful for this week.

1. Origins

Contrary to the habits I picked up from my previous 50-hour-work-week-life in the United States, in Spain there is still a lot of manual preparation that takes place in many kitchens, and more or less on a daily basis - with 2 hour lunch breaks and grandmothers living nearby, many can afford to take the time to eat a slow, enjoyable, "tablecloth" meal. Granted this is diminishing, as more products for "time-saving" and "life-facilitation" hit the market, but you'll still find yourself many a time soaking the lentils the night before, washing the dirt from spinach, or personally cleaning the guts of your recently purchased fish. I personally find great joy and relaxation in these acts, and I'm grateful that nature and agriculture offers me the ability to reflect and learn where my food really comes from: peanuts grow from the ground (!), fava beans have to be shelled, and almonds removed from their fuzzy green coverings. It's a beautiful reminder.

It took me a half hour to separate the fava beans from their pods, but I am NOT complaining!

Photo Essay: Asturias By Mouth

Now that we've visited Asturias By Land and Asturias By Sea, today we'll see -- if only we could taste -- Asturias By Mouth; all of the glorious deliciousness that you'd find sandwiched between el mar y la montaña. 

They basically had to roll me out of Asturias after my nine days there. It's hearty, soulful food. Simple ingredients, but grand results - that's more or less the motto of the Asturian kitchen - using what the land offers you and creating pragmatic yet tasteful dishes from those ingredients.  

Breakfast

Like many Spanish breakfasts, what we saw in Asturias was quite similar. A café con leche (more on how to order a coffee in Spain) and un bollo (pastry) were enjoyed by university students and elderly women sharing a chat.