There's a Spain special on the Guardian website at the moment (also in print in the Travel section for anyone who's not done their recycling yet), featuring some interesting pieces about the lesser-discovered corners of this huge and diverse country. Santiago de Compostella. A city that has been attracting holy pilgrims in their droves since the ninth century, when the bones of the apostle Saint James were 'allegedly' discovered here. I say allegedly because the discovery was preceded by Saint James, despite being killed in the Holy Lands, - thousands of miles away from Galicia - re-appeared here, 800 years later(!), firstly in the stars to guide a shepherd home who'd got lost in the hills, and then a second time on the battle field - riding a white charger, no less - and single handedly saw off a whole army of ravaging Moors. Oh, and he sailed half way around the world in a rudderless stone boat as well. With 'facts' like that, it's difficult to know what to believe.
So, following the discovery, a Cathedral was promptly built on the site of his tomb, which has been pulling in the punters ever since. The idea is, you make your way here along El Camino de Santiago, ideally on foot (those Catholics love a bit of masochism, after all) and atone your sins. In return you get to skip the grilling in Purgatory, when that time should come, and head straight up to Heaven. Well, the trend stuck, and those pilgrims kept on coming. Suffice to say that the city is still awash with weary but euphoric-looking travellers, dressed in anoraks and sensible footwear.
Meanwhile, I made my way here by bus, and whilst I'm all for a back-from-the-dead fisherman turned mountain rescue man turned warrior general, the reason I've come, unsurprisingly, is to eat.
We meet at Cafe Paris. It's a fairly run of the mill bar, but it's a suitable starting point, as it marks the beginning of the Paris-Dakar crawl. Paris sits at the top of Rua Franco, and at the bottom is Dakar. In between are probably 30-odd cafes, bars, and other drinking establishments, in each of which you're supposed to have a cup of wine. As well as pilgrims, there are a lot of students in Santiago, and funnily enough, this is a favourite pastime of theirs.
But whilst booze is on the agenda today, it's only playing a supporting role. We're here for the food. John spent a few years living here after he graduated, and now lives up the coast in A Coruña. He's keen to show me around not just the places that have been going strong since well before he was living here, but also some of the new comers that he's heard about on the Galician gastro grapevine. In fact, he seems almost as excited as I am! We set off down Rue Franco, and our eating tour of Santiago is underway.
The first stop is a San Sebastian-style pintxo bar, complete with a huge range of immaculately presented bar-top snacks, most of which include jamon in various guises. John goes for albondigas - meat balls - a tapas classic if ever there was one, whilst I order stuffed calamari. They're packed full of a rich mushroom mixture, with enough garlic to raise a Saint... So far so good.
From here, we head up into the side streets, and end up in a quirky little place that has a sense of un-intended nostalgia about it... I.e. it looks as though it hasn't been decorated for about 45 years. The food is just as characterful as the place, and with our corto – a very small 'cut' of beer - we have some extremely tasty tigres rabiosos, or rabid tigers. A curious thing to be eating in a traditional bar in the historic centre of Santiago, you may think, but the tigers are in fact mussels, and they're rabid because they're cooked in a lip-tingly spicey sauce. Galicia is renowned for it's seafood, and these are well up to standard. The sauce is intensely punchy, but there's still enough sea-side flavour in the plump mussels to come through over the top.
First to arrive is the egg. But this is not just any egg. It's a pilgrim-worthy, faith-installing, epiphany-giving kind of egg. You know the sort? Well neither did I until I had a mouthful of this. It's cooked at 63.8 degrees, so it's completely soft, in fact only slightly more coagulated than if it had been raw. It sit swimming in a sauce of smoked potato puree accompanied by nuggets of paprika-loaded chorizo. It's finished with a sprinkling of crisp sour-dough bread crumbs for texture. These ingredients are the most basic of Galician staples, but with just a little inventiveness, they've been turned into something miraculous.
