I traveled to Catalonia some time ago, and of course I expected to meet some very traditional and unfamiliar cuisines and traditions. Ultimately, I ate so well that I gained 15 pounds. Needless to say, I had no trouble adapting to their foreign customs!
One thing I noticed is how markedly different their "Chinese restaurants" were. One of the English translations of a dish was "like ants crawling on a tree" and while it wasn't real ants, piqued my curiosity about what sort of dish would evoke that flavor?
The horchata was considered a national treasure, and I came to find out that it is nothing like the Latin American drink, being made instead from a plant called "tiger nuts". When I informed my fiancée that Mexicans flavored it with cinnamon, she said that sounded strange but delicious.
We went shopping in a Carrefour and I was sort of haunted by the pigs legs curing out in the open air. Of course we also saw room-temperature chicken eggs. Fiancée took me to an aisle full of olives and said I could choose any. There were nearly hundreds of varieties which bewildered me so much that I couldn't choose at all!
The most gross-out tradition of theirs was the "caganer" or "shitting boy" on Christmas, with a corresponding poop log, that is ultimately beaten with sticks for fun and candy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal
But more to the point, my fiancée helped me sample various sausages, and pointed out that one particularly large sausage was horsemeat. And coming from rather conventional USA Midwestern stock, I had never consumed horsemeat at all, almost as if it were taboo or simply unavailable as a food item. And yeah, it wasn't bad, and really I think any choices of meat, deep down, are simply cultural conventions and/or taboos.
Room temperature chicken eggs is the norm a lot of places. The main distinction is whether they are washed.
If they are washed, there is less risk of salmonella on the outside, but at the cost of a risk of micro fractures which means you need to refrigerate to reduce the risk of bacterial growth penetrating the egg.
> The most gross-out tradition of theirs was the "caganer" or "shitting boy" on Christmas,
Wow, you were not kidding. On the wiki page there is this song
Shit, tió,
Christmas log
do not shit herrings,
for they are too salty,
shit nougats
for they taste better.
Shit, tió,
almonds and nougats,
and if you don't want to shit
I will hit you with a stick!
Shit, tió!
One thing I noticed is how markedly different their "Chinese restaurants" were. One of the English translations of a dish was "like ants crawling on a tree" and while it wasn't real ants, piqued my curiosity about what sort of dish would evoke that flavor?
The horchata was considered a national treasure, and I came to find out that it is nothing like the Latin American drink, being made instead from a plant called "tiger nuts". When I informed my fiancée that Mexicans flavored it with cinnamon, she said that sounded strange but delicious.
We went shopping in a Carrefour and I was sort of haunted by the pigs legs curing out in the open air. Of course we also saw room-temperature chicken eggs. Fiancée took me to an aisle full of olives and said I could choose any. There were nearly hundreds of varieties which bewildered me so much that I couldn't choose at all!
The most gross-out tradition of theirs was the "caganer" or "shitting boy" on Christmas, with a corresponding poop log, that is ultimately beaten with sticks for fun and candy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%C3%B3_de_Nadal
But more to the point, my fiancée helped me sample various sausages, and pointed out that one particularly large sausage was horsemeat. And coming from rather conventional USA Midwestern stock, I had never consumed horsemeat at all, almost as if it were taboo or simply unavailable as a food item. And yeah, it wasn't bad, and really I think any choices of meat, deep down, are simply cultural conventions and/or taboos.