Intro., Spain Portugal and Morocco, 2008

Sig Wynne-Evans

Spain, Portugal and Morocco are as different as you might imagine. OK, perhaps Spain and Portugal are not that wildly different, but into this particular mix, when you throw in Morocco, that alone makes for a huge contrast.

There are only two regrets I have about this tour. We did not get to see a bullfight. I really wanted to go, but in Madrid, they were getting the ring ready for the Davis Cup (tennis). Imagine that!! The fleeting opportunity we might have had in Portugal would have had it, that the one night we could go, they were not holding an event. I think this would have been the one I would have preferred. The Portuguese have the bullfight on horseback (Spaniards do not use horses) and unlike the Spaniards, they do no give the final kill to the bull in the ring, but do so away from public view.

The second regret is not having tried sardines while in Portugal. But you just can’t do everything. What we did see and do, was utterly amazing!

Tasty Morsels and Nasty Bits

Being a “foodie” of sorts, exploring different cuisines is always something I look forward to when visiting other countries. I enjoy different approaches to food preparation, different spices, and even going out on the limb to try something very unusual and by conservative tastes, “exotic”.

Being on a tour is not a good way to experience local cuisines. This trip was no exception to the rule. Breakfasts were predictable, and could have been in any country. Rolls (often the best amongst the buffet offerings) with butter and jam usually made for my breakfast. Then there was the usual scrambled yellow slush that stood in for eggs, bacon, cereals, cheeses and cold cuts, and often some sort of fruit. During my normal routine, breakfast is not a main meal for me, so I was happy with the rolls and tea.

Lunches were “on our own”. Often this involved a bus stop along the motorways. Cafeteria-style food designed to feed the masses in a hurry, was lack-luster and bland at best. Definitely not a memorable meal.

Dinners were a step up from the lunches. First, let me say that Spaniards do like to eat dinner LATE!! Dinner at 10 seems to be the norm. Don’t even think about eating dinner at a restaurant before 8:30 (and that is EARLY!). We were waiting at the door for a restaurant in Madrid to open. They opened at 8:30. By the time we were finished with our dinner, only two couples had come in, right towards the end of our dinner. So, if you go to Spain, plan on having late dinners, unless you prefer Tapas.

The dinners included in the tour price, were buffets with enough of a selection to find something palatable and with enough to fill the gut. But if you are hoping for something of the local flavor, don’t waste your time looking. Spaghetti that has a texture resembling mush rather than the firm bite I hope to find, does little to appeal to my foodie sensibilities. Neither does roast mystery meat with absolutely no character. The “farewell dinner” of unseasoned chicken leg with semi soggy French fries was an insult. I have had this same exact meal in Venice, Bulgaria and even Guatemala. I think they stole the recipe from Big Boys all you can eat buffet for the Human foir gras experiment they seem to have in the States. The occasional offering of something close to a local dish (tagine in Morocco for example) seemed to be a watered down version perhaps to appeal to the gastro-intestinal sensitivities of the Yank/Aussie/Brit/Kiwi/Canuck travelers who are traveling long distances on a bus with no emergency porta-potty on board.

Yes, to experience the local cuisines, you have to leave the hotel, no…RUN from the hotel, as far as you can. But where to go, where the tourists aren’t congregating for a better presented, more expensive version of the gruel fed to our hungry masses?

We did get away a few times. In Madrid, we stopped at a tapas bar not far from the hotel. What intrigued me were the sides of ham (complete with hoof) hanging from the ceiling. I just had to sample the ham that I heard so much about. Unfortunately, we did not sample the ham at the Museo de Jamon (Museum of Ham which is a restaurant not a museum) just a block from Madrid’s Plaza Mayor. Darn!! We were trying to find the Prado museum at the time and in my single minded focus on that goal, all I did was take pictures of the place, I was so excited to see the place that my TV Chef heroes were raving about. Now how dumb was that, not to saddle up to the bar for a plate of acorn fed Jamon and perhaps stand in the same place as Anthony Bourdain or Andrew Zimmer??

