La Comida (Food)

So, as you might of guessed, the food in Spain is different. I know, big shocker.

First off, the eating times are different. Breakfast (desayuno) is when you get up, kind of like with us. My host mom is still asleep when I leave for school, so I get to eat what I want, which is usually a thing of yogurt and some bread from the day before. However, most people have just coffee, or coffee and a piece of toast.

Then comes lunch (almuerzo). Lunch is the most important meal of the day here - store close for lunch and people have off from work to allow for them to go home and cook and eat lunch. It's a big deal. The weird thing is that it's 2-3ish. We eat at 2:30 because I have class until 2. My host mom works 10 to 2 and then 4 to 8, which is completely normal, and the stores normally are closed from 2 to 5ish.

Then dinner (cena) is around 9ish. Some people cook something small, but I just eat the leftovers from lunch, or she makes something before she leaves to go with the leftovers. Like one night she made an omelet.

It's weird, but you get used to it. I kind of like coming home from school to a home cooked meal, and I think I might adopt that habit if I can because when I do finally get home at 9 in the States I don't feel like doing anything, much less cooking. Then I end up eating ramen or fast food.

So beyond the times, the food itself is different. Refrigeration isn't so big here - she leaves lunch out on the counter until dinner. It doesn't seem to cause a problem. We have fresh baked bread everyday - there are bread stores all over. It's usually french bread and I am definitely getting used to that. Other than that, the food is okay. Some things are really good, like today we had chicken and rice cooked together in the pressure cooker that was damn tasty. Other days...well, I come home for lunch with a mixture of excitement and dread. We had morcilla one day, which is blood sausage (see pretty picture). Thankfully I didn't have my dictionary at the table to figure that out before I ate it. Luckily it tasted better than it looked, like a weird meatloaf, but that paired with the beans...I dug into my stash of ramen I brought with me for dinner that night.

All in all, that's food in a nutshell. (Ha! Nutshell!) :)

Tastily yours,

Anica