Mother's love is curious. When you're just a monkey, they plant dishes like the Swiss chard stew or tomato with egg and you push aside the stumbles. What I wanted was one Burger.
However, as we grow older our perception of food becomes more paradoxical: on a gray Sunday morning you would eat some cod cakes from your grandmother or that pot that tasted like lightning. Calling to order a kebap is easier for us, less close. Memory and its tender traps.
There are flavors capable of connecting us with all the places on a map called childhood : that crockery from La Cartuja, the rugs and overflowing pots. The ability to do magic with a pumpkin and a few beans. The kitchens of the ancestors as an extension of the territory through the following dishes from our mothers and grandmothers that we miss so much.
Canary potatoes.
POTATO BROTH WITH CILANTRO (GRAN CANARIA)
Talking to María Fé de León, Responsible for Saboreando Canarias, is like entering a kitchen fused with a thousand influences. "The Watercress soup It is one of the flagship recipes of Gran Canaria, with its pineapple (cob), pork and pumpkin; the Virgin soup , a beef broth with chickpeas, bread and spices from the municipality of Ingenio; either carajacas , clean and chopped beef liver with crushed cumin and garlic”, she tells us.
However, María Fé's favorite dish is potato broth with cilantro , especially consumed in post-war times in which some families only had bananas and potatoes to survive. Today this plate accepts fried tomato, onion, egg, parsley or cilantro , a very abundant herb in the Canary Islands, although there are different recipes adapted by each family.
Pebrereta, La Vila Joiosa (Alicante).
PEBRERETA (LA VILA JOIOSA, ALICANTE)
The Alicante town of La Vila Joiosa (La Vila for the locals) is the gourmet oasis where you can enjoy seafood specialties such as the stew of fish or the mythical cauldron . But it is when entering its colorful streets that the aroma of another behind-the-scenes recipe emanates: pebrereta. This dish consumed especially in the hottest months It is made from green pepper, tomato, pumpkin (or pumpkin vilera, more typical) and sangacho (part located on the spine of the tuna), although many substitute it for pork rib . A bite that confirms the great predilection of Levante for the blessings of the orchard.
MILLO POTATOES (GALICIA)
The "corn porridge" They could be included in that category of survival cuisine that includes mythical dishes such as porridge. But if we delve into the past, the cornfields and the art of grinding the cob to extract flour reveal to us why millet potatoes are so typical of magical Galicia. These potatoes used to be the typical breakfast of Galician rural areas until the 80s and its preparation consists of cook water with corn flour and add salt or sugar to taste . Thanks to this dish many of the Galician ancestors went to bed with a full belly in difficult times, today being a perfect link with the memory of rural Galicia.
Potatoes Riojana's style.
RANCH OR POTATO STEW WITH LAMB (LA RIOJA)
Many areas of Spain, especially inland, survived for centuries through transumance and its many virtues , and La Rioja is a good exponent of this activity. We found the example in the ranch, a stew based on finely chopped lamb shoulder, green peppers, tomato sauce, spicy chorizo or potatoes very shiny as a single dish. A delicacy that is usually prepared over a wood fire in a typical ranchera, pure mother's love to consume at family gatherings and pilgrimages accompanied by a good red wine, of course.
PICA ORANGES (MIRROR, CÓRDOBA)
Inma Porras she is a young woman enterprising which in recent months has reactivated tourism in her hometown of Cordoba, Mirror, thanks to her events and tourist visits agency. When we ask Inma about that dish that is only known in the kitchens of her town, she is clear: the little bugs, some fried donuts typical of Holy Week; either the bean casserole , with egg and artichoke. the dungeon It is a typical almond salmorejo that does transcend as a tapa, but if there is a dish that is as intimate as it is nostalgic, that is the minced orange, a minced orange combined with tuna, onion and hard-boiled egg that is still prepared at home.
Mazamorra with dried sea bass (Menu V Centenario).
CUINAT (IBIZA)
The peasant culture of Ibiza has macerated for centuries a gastronomy based on fishing and Mediterranean orchards. The result hatches in dishes such as cuinat, a typical stew that is consumed on specific dates such as Good Friday . Cuinat is made up of a star ingredient such as collejas, an herb that grows in Ibiza and to which broad beans, chard, ñoras, grass peas are usually added (a type of typical legume) and condiments to taste such as paprika. The recipe, as happens with many other traditional dishes, has as many versions as there are gatherings around the family table.
Duels and losses in El Toboso, Toledo.
BROTH WITH PEPITORIA (MURCIA)
When I think of the recipes that my grandmother orchestrated with a titanic impetus, the aromas of the Sierra del Segura and its different cardinal points flourish. On the Murcian side, the star was broth a la pepitoria, made with breast and giblets from non-laying hens or old roosters, garlic, cumin and chopped fried bread . On the other hand, leaning towards Albacete, a dish mentioned in the pages of Don Quixote resurfaces: duels and losses, a scrambled egg, chorizo, ham and pork bacon which is still served in a clay pot in many restaurants in La Mancha. The best link with the humble recipe book of old farmers' houses under immense skies.