I had never eaten or cooked barnacles, so everything was new and fascinating to me. Here’s what I learned…

Bizarre Barnacle Fact

The reason this particular species is called “goose barnacle” originates from the middle ages, back before people realized that birds migrate. Since no one in Europe had ever seen geese nesting (they breed in the Arctic), but they did see geese near the sea, where they also saw these black and white crustaceans, they naturally assumed that the crustaceans were the young geese before undergoing a metamorphosis and taking flight. The English word “barnacle” initially only referred to the barnacle goose, and through this ignorant deduction, later came to apply to the crustacean.

Barnacle Recipe

If you can cook them in actual sea water, that’s best. Otherwise, buy some sea salt and mix 70 grams (approximately 3.8 tablespoons) of sea salt per liter of water. You want just enough water to cover the barnacles in your pot. You can optionally throw in a bay leaf, too. The recipe, as a rhyme in the Galician language, goes like this:

auga a ferver, percebes botar, auga a ferver, percebes sacar

In English, that’s:

1. Boil water in a pot
2. When the water is boiling, add the barnacles
3. When the water begins boiling again, remove the barnacles

Place the barnacles in a clean dish towel. It’s best to serve them still wrapped in this towel to keep in the heat.

We prepared about half of the barnacles, so about 750 grams.

How To Eat Barnacles

The key for me was to think of them as “little crab legs”. They are crustaceans, after all.

1. Grab them by the white “claw” end
2. Stick the whole “arm” into your mouth
3. With your incisors (front teeth), break the “sleeve” as close to the claw as possible
4. Slide off the sleeve and eat the meaty arm

That’s the ideal scenario. As you get the hang of it, you’re more likely to end up severing the whole arm when you’re trying to just break the sleeve, and then you have to suck the arm out of the sleeve. You don’t discard any part of it, of course, without first sucking all the wonderful sea watery goodness from every crevice.

An empty sleeve, arm removed.

The arm, still attached to the claw with sleeve removed, ready for eating.

And of course you should serve them with a chilled white wine. We had a perfect wine.

Some of the best Spanish white wine comes from the Rueda region.

For the second course, we had some grilled shrimp.

Yummy.

In our wine-and-crustecean-induced stupor, we retired for a little siesta. Luckily the candles we left burning didn’t burn down the house.

The meal was a wonderful success. Before this weekend, I was amazed that people actually ate barnacles. Now I’m proud to be one of those people.

The meat purchase. A.k.a. The pursuit of happiness. 3.4 kilos of happiness.

All the fixin’s.

After Agustin and Nora were done with Agustin’s dessert, he gave her the bowl. I think you know where this is going…

Pouring caramel on her neck and down her shirt.

Peek-a-boo!

Happy birthday, America! Anybody want a leftover hamburger?

The entire process took about 72 hours. After the first batch of mushrooms have been harvested, more will continue grow. Each bail of hay providing four or five harvests. And even then it’s better if you spread the hay in a dank dark corner of your garden, because they will keep growing and growing and growing.

Fresh Oyster Mushroom Recipe

Because these mushrooms were freshly harvested from a clean environment when I cooked them, they didn’t need to be washed at all. In fact, Andrés specifically told me not to wash them because they will absorb the water and then release it into the frying pan later, losing taste as they do. This species of mushroom is fairly common in supermarkets around Spain – they call them setas, which is is a term that encompasses most types of edible mushrooms – but the time between being harvested and the time spent in a refrigerator means they lose a lot of flavor. These were fresh and very flavorful.

1. Cut the mushrooms at their base with a pair of scissors
2. Optionally wipe them off a little bit with a napkin. Do not wash them!
3. Do not cut off their stems. Since they are fresh, the stems are tender and edible.
4. Sprinkle on a little bit of salt
5. Sauté them in a little extra virgin olive oil.
6. Serve.

Some people add a little garlic, but these fresh mushrooms are so flavorful that extra spices are not really necessary. Taste the fungus!!

Timelapse Video

Worth viewing in HD.

Photos

Now on to the photos. More are available in the photoset here.

Andrés looking like a proud father.

Warming up the frying pan.

Sautéing oyster mushrooms.

On the plate.

A hungry timelapser ready to enjoy the fruits fungi of his labor.

We started off with a salad that I think had some crab meat in it, and a little shrimp on top.

Then came the clams in garlic and parsley sauce. With a bottle of wine, some bread, and this sauce, that’s just about all I need for happiness.

This is El Guti‘s main signature tapa, grilled mushrooms with cheese and a baby shrimp. Wonderful! I don’t think this was part of the mariscada menu, but was complimentary because we know the bossman.

