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Thanks, Molto. I too think Mugaritz is going through a strange, 'otherworldly' phase, which I think will be reflected in a reduced rating in the 2006 edition of Spain's largest restaurant guide... If you happen to hit Madrid in the near future, take a taste of Viridiana's fresh duck foie gras: it's house-smoked over a hickory fire and served with a drop of Pedro Ximénez sherry on a rich brioche. It will reconcile you to foie-gras in Spain!

I was just in the Ribera del Duero a couple of days ago. I was roundly chided by the locals for lauding Mannix. "The best roast lamb in the world is that of the Nazareno in Roa!" they said emphatically. So we had lamb at the Nazareno. Well - they may be right.

If you don't want to see a refutation in a refutation, hey, that's fine with me. Me, I've made my point and am thusly satisfied. As I used to say in a Gallic earlier life, "à bon entendeur salut".

Is it only my impression, or there is a significant difference between those two subsequent statements? First one: what the bottles of "several" big Spanish brands contain is actually Argentine olive oil. Second one (after I refuted the first one): Hey, some Argentine olive oil is sold to someone in Spain, and who knows what they did with it... That's not the same thing at all! I'll try to make my point more clearly this time. Spain makes huge amounts of olive oil: virgin or blended, of better or worse quality, much of it historically sold to Italy and re-sold as Italian oil. Argentina makes very small amounts. So if a Spanish company buys 500 tons of Argentine oil here or 500 tons of Tunisian oil there, what actually shows up in a bottle will make no difference. It will be a drop in the final blend. To make another analogy: there are two Spanish players in the NBA right now, which is fine, but saying that "the influx of Spanish basketball dominates several NBA basketball teams" would be pretty preposterous, considering that there are 30 teams in the NBA, with 360 players on their active rosters. (One more point: What no European company would ever get would be olives in Argentina – it's technically and economically impossible to harvest olives in Argentina, ship them across the Atlantic and make oil in Europe with these, by then, stale and oxidized olives. At any rate, what would be sold would be finished oil.) To make the magnitude of the olive oil productions worldwide clear (including the Moroccan production about which I have been asked), I checked the International Olive Oil Council (IOOC) stats, because I had only the 2003 figures. And, lo and behold, in the latest harvesting campaign, 2004-2005, the difference is even greater because Argentina's production sank from 15,000 to 7,000 tons. So Spain's production was 133 times larger than Argentina's... The 2004-2005 figures: 1. Spain, 933,000 metric tons. 2. Italy, 760,000 3. Greece, 420,000 4. Syria, 177,000 5. Turkey, 145,000 6. Tunisia, 110,000 7. Morocco, 50,000 8. Portugal, 30,000 9. Jordan, 26,000 10. Palestinian territories, 10,000 11. Israel, 9,000 12. Argentina, 7,000 -- Serbia and Montenegro, 7,000

It's not a matter of being 'precious' or not, Disciple (do you really have to be Silly, be it in name alone?) I am not a nationalist. I am personally a fanatic of a southern Italian olive oil called Trapittu. What I meant to say is that total production of olive oil in Argentina is about 15,000 tons a year, while in Spain it's about 800,000 tons...

Please tell us more! That would be earth-shattering news! (Spain is the largest olive oil producer in the world and supplies Italy with a large chunk of the mid-level oil that is bottled there.)

Yes, I guess you're right. Myself, I'm thinking of starting a thread on chop suey in the California forum - going back to the country where it originated from. All very logical.

Maybe you should address the Latin American forum then... These things are as authentic as chop suey is Chinese...

There's no such thing as a churro made with eggs, or with butter. Not in Spain there isn't. Where do you get those weird recipes, piazzola?

Churros are really a Madrid specialty. They're more popular here than anywhere else.

