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Those Crazy Spaniards

Call me lucky, but I seem to receive the most delightfully strange cookbooks from my family and friends. This evening at a board meeting, one of my fellow directors strolled in with a copy of the Gastronomy of Castile and Leon, a slim yet rich-in-freakiness collection of recipes from the largest autonomous community in Spain. She even marked a few pages for me, including one with this interesting tidbit about the order of courses ...

Typical amongst the people from La Maragateria region is to eat backwards: beginning with the meat and finishing with the soup. The following is the advised order:

First course - shin of pork, calf's blood sausage, smoked pork sausage, bacon, hen, cured beef, pig's ears, trotters, and lips.

Second course - chick peas, potatoes, and cabbage.

Third course - noodle soup.

Dessert - Maragato-style custard.

How many of you would have made it to the second course - past the trotters and lips? Oh, and if you've been on the hunt for a recipe for black pudding, I've got it. A little lard, some honey, a dash of cayenne pepper, onions, and pig's blood. Yummy. I think I'll whip up a batch this weekend.

Posted on Wednesday, February 6, 2008 by Registered Commenterdeb in | Comments26 Comments

Reader Comments (26)

this is EXACTLY why i'm in charge of feeding us!!
February 7, 2008 | Unregistered Commentermarian
I think I'd just like the second course.
February 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterMartha
Well you know I'm always up for that pig's blood...
February 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterAndrew
noodle soup and custard..... talk about feeling feverish!
February 7, 2008 | Unregistered Commentermarian
once upon a time i tried to drag your arse to a restaurant somewhere in the world where they were serving trotters, but marian vetoed the idea before i could even finish reading the rest of the menu. really, i am still a wee bit disappointed. life is about the experience... the journey... and stepping out of our box now and again. shame on us for not being a little more adventurous.
February 7, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterteresa
trotters? first of all, what the hell are trotters anyway? some sort of a leg bone or something? furthermore, teresa, i believe it was "haunches of spring deer".....!!!
February 7, 2008 | Unregistered Commentermarian
trotters,,,eeww...tell me that ain't horse meat.
February 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterBeverly
In a recipe for Baked Pigs Trotters: "scald the trotters in boiling water to remove any hairs then split down the middle on the underside"...this is from "Trotter Recipes From Down Under" on the web. I'm thinking pigs feet.

I vote for eating dessert first and skipping that other stuff.
February 7, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterViv
Okay, um, ew. Although actually...I loved the black pudding I had in Scotland and Ireland. And yes, I knew what I was eating.

That does NOT mean I want to actually make the stuff myself. There's that whole thing about not knowing what goes into the sausage, and all that.

I don't even like custard much, so remind me not to go the La Maragateria region...
February 9, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterMonday
margarita? did somebody say margarita? i'm in!!
February 9, 2008 | Unregistered Commentermarian
silly mommy, you must have had too many margaritas, because she said Maragateria.
February 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterAndrew
i second the motion for a margarita...
February 10, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterteresa
We all know that a Maragateria is a bar in which patrons wait on themselves, carrying their margaritas to tables from counters where the margaritas are displayed and served.

I like to order 3 margaritas for my red plastic tray so I don't have to keep getting up and down for more.
February 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterViv
only three viv?
February 10, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterteresa
If there's a dacquirateria, I'm in!
February 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterMonday
And, see: I would eat all of it. But not opt for margaritas. Silly, I know.
February 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterLuisa
You know the saying, Teresa:
1 tequila
2 tequila
3 tequila
floor
February 10, 2008 | Unregistered CommenterViv
or...
1 tequila
2 tequila
3 tequila
...more
February 11, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterteresa
Sauceheads, the lot of you.
February 11, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterliza
all in good fun, liza. a lush, i am not. ask your mother the number of times she has seen me inebriated to the point of drunkedness.
February 11, 2008 | Unregistered Commenterteresa
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