We work our way through the other dishes, washed down with a couple of glasses of the local albariño wine; pulpo shashimi, little parcels of manita - braised pigs trotter, and Berbechos 'Espresso' – cockles cooked for just ten seconds, using steam from the coffee machine. Each one gives a subtle twist to the staples of Galician cuisine, and each one is great. As we finish our last plate, we're still discussing the egg... So we decide to order another, just to make sure we've had huevos fix before hitting the road. And off we go.
On the way, we discuss some of the many larger than life experiences John encountered on his pork-fuelled quest through Galicia... Being showered with angry ants in Laza, being mistaken for a police man at a hippy colony near the Austurian border, having lunch with Fidel Castro's cousin, and then meeting one of the most important figures of General Franco's cabinet. Who ever would have thought that eating pig for a year would take a man such places.
Since eating pig is something that both of us enjoy, the next stop on our tour had to involve jamon. We march up the hill, to a little 'restaurant and rooms' type place where John promises we'll get the best jamon in Santiago. It's just outside the boundaries of the old town, but the place is as traditional as it gets, complete with wood panelling, cured pig legs hanging from the ceiling, and plumes of cigarette smoke thickening the air. We order a racione of Extremadura de Bellota and some Manchego. In terms of tapas combinations, it's the dream team. We both tuck in, revelling in the amount of fat that's clinging to the rich, almost translucent slivers of meat. This is acorn fed, grade A - the best there is. It doesn't come cheap, but neither does caviar, gold or uranium, and I know which one I'd prefer on my plate.
“I fancy some dessert” John says... My heart sinks a little, assuming that must signal the end of our culinary tour of Santiago. Having said that, we have been eating for the last four hours, and John does have a wife and kid to go home to. Chestnut tart serves it's purpose, but the real star of our postres is some very mature goats cheese. It's the kind of cheese that's so strong it makes your eyes water. My taste buds are still ringing as we put our coats on and head down the road for post-lunch beverage.
We step into a smart-looking bar that's just off the main thorough fares of the old town. John tells me he often takes people here in summertime, as they have a fabulous courtyard, where you feel like you've escaped from the world. Well, it isn't summertime. It's the end of February. And it's raining. Hard. Apparently Galicia gets 150 days of rain a year. I've been in the region a week and a bit, and it feels like we've had 150 days worth of rain already. Still, the other good thing about this bar is the beer. We order a couple of bottles of Estrella Galicia Especial (“it tastes good, and it'll get yer pissed”, nods John, slipping into his native West Yorkshire accent), sit back and watch the rain fall down.
“So what do you reckon about dinner then?”, he says. “We could go to Casa Marcelo, if you like?” Casa Marcelo is regarded as being one of the best restaurants in Galicia, and Head Chef, Marcelo Tejedor, who trained with Juan Mari Arzak, is certainly a player in Spain's culinary A-League... And to think I thought our eating was done for the day!
With a table booked for a quarter to ten, we have more than enough time for a couple of apertifs. And one must-see drinking spot in Santiago is O Gato Negro - The Black Cat. We arrive just before the evening rush, and bag a spot at the bar.
O Gato Negro was immortalised in John's book in a chapter dedicated to the Galician delicacy of Chiccarones – pork that's been slow cooked in it's own fat, until it literally disintegrates into a kind of stringy-looking paté. Which I reckon sounds pretty good. The other thing that the Black Cat is known for is it's empanades – large, flat, savoury pies, although everything that the little old lady in the kitchen is knocking looks pretty good to me. But we're going for dinner at a Michelin-starred restaurant in an hour, and those slices of pie could comfortably feed two hungry pilgrims, fresh off the Camino. For once, will power reigns supreme over gluttony, and I decide to stick to the vino.