And then came the crabs! Some were small, like the nécoras, and some were huge. All were delicious.

The birthday boy was happy, that’s for sure!

And then came the jumbo shrimp and lobster course!

This is my favorite of the courses. The crab course was cold, and this one was steaming, fresh off the grill. Just as I get bored picking every little bit of meat out of cancrine exoskeletons, the hot delicious course arrives.

And finally the shrimp course. Right about the time the last course arrived, I was summoned to baby calming duty, and, having overeaten a bit on the lobster course, I can’t say that my bursting stomach really missed anything.

A full sexagenarian admires the plate of shrimp.

Then it was time for dessert!

Nora got a little of her mother’s ice cream treat.

And with a chilled honey liqueur, we called it a successful birthday dinner and went home. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful meal with my four closest family members, my mother, father, wife, and daughter. Happy birthday, Dad!

Then he goes in the back and pulls out what you’re about to see and says, “How about these? Do you know what these are?”

He said, “Show these to your American friends so they know I have cojones!”

Peeled cow testicles. Didn’t think you’d be reading those words today, did you? Bruno’s brother, my friend Andrés, assures me that fried cow testicles, if tasted under a veil of ignorance, are actually quite delicious.

Carving off the cheek. Beef cheeks are a delicacy in Spain.

Cheek removed.

Cracking open the skull with a hatchet. When it comes time for my lobotomy, remind me not to have Bruno do it.

Brain exposed. Getting hungry yet?

A brain in hand is worth… No, nevermind. Cows have a pretty small encephalization quotient.

If you’re still hungry after all this, perhaps I could interest you in a cow tongue recipe.

Last week at the grocery store, I noticed a sign saying “Peas from Colindres” in the vegetable section, so I asked how they should be prepared and bought a kilo. I was told to boil them for a little bit first, and then place them in a frying pan with some small diced bits of jamón, Spanish cured ham. The result was very, very nice.


They were grown and brought in by a local woman.

It took me a good long while to depod (?) them all, but eating the occasional raw pea made it fun.

Liberated from their cozy pods.

The final result in the frying pan.

On Sunday we woke up at 11:00 to the peaceful sound of no baby crying. After a quick breakfast at the pub neighboring the hotel, we checked out and the group of eleven of us took our three vehicles and headed towards Haro. I have wanted to visit Haro for some time, ever since learning about the Batalla de Vino they host every year, which I detailed in the 17th post on this blog back in June 2006. At some point on the way to Haro, the Tom Tom GPS unit in the leading car, decided that it wanted to visit the town of Cenicero. I have noticed Cenicero on the map a few times and chuckled at its horrible name, which is Spanish for “ashtray”. Wielding my trusty GPS-enabled iPhone, I volunteered to lead us to Haro, and in twenty minutes we were there.

We walked towards the city center, saw the town square and the church. Once a restaurant had been found and a table for 11 reserved, we began our bar hopping for tapas.

I love medieval streets like this one.

I went into a wine shop to look around, and one of my friends came in and told me quietly, “This isn’t a wine shop. Follow me down the street and I’ll show you a real wine shop!” He took me to the simple-looking Vinoteca Juan González.

“The 1st club of wine of Rioja”, the sign reads.

Inside, I was blown away by all the variety (all from Rioja, of course) of wine they had.

The stairs down to the cellar were blocked off. Who knows how much wine there is down there!

I thought this wine from 1970 and 1964 was old, until I saw the bottles from even earlier!

The harvest from 1934.

Back outside, we started eying the tapas in each bar.

Shrimp crisps, these are called.

Sometimes I really love my adopted country. From near to far:

1. Bread, Spanish ham, asparagus stalk, quail egg.
2. Bread, Spanish ham, asparagus stalk, cheese, olive.
3. Bread, Spanish ham, asparagus stalk, goat cheese.
4. Bread, fried foie gras.

I had #3, because I’m loco for goat cheese.

Eventually it was time to head to the restaurant.

We ate at the Beethoven II, which was across the street from Beethoven I.

Veronica’s cleverly shaped paella.

My leg of lamb with potatoes. It was wonderful!

Some of my friends had the nerve to order a Pesquera 2006, from Ribera Del Duero, Spain’s other principal wine-making region, Rioja’s arch rival. The restaurant only had one bottle of it. Apparently not many people have the gall to order a rival wine in Haro. My friend claims that Rioja has reigned supreme too long and is resting on its laurels, and Ribera Del Duero is the underdog who’s really putting in the effort and making some great wine. Sounds plausible, and the Pesquera was amazing. But then a good story makes wine taste better.

