4 stars

Pulpo a la Feira

7:32 AM


Pulpo a la Feira:

This is a very delicious dish with quite an interesting texture. I personally believe that it needs more flavor diversity, but I do enjoy the typical "sauce" combination of olive oil, paprika, and salt. Pulpo a la Feira is one of my favorite dishes here in Galicia, but I don't enjoy it when the octopus is very tough and hard to chew, or when the octopus is too soft and has a somewhat mushy feel. While it does have a unique and interesting texture, if not cooked the right way, the octopus can become too tough and not very appetizing. While definitely a bit terrifying at first, it is definitely worth a try if you visit the Galicia area. Face your fears and just take a bite! In many restaurants, the octopus is cut up smaller and appears much less intimidating. A not so fun tidbit that I've heard is that to ensure that the octopus does not become too touch, you must slam the octopus down on it's head until it dies. That is such a sad story and it almost makes me not ever want to eat octopus again, but I've also heard that putting in the octopus in the freezer can also result in an appealing texture. It sounds a little bit better than the more brutal death. A poor fate for the octopus, but I really love Pulpo a la Feira, as well as many other Galician people.



 

introduction

Welcome to my blog!

2:22 AM

Welcome to my blog about Galician food! Right now, I'm fifteen years old and a one-way exchange student in the city of Vigo, Spain for a school year. I left my school, my family, my friends, and my life in Arlington, Texas for almost a year in order to move in with a new family and go to a new school in a different environment. I came here because I want to learn Spanish and experience a new culture and way of life. I love food and there's a lot of different food here in Spain and Galicia, so I thought that it would make a wonderful subject for my blog. In this welcome post, I thought I'd share a little bit of background information about Spanish and Galician food. In Spain, the biggest meal of the day is lunch, not dinner like in America. The meal times are also very different. We eat breakfast in my house at about 7:30am, which is pretty much the same in America. Then, we have lunch anywhere from 2pm-3pm. I get out of school at 2:20pm every day except for Monday, so I eat around 2:30pm on weekdays. Then, we have dinner anywhere from 9pm-11pm. Usually, we eat earlier on that spectrum on weekdays because my siblings here have to go to sleep. There's a different etiquette and way of eating here as well. We always use a tablecloth and spills happen at every single meal, but it doesn't really matter cause we have our trusty 'ol tablecloth. Using your hands to eat is unacceptable and there are only certain foods that are okay to eat with your hands. For example, clams or other mollusks similar to clams, are acceptable to eat with your hands, BUT if they're in a sauce, then you better be reaching for that fork or be prepared to get bad looks from native Spaniards. Quite honestly, I believe that Spanish food is blander than other types of food, and definitely blander than what I'm used to eating at my home in Texas. I normally eat quite the range of food in Texas. My mother is from Indonesia and my father is Italian, so I'm very accustomed to eating Asian and Italian foods. I also really love spicy foods, which is something that I hardly get to taste here. Even though it's quite different than anything I eat in Texas, I've come to love Spanish food. I hope you enjoy my very honest reviews of Spanish food from a Texan perspective.