From here, it's down to Dakar, the end of the student booze run, and our last stop before dinner. Dakar is a funny little place... There's a sense of faded grandeur from the big mirrors, alabaster fittings, and gilded sign writing on the walls, but in reality, it's just a bit scuzzy. I've come across a few of these places now on my tour of Northern Spain, particularly in Galicia... A place can look as classy as a prince's palace, but there's no hiding that lingering smell of boiled octopus and stale cigarette smoke. When our drinks arrive, the waiter also brings some complimentary orejo - boiled pigs ear. It's by far and away the worst thing we've eaten all day, but it seems to suit our surroundings. We sip our beers, eat our pigs ear, and watch the cross-eyed students roll in, as the clock ticks ever closer towards dinner.
Casa Marcelo is tucked away in a behind a modest doorway on Rua Hortas, a quaint, higgledy piggledy street that leads down the hill away from the cathedral. The dining room is understated, drawing the eye towards the large open kitchen that takes up easily two thirds of the room. It somehow manages to be both formal and homely, with the sense that you can saunter up the steps and lean against the work surfaces for a chat. Which is exactly what I did.
Everyday, Marcelo prepares a new menu degustacion, based on what's in season and what he feels like cooking. The cuisine could be described as modern Galician... There's a sense of experimentation, but nothing that would put off the conservative palettes of the Galego diners. We start with a 'Mojito' of frozen rhubarb, served on ice in a take away container. It's a nice bit of theatre, and great for opening up the taste buds, as from there on in, the meal incorporates a delicate range of subtle flavours. Highlights were undoubtedly melt-in-the mouth mackerel in a smoky pimenton sauce, and signature dish pil-pil de limón – steamed hake with the subtlest flavours of lemon zest and green pepper. Both epitomised the house style of simple cuisine, executed with creative flare. In fact every one of the ten courses demonstrated the high level of technical expertise that Marcelo commands in his kitchen.
Desserts included a piña colada, served with a plume of what looked like liquid nitrogen 'smoke', followed by another orejo. This one had nothing to do with a pig, however; It was in fact the pastry variety. Galician's may not actually go as far as to eat pig's head for afters, but they do name their desserts after them. We stumble out of the restaurant and make our way up the street. With twelve hours worth of food and drink in my belly, I feel as wobbly on my feet as those pilgrims who've walked half way across Europe, and almost as wobbly as some of those students. I may not have come for the holy spirit, but I'm definitely a convert to the joys of this city. That was Santiago, for those that love to eat.
Everything but the Squeal, by John Barlow, is available from all good book shops. If you are remotely interested in pigs, Spain, or the slightly bizarre escapades of an émigré Northerner, then it comes highly recommended.
I've just returned to civilisation following two weeks in the wilderness of western Austurias. I was staying on a remote finca, called Valle de Castaños, hidden at the bottom of a deep valley in the foothills of the mountains that span the province. My hosts were a small family pursuing an alternative lifestyle with a strong focus on environmental sustainability – their commitment to which was both admirable and inspirational.
It was an experience in which I went back to basics, in almost every imaginable way; forget the telephone and internet, no need for modern appliances, and nothing by way of 'home comforts' that most Western households are used to. Fourteen days with almost no indication of the outside world, let alone the opportunity to communicate with it. Water came from the mountain spring, electricity - enough for a 12 Watt bulb in the kitchen - from a solar panel, and dinner was cooked on an open fire in the corner of the kitchen.
By day, we tended to the animals, chipped away at the seemingly endless list of odd jobs around the farm, and worked the steep terraced fields, which stretched further than the eye could see on either side of the valley. By night we sat exhausted in the kitchen, huddled around the fire for warmth.
The following post includes edited extracts from the diary I kept during my time at Valle de Castaños, which I wrote each evening by candlelight, sat in my caravan 350 paces up the mountainside from the farmhouse itself. Out of respect for the privacy of my hosts, I've changed the names of all the people and places mentioned here.
