March 2010

There are many images and smells in Galicia that bring me back to my summers in Spain as a child.  The little things that people see, smell, hear, and taste which combined you can’t find anywhere else.  Things like the bunches of chorizos hanging from the ceiling of our pantry or tossed on the side of a truck ready to sell to people shopping the local market.  The smell of octopus boiling in large pots, hardening and softening in the burgundy stained water before the vendor pulls one out with a hook.  The loud bellow of the delivery man’s horn when he drives thro  ugh town each morning to deliver everyone their bread.  Even the white powder of the salted cod that needs to soak in water until the salt that once preserved this big fish slowly seeps out so it‘s suitable to eat.  

These are the things I remember well, the little things that continue each day, when I leave, when I return, and when I leave again.

This past week was the feria do pulpo, and people come around with the same purpose, to buy and eat octopus.  Although in the rainy winter when the surrounding towns lack people and the desire to leave ones home, there isn’t much ambiente a very important quality that adds people, movement, and life (vida).  This day there were mostly men with salt and pepper hair just above their ears and nowhere else that came to eat pulpo at the local bar with their friends.  They talk sports I imagine or something else like their pesky wives, their wine, and the reminiscences of stories when their bodies allowed them much more than mere talk about  past adventures.

The pulpeiro let us try the pulpo and it was soft and flavorful having lost all the toughness that it had before cooking.  Once cut with sharp scissors you drizzle olive oil on top of the pulpo and then sprinkle some Spanish paprika and rock salt and it’s ready to eat.

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