This past weekend, my program left Granada and headed to the small towns (pueblos) in the Sierra Nevada mountains. This region is called La Alpujarra.
But first we had to stop at a secedero de jamón; the best way I can think to translate this to English is a ham factory.
Fact: Spaniards love jamón. It is different than the ham we normally eat, although you can buy our version of ham here.
The secedero had a pretty overwhelming smell, and we spent quite a bit of time in the drying/currying room that you see below. One of the men who worked there very proudly explained the process of drying the meat, which we then saw in a video. What's really impressive is everything is still done by hand. Also it takes months before the ham is ready to be sold.
Some Spanish families buy an entire leg, like you see above, for the home. Luckily, my host mom doesn't do that; she buys pre-cut. But I have a friend who says she sits right next to the hoof at every meal, which does not sound very appealing.
The meat is sliced in very thin slices, which are then put on toast, in bocadillos (a specific type of sandwich), eaten plain, etc...
As always the best part of any food related thing is the samples. The jamón was delicious. The wine was a little strange, but I'll take it.
After lunch, we headed to our hotel, which was really nice and cute/quaint. Then we headed out for a guided fall hike.
While the whole weekend was great, I think the highlight for all of us was definitely our Thanksgiving dinner Saturday night. Every year our program stays at the same hotel, and apparently the first year, 6 years ago, our American program leader arrived at the hotel with her cookbook and taught the chef how to cook a Thanksgiving feast. He has been making it by himself every year since. The Thanksgiving meal (is it lunch or dinner? I usually eat it in between the two so linner?) is one of my favorite meals of the entire year, and this was really good. We had tradicional turkey, mashed potatoes, string beans, and yummy stuffing. In Spanish, the word for cranberry and blueberry is the same. Don't ask me why. So we had two salsas de arandanos, a cranberry sauce and a blueberry. The blueberry was actually good with the turkey, stuffing, etc.
There were three turkeys for about 25 people. I attempted to carve this one. It wasn't the prettiest carving ever, but still delicious.
The pumpkin pie was a little funny, but still good. Pumpkin pie is one of my favorite parts of the entire day. I could eat it anytime and for any meal. And I do; I eat leftovers for breakfast, lunch and dinner until it runs out. The program has a list of all the allergies so the chef knew I'm technically lactose intolerant. But as I'm sure you all know, I've been ignoring that inconvenience and been eating ice cream and other dairy products whenever I want.
The chef asked me before the dinner what I wanted for dessert because there was milk in the pie. But I said no way. "NO, me encanta la tarta de calabaza, voy a comerla! No pasa nada que hay leche, voy a comer la tarta." ( NO, I love pumpkin pie, I am going to eat it. It doesn't matter that there is milk, I am going to eat the pie) is pretty much what I said exactly
We devoured so much food that night, everyone was stuffed to the brim. My friend, Bruna, asked them to save the leftovers and the next day for lunch we sat in a children's playground and attacked the remaining food. It was pretty shameful, not going to lie. You would think we were never fed at all.
The chef asked me before the dinner what I wanted for dessert because there was milk in the pie. But I said no way. "NO, me encanta la tarta de calabaza, voy a comerla! No pasa nada que hay leche, voy a comer la tarta." ( NO, I love pumpkin pie, I am going to eat it. It doesn't matter that there is milk, I am going to eat the pie) is pretty much what I said exactly
We devoured so much food that night, everyone was stuffed to the brim. My friend, Bruna, asked them to save the leftovers and the next day for lunch we sat in a children's playground and attacked the remaining food. It was pretty shameful, not going to lie. You would think we were never fed at all.
On Sunday, we hiked and wandered through more pueblos. It was actually really cold. The weather suddenly changed this weekend, and now we are all freezing. The señoras kept saying, that all of a sudden, one day something changes and it's winter time, and they were right.
This was our last event all as a group until our going away dinner on December 18, which makes me sad. I have so much fun when we are all together. It's crazy to believe that we are so close to being done.
I hope that everyone has a Thanksgiving meal just as delicious as the one we savagely attacked!
This was our last event all as a group until our going away dinner on December 18, which makes me sad. I have so much fun when we are all together. It's crazy to believe that we are so close to being done.
I hope that everyone has a Thanksgiving meal just as delicious as the one we savagely attacked!