9th February, 2010
We arrive at the Valle de Castaños after driving for one and half hours through some of the most incredibly rugged scenery I've ever come across. We twist and turn through a winding pass, 1000 metres above sea-level. Mountains rise to infinitum on one side and drop away to nothing on the other. We take a sharp left, and head what seems like straight up the mountain side... By now the asphalt has stopped, and the 'road' is made of loose gravel. After about three kilometres, we reach a summit with breath-taking views on either side of the valley below. We stop the car, and begin transferring our bags into the 4x4 truck that is parked at the side of the road. A dirt track will take us down to the farm, and whilst the battered old tin can we've driven from the coast may make it down the hill, it doesn't look as if it make it back up again. With my hosts, Andreas, Carmen and their baby, sat in the cab, I take my place on the flat bed trunk, and hold on tight. It's a long way down.
Just as twilight turns into darkness, we reach the farm, which is in fact a semi-ruined village, dating back at least five hundred years, although there has probably been a settlement on that site for far longer. There are a handful of buildings; an ancient water mill sat on a bend in the river, a tiny chapel sat a little way up the valley, and a small number of neat, grey stone cottages. Some of these are entirely in ruins, whilst the others are inhabited by Andreas, Carmen, their baby, and their guests.
The temperature has dropped dramatically with nightfall, and we head into what looks like the largest of the cottages, which makes up the kitchen-cum-parlor-cum-living space. It's built straight into the hillside, with the foundations made of bedrock, and the walls made from the same slate as the mountains. Save from the dim glow of a single electric light bulb, there has been no modernisation in the building whatsoever. What looks like the original hard wood doors hang in the doorways, bare slate and clay are the only insulation on the walls, and there's not even a chimney built above the fire - smoke simply rises into the rafters, helping to preserve the pieces of pork that are slowly curing there, and the wooden beams from which they are hanging. The furniture and fittings are all handmade from the chestnut trees in the valley, whilst the shelves are lined with a hotch-potch of jugs, jars and containers, as charming as they are old. I look upon this characterful little room, and imagine it having not changed for hundreds of years.
I sit facing the fire with Edith, another of Andreas' guests on the farm. We talk about Valle de Castaños, my first impressions, and her experiences so far. I've still not quite come to terms with what I have walked into... A completely different way of life.
10th February 2010
I awake with the morning, to the sound of swaying trees, tweeting birds, and the bubbling river. It dropped to freezing last night but my caravan gave me shelter at least, with warmth coming from a hot water bottle, a sleeping bag and four blankets.
After a day of trudging up and down the mountain sides, clearing wood and patching up the dry stone walls, dinner feels like a god-send. We sit around the fire, eating hot chickpea and potato soup, almost too tired to speak.
11th February 2010
It feels like we've walked a marathon today, up and down the mountain sides. We return from being snowed on in the fields to a late lunch in the courtyard. We eat a salad of wild herbs, followed by delicious chorizo spaghetti, all whilst basking in the soft February sunlight.
12th February 2010
We trek to a plato, high up on the other side of the valley to tend to the chestnut trees. Andreas comes across a dazzingly bright red fungi on the way...and eventually decides it looks too good to eat! There's a brisk north-easterly wind, which brings millions of tiny frozen rain drops - Mother Nature's way of telling us that what ever we do, she is in complete control. I realise that living here means a different way of life entirely. We exist not by living off the land. To survive in the long term, we have to live with it.
13th February 2010
My back aches, my legs are like jelly, my shoulders are sore, my feet are wet, my lips are dry, and my hands are covered in cuts and grazes. We use each day to the full, spending every possible hour trying our best to make an indent on the seemingly never-ending list of half finished - or half started, to be more accurate - jobs around the farm. Just living here is a full time job - demanding physical labour. Yet the connection that I feel to this new way of life means that to opt out of work is not even something I consider.