Indeed it seems that 'tejeringo' (not 'tejerigo') comes from 'te jeringo', i.e., more or less, 'I put you through a syringe'. At least, that's what the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language says (it sounds rather fishy and unscientific to me - and I'm a lover of etymology!) But note also that 'tejeringo' is the southern Spanish word for 'churro', not for 'porra'. Now on churros and porras. Churros are very thin, porras much thicker and longer: one porra is as big as three or four churros. In Madrid, churros are always braided to form an imperfect circle, a tradition from the times when they were sold threaded on a slim, flexible rush. Outside Madrid, churros are often sold, these days, as straight sticks - looking rather like mini-porras. 'Refined' churros in nice chocolate shops are always sprinkled with confectioner's sugar, but the people's churros that one has with morning coffee in the neighborhood café are not. They are slightly salted. There is more than shape that sets churros and porras apart. The key is the dough. For churros, you use boiling water mixed with wheat flour: this will give a compact dough. For porras, you use lukewarm water, which in turn will produce the classic fluffiness of porras. Of course, the churro and the porra are fried in olive oil - never mention the word 'butter' in a Castilian or Andalusian recipe! One last note - churros and porras are just modest, rather primitive relatives of that supremely refined Madrid 'pan flower' (as all these types of fried doughnuts are known in Spanish): the 'buñuelo de viento'.

Dunk them in café con leche or, if you can take the calories, in a cup of real, thick, dark 'chocolate a la española'. No topping or other use will improve the humble porra.

Indeed, Zaragoza is not the greatest gastronomic hub, but... it's getting better. An important improvement has been the opening of La Granada, first opened as the Zaragoza outpost of Lillas Pastia, the brilliant restaurant in Huesca (a much smaller town in Aragón with more culinary attractions than the regional capital). La Granada, which now has itts own personality, is well worth a visit.

Then you had... two 'cuartos' on single platter!

No, Bux, what you had was 'un cuarto', a quarter - lamb is never served in half. I agree that a quarter is a modest portion for two people. If you're hungry, you need a 'cuarto' per person. BTW, the lamb in Burgos is not any smaller than in Campaspero - same 'lechazo', same age! PS Naming a rural restaurant after an old-time, once popular American TV series is a classic, endearing Spanish idiosincrasy. Copacabana, Monte Carlo, Kansas are other names of small-town restaurants in Spain with, of course, no relationship to Rio de Janeiro, Côte d'Azur cuisine or the Great Plains!

Well, as I stated in my April 20 post, Judith, this was acquired back then in Macedo de Cavaleiros, a small town in northern Portugal, just to the southwest of Bragança. Other than the fact that it can be found in the gourmet shop in the small downtown shopping center, there's little more I could add! In don't think this is too useful for an international audience, but hey, if you're ever in Macedo... I'd also like to point out that this is not really a marvelous find of an extraordinary cheese, but just another frequent acquisition of a very good Portuguese cheese, which is no longer news, I think, here on eGullet. Portugal has a number of great cheeses that are unfortunately too little known abroad. The great, soft 'da Serra' cheeses are the ewes' milk counterpart to vacherin Mont d'Or, as are their Spanish cousins, the Extremaduran 'tortas'. But they are not the only ones. The cheese scene in Portugal and Spain is extremely rich, and getting richer every day with new producers of artisanal cheeses. Late last month I was at the cheese and artisanal products fair at Reinosa in Cantabria to give a chat on the future of such products with some ideas about production and marketing (and I pointed out that such U.S. initiatives as the New York farmers' markets or the Ferry market at San Francisco afford much better exposure to major urban customers than anything we have in Spain). Well, there I noticed and tasted a few highlight cheeses: * The marvelously unctuous, well-balanced, complex picón de Bejes-Tresviso made by Amalia, of Bejes (no last name needed; in Spanish blue cheese land, as in Brazilian soccer, first names are sufficient). Of course, not the slightest hint of a knitting needle used to accelerate the inoculation with penicillium: this is the real, 100% natural thing. As I believe I mentioned in another thread on cabrales/picón/valdeón, when choosing a Picos de Europa blue cheese the name of the shepherd (or shepherdess, in this case) is paramount – much more so than the name of the village where it comes from. And Amalia is to Spanish blue cheese what Jean-François Coche-Dury is to white Burgundy. * The terrific, very original hard ewes' milk Valluco cheese from Valderredible, Cantabria's southernmost valley, actually an enclave in the Castilian high plateau. Delicate and nutty but assertive, aged for eight months, it's quite different from its neighbors to the west, the castellano and zamorano (manchego-style) cheeses, or its neighbors to the east, the Basque Idiazabal cheeses. * The torta de Barros, from the Villafranca de los Barros creamery in Extremadura. Mind-boggling texture and pungency from a cheese that's as good as the best torta del Casar or queijo da Serra I've tasted yet. * The hard, very finely grained, delicate, pale yellow, small Rabaçal cheese, made with a mix of goats' and ewes' milk by the Santiago de Guarda co-op in Ansião, Portugal. Yet another wonderful find from our neighbors. No family member to pick up the legacy, Pedro. So Santiago just decided to retire and close up shop. A frequent tale these days in family-run restaurants.