On our way back to the car, it started to rain, and I took this photograph of a brass scallop on the sidewalk, the symbol of Saint James, and the way pilgrims are guided along the Way of St. James, which passes through Haro.

We drove to my in-laws’, picked up Nora – if she was pleased to see us, she didn’t show it – and headed home to Colindres, arriving just after 22:00, tired, but happy.

En Santo Domingo de la Calzada, cantó la gallina después de asada.

which translates to:

In Santo Domingo de la Calzada, the hen sang after roasting.

The following is translated by yours truly from the Wikipedia page.

In the 14th century, a young 18-year-old German pilgrim named Hugonell, is traveling to Compostela, accompanied by his parents. A young girl who works in the lodge where they are staying falls in love with him and wants to make love to him. He says no. Rejected, and with vengeful thoughts, she places a silver cup in Hugonell’s bag and later accuses him of theft.

Just as Hugonell and his parents are getting ready to leave to continue their pilgrimage, the judge arrives and checks his bag for evidence of the theft. He’s found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. His parents can’t do anything but pray to Saint Dominic. Once he is hanged, they go to his body to say their goodbyes, and he speaks to him and says that he’s still alive, thanks to the Saint.

Delighted, they go to communicate the news to the magistrate, who, just at that moment, is sitting down to eat a meal of a hen and rooster. Naturally, the magistrate mocks what he hears and says the well-known phrase, “Your son is as dead as this rooster and this hen that I was about to eat before you interrupted!” At that moment the birds jump up from the plate and begin singing and crowing with joy.

Because of this story, the town cathedral still keeps chickens inside, as I assume most churches did back in the middle ages. I’m not sure how it’s learned, but all the Spaniards I was with knew the rhyme, and some knew the story of the miracle. One of my friends joked, about the story, “They really should cook their poultry better here.”

When we were discussing the story in the van on the way to the town, the person in the very back seat said she was hot and asked the person in front of her to open the window. I said, wittily, “If you’re roasted, sing!” Everyone burst into laughter.

The church square.

I assume that’s Saint Dominic there in the middle.

This medieval house right next to the bell tower has a second floor apartment for sale!

Peering nosily into a woodworking shop where someone has carved a model of the church.

On the way back to the car after our appetite-building walk, we stopped for a vermouth and a calamari tapa at this bar.

We ate lunch at the Bodega Pimiento.

It was very rustic.

Mmmm… wine!

The chorizo and morcilla for our first course. Morcilla, blood sausage, often with rice inside, might be my favorite Spanish food of all.

Agustín chose the Viña Alberdi 2003 that we had to accompany our meal.

Lamb chops, flavored, I think I heard, with the smoke from grapevines. They were fantastic. I ate way too many of these.

An assortment of cream-filled, sugar-dusted desserts.

Creamy cylinder of goodness!

Marga looks contented.

My grass-flavored liqueur.

On the way out, I noticed the grill where our food had been cooked.

After checking in a the hotel in Logroño at 17:00, we all decided to take a siesta and regroup at 20:30 to go out on the town. We took three taxis (there were eleven of us) to the city center and began several hours of tapa consumption. We ordered small beers and tapas in each place, consuming seven or eight tapas over the course of about three hours. I LOVE this style of bar hopping, known as picoteo, because you’re never bored or hungry or thirsty or full or drunk. In good company, you can maintain a level of blissful contentedness for hours on end. Some of the tapas I can remember include, foie gras, little ham sandwiches, patatas bravas (fried potatoes in a spicy sauce), and grilled mushrooms.

These are patatas bravas. The sauce was just the right amount of picante for me, but too much for most of the group.

The solution is to mix the spicy stuff with a cooler white sauce.

These are embuchados, lamb intestine rolled up, cooked, and then sliced into thin rolls. Normally I’m all for some good offal, but these were a little bitter.

Iván brings some open-faced ham sandwiches.

Foie-ntástico foie gras!

Afterwards, we took a taxi back to the neighborhood of the hotel, where there were two salsa dancing clubs. We ordered mixed drinks and danced until 3:30 in the morning.

Strawberry girl.

“Do I have something on my face?”

Eating strawberries…sloppily.

Spitting out the yucky bits.

Showboating for the camera.

This is what she does when you say, “Nora, show me your big mouth!” Not once has it failed to crack me up. It’s also very handy for determining if she has swallowed the bite you just saw her take and can be given another.

A contented berry eater.

You’re not properly enjoying your childhood if your face and clothes are clean.

Looking coy.

Trying the rosquilla.

Rosquillas are Nora Approved.

The rosquillas are all gone!