We all carry out our tasks tirelessly around the farm. Whilst Andreas and I prepare a new enclosure for the donkeys and horse to graze, Carmen tends to the gardens, re-cultivating the land as it has been for generations before. She has also found time to make lunch for the weary workers - a bright and vibrant salad of pomegranate, carrot and apple, dressed with vinegar and sesame seeds. It's followed by a nourishing vegetable stew. After that, it's straight back to work... Stay still for too long, and you begin to feel the cold right through to your bones.
14th February 2010
Sunday. The day of rest. Or not, as the case may be. I'm working before breakfast, shifting chestnut rafters from one side of the valley to the other. Meal times come as a welcome break. We always eat very well here, but food can seem as much a necessity as it is a pleasure, taken either to refuel, or keep warm, or both. When the evening comes, we all finally relax. First, we eat salad, which includes stems of a curious-looking plant who's name translates to "Venus' belly button". After that, we tuck into a comforting chorizo and lentil stew, and finally dutch pancakes, filled with sliced banana and melted dark chocolate.
With the stove having heated sufficient water in the over-head tank, I finish the day with a shower. It's my first in six days. With that, and a good feed inside me, I have everything I could have hoped for this Sunday.
15th February 2010
A day spent shovelling cart-loads of donkey shit from the stable on one side of the valley, to the gardens on the other. A conversation with Carmen about life in Hackney. A discussion with Andreas about the rights of volunteer workers. A single text message sent to the outside world (there wasn't enough reception to call). My turn to make dinner - nettle risotto, and a salad picked from the hedgerows. Another unfathomably starry sky. Another sub-zero night in the caravan, which by now is beginning to feel just like home. Perhaps I'm getting into the swing of life in the Valle de Castaños.
16th February
I've decided to stay a few more days... To be here is both physically and mentally rewarding, and I'm enjoying the slower rhythm of life.
For lunch I use the left over risotto to make arancini de riso, or cheesy balls, as we call them. After lunch, the conversation once again turns to food, and I get the impression that both Andreas and Carmen are slightly puzzled by my obsession.
17th February 2010
My designated day off. Andreas and Carmen have gone to the coast to see friends and have instructed me to take it easy. I get going at my leisure, having the same breakfast as usual, boiled oats with fruit, but taking my time with two cups of coffee today, instead of one. I spend the day pottering in the gardens, and make a frugal soup for dinner from any of the veg I come across that looks to be on it's last legs. But when my hosts return, Andreas has other ideas... He has with him a whole chicken, which we cut into pieces and cook over the open fire. To accompany it, we fry potatoes in lots of pig fat, and eat the whole lot slathered in mayonnaise. I take it as a rather touching gesture of thanks for my hard work thus far, and dutifully chomp my way through second helpings, and then the remaining potatoes that are left in the frying pan.
18th February 2010
An afternoon carrying chestnut floorboards from the workshop, high on one side of the valley, to one of the houses on the other. When the job is complete, we relax in the courtyard, our exhaustion balanced by the sense of accomplishment that only a day of truly hard work can bring. Andreas and I toast each other's health with a well earned beer, working our way down the bottles as the sun dips below the mountain.
At dinner there is much talk of the following day's events. Tomorrow we are going to kill a pig...
Regular readers will already know I'm a huge fan of St John and it's sister restaurant Bread & Wine. Having recently met Bread & Wine head chef, James Lowe, I felt compelled to find out more... Their excellent bacon sandwiches had whet my appetite, but in reality they don't even scratch the surface of this modern British institution.
Having just completed a week-long stage working at Bread & Wine, I've certainly had chance to experience their nose to tail philosophy first hand. Even speaking as a certified carnivore, however, some of the tasks I undertook were definitely not for the faint hearted.
Much of my time was spent downstairs in the prep kitchen, a clinical, windowless, fluoro-lit basement – all white tiles and stainless steel – where the only sound is the humming of the fridges, the the whirring of thermo-mixers, and the regular grating rasp of hack saw blade on animal bone.