Goodness gracious, Pedro, we seem to have dangerously similar tastes! Unfortunately, San Mamés is but a fond memory now. A few more of my own reliable, solid, 'go-to' favorites: Andalusian: La Giralda I. Castilian: Asador Tierra Aranda, Támara-Casa Lorenzo, De la Riva. Catalan: Casa Jorge. Basque: Julián de Tolosa, Asador Imanol, Or-Dago, Zerain. Paella: Samm, Ventorrillo Murciano. Galician: Villa de Foz. Not to forget our little ethnic treasures... Chinese: Don Lay, China Crown. Cajun/Creole: Gumbo. Burgers and ribs: Alfredo's Barbacoa. Peruvian: La Gorda. Italian: Taverna Siciliana, Vecchia Milano, Casa Marco, Ouh... Babbo! Mexican: Taquería del Alamillo. Japanese: Naomi Japonés. Armenian: Sayat Nova.

No ham from Spanish-raised pigs is sold in the US today - period. As for the future Ibérico, please go back to my July 18 post. BTW, the Parma/Ibérico part of this thread, if seen from anywhere but the US, where Ibérico is mostly an urban legend since it can't be found, gets funnier every day. In Europe, the greatness of Joselito as the best ham producer in the world is now a basic tenet of every foodie's credo! My Italian friends come to Salamanca in pilgrimage just to see the place...

Indeed, very well put, Jason. But as John and Pedro rightly point out, a diner can go with both. More difficult in Star Wars... Then again, there were also those bullfighting fans who went with Joselito and Belmonte...

Very interesting stuff. Let's not fool ourselves: Santi and Ferran are deeply at odds over the basics of modern cuisine. Ferran has left Catalan roots way behind, as a dim memory, while he explores galactic cookery. Santi insists that we have to go back to our roots every day when we create something new - so as not to interrupt a gustatory link that reaches way back into the origins of our culture. They are the yin and the yang of modern cuisine in Spain - perhaps in the world - today. And amongst our young chefs we find those who have chosen the Adrià path (Andoni Luis Aduriz, for instance) and those who idolize Santamaria (Mario Sandoval, for one). This is like bullfighting at the time of Joselito and Belmonte: no cultural phenomenon in Spain is ever at its peak until we have two contrasting, even opposing figures which we can either follow or detest.

Small correction: to say "anything with codfish", use this expression: "Cualquier cosa con bacalao". "Alguno con bacalao" would not be understood.

Well, it seems you're getting a bit ahead of Michelin here, Brett. First it would have to promote Ca' Sento from one to two stars... As we have already amply discussed on this board, Michelin's attitude to the Spanish food scene is thoroughly ridiculous in its stinginess, or call it unfairness. You'll find as many starred restaurants in little Switzerland as in Spain...

There are no "relaxed rules" for Ibérico ham in the US. The only thing that's changed (and it's important because it unblocks the situation) is that the USDA has recently given permission to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture to inspect candidate slaughterhouses and certify those that meet USDA regulations. Once certified, they can start producing ham for the US. Considering the legal aging periods, even if the Ministry acts quickly and certifies a couple of slaughterhouses in the next few months, there won't be any Ibérico on the US market before 2007 or so. Right now, declaring Spanish ham or pork products at US Customs is a surefire method to lose it all. http://elmundovino.elmundo.es/elmundovino/...icia=1119251191

Don't fret, Adam: I can assure you 100% that, save the occasional and exceptional foodie, the good housewives of Sanlúcar de Barrameda do not cook couscous at home.

Chirivía = parsnip.