Whilst dishes are finished upstairs in the open kitchen, in full view of the restaurant, it's downstairs where the bulk of the work takes place. I was lucky enough to get my hands dirty with plenty of meaty tasks; prepping chicken gizzards, pheasant hearts and mallard legs for confit; breaking down a whole side of mutton into roasting and braising joints; boning out pork shoulders; making 'blood cake', the St John take on black pudding, served with duck eggs or bacon; braising and slicing pigs ears, which are then deep fried and tossed with dandelion and rocket leaves; and playing my part in the making of a bona fide St John classic, ox heart (above) with watercress and pickled walnuts. The huge hearts first have to be trimmed of the fat, sinew, fibres and capillaries, before being sliced so finely, that on a few occasions I came extremely close to making sashimi out of my fingers. The slices are then marinated over night in garlic, thyme, olive oil and pickled walnut vinegar, before being grilled for a matter of seconds over white-hot coals. Finally, they're tossed with watercress leaves and finely chopped pickled walnut pieces and served up to the hoards of salivating offalite diners. The preparation is long and quite laborious, but the end result is utterly delightful.
This method of using cheap or irregular cuts and ingredients, which are subsequently transformed over long periods of relatively labour intensive preparation, seems to be almost universally replicated throughout the menu. Many dishes take 48 hours or more to prepare. First jointing, filleting, boning and trimming. Then salting overnight or brining for days. Then braising or confit-ing for anything up to eight hours. Finally dishes are assembled and finished over the grill, in a gravy, or by pan frying. Almost every single dish on the menu contains at least some components that are cooked in the low oven, permanently set to 110 degrees, for many hours at a time. “Slow and low, man,” as the other stage chef said to me on day one, in his West Coast American drawl, “it's the St John way”.
Oven ready squirrels, which will be braised, picked, and served in a broth with white beans. Guess what... They taste a bit like chicken.
It wasn't an entirely carnivorous week, however. I made piccalilli, swede cake, pickled cucumber, fennel soup, turnip puree, horseradish sauce and their incredible tomato ketchup, the recipe for which I may or may not divulge on these pages sometime soon. Aside from that, there was always veg to prepare, and I lost count of the number of bucket loads of onions I chopped over the week – a task that is obviously de rigour for the new boy in any kitchen.
But it wouldn't have been St John if I'd not come face to face with a decapitated pig or three. At Bread & Wine pigs heads are skinned, braised in pig stock (always pig stock, never ham or pork stock), then rolled, sliced into discs, bread crumbed (or painéed) then deep fried. Alternatively, the cheeks are removed after braising, along with the adjoining cushion of fat, before being pan fried and served with a salad of chicory, roast red onion and capers dressed in a lip-smacking, mustardy vinaigrette. Very rich, but again, delicious.
I'd be lying if said I didn't get a kick out of the preparation... There's just nothing quite like slicing a dead animal's face of before breakfast. As we set about our task on the morning of day three, the softly-spoken soux chef turned to me, pig's head in one hand, butchers knife in the other, and said “the ears I don't mind, the snout I don't mind, the tongue I don't mind... It's those blue eyes I can't handle. They get me every time.” I look across as he makes the first incision, a macabre grin spreading across his face.
If you're squeamish, you should probably look away now.
Before:
Billingsgate at 6am, after a five mile pelt through the East End of London. Teas for 50p in a polystyrene cup await... And then it's down to business in the market.
Bargains. They were this [***stretches arms out wide***] big.
Wheeling and dealing. Probably not your average market goers...
Decisions, decisions...
Alfred Endeby's smoked fish selection. Including our breakfast to be.
Our morning's work is done... Back to the Cosmic Loft!
The twilight haul. A box of smoked haddock, mussels, smoked salmon, and sea bass.
Breakfast: Poached smoked haddock, scrambled eggs with creme fraiche and chives, roast tomatoes, Irish soda bread, coffee, orange juice.
The Billingsgate bicycle boys and their breakfast. Good way to start the day...
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