We did have our acorn fed Jamon as a dinner appetizer at a nice restaurant not far from our hotel in Seville. It was excellent! Lean, salty, very tasty. The rest of our dinner there was equally as good. I had the house salad, which had meaty chunks of fresh tuna, Steve had cod with what looked like a.béarnaise sauce that was incredibly, incredibly good.

Another night, while in Madrid, we had dinner at a nice restaurant a few blocks from the hotel. We ordered a combination of preset entrees from the menu. It was a seafood combination for the first two courses, and ended in a beef dish. The first course was a whole crab, including the head with the innards scrambled up and mixed at the table with some sort of mystery liquid that the waiter added (I believe it was some sort of liquor). I sat before it, thinking this was my moment to become one with my TV Chef heroes, who savor this dish as one of the utmost of delicacies! Their words rang in my mind. How savory, how special, how divine, this briny seafood delicacy is! Never having tasted it, I braced myself, WANTING to love it! No, NEEDING to love it so that I too could nod my head, with drool dripping agreement with my heroes, so that I could be just like them. But alas! As much as I wanted to love it, I didn’t. I did not like the taste of the sea, the fishiness, the somewhat bitter (at least to me) taste that I had hoped to be the utmost delicacy of the crab. Maybe I could not be like my heroes, after all. Maybe that is why they host the travel/food shows and I do not.

The second course was a study in Shrimp. Fully intact, no guessing as to what they were, head, legs, tails and eyeballs all there. Prepared and presented four different ways. Again, I remembered my Heroes gleefully sucking the heads of these critters, with lip smacking enjoyment. Lets just say, I love the tails, and leave it at that.

The beef was cooked at the table in a ceramic bowl. A piece of beef fat was melted to provide the cooking fat, and then we were left to cook the thin strips of salted beef to our liking. The beef was well aged, and quite tasty.

Our final night in Madrid, we ate at yet another nearby restaurant. Still wanting something very Spanish, I looked for a pork dish since Spain has a love affair with all things pork. They had one offering: Roast Suckling Pig. Both Steve and I ordered it, along with a salad (each). I should have had a clue, when the waiter asked “Dos?” regarding the salad. They were huge, and obviously meant to be shared. Now I worried about the pig(s) we ordered. I feared the worst. A medieval image came to mind of a pig on a platter, surrounded by greens, with an apple in its snout. No, make that two since we both ordered up one. No problem, I’d grab hungry tourists from the street to help devour the two carcasses, should my worst fears be realized. Why waste them??

They finally arrived. Thankfully, no greenery, no snout stuffed with an apple, and eyeballs glaring at me in its final act of defiance. Simply two pieces of pork about the size of a ½ chicken. Still fully covered with skin, well browned and crisp. Steve had the upper ½ and I had the lower half (the combined made for a ½ pig) with my half complete with curly tail. While images of baby pigs lined up at their mother’s teats did cross my mind, along with the thought that because of my quest for a Spanish meal, baby Charlotte Pig was yanked from her siblings and the Porky family was now one less. I erased the image from my mind, and once again brought in my Chef-Heroes to sit beside me in my minds eye. The pork was tender, sweet and very tasty. The skin was crisp and tasty too. A quintessential Spanish meal that we enjoyed!

In Seville, we had an outdoor lunch on a side street. I had to have the Paella, and Sangria. How can you be in Spain without having had that combo? The paella was a bit disappointing. It was a step above Rice-A-Roni with seafood thrown in. My daughter cooks a much tastier version. But, I admit it tasted better with each gulp of the very good Sangria I had. Sitting outdoors, relaxing over lunch (rather than gulping it down) and laughing with Steve over silly observations, made the lunch worthwhile. That in itself made it a great lunch.

In Portugal, it is all about the seafood. It is everywhere, and very fresh. My regret was not to have ordered up a plate of sardines. While in Cascais, both Steve and I ordered up the cod (we usually order different plates to be able to sample more than one entrée). Darn it all!! I heard that the sardines are wonderful! But the setting was wonderful, right near the sea, outdoors on a sunny day. While the cod was fabulous, it was the setting that made for the experience.

I love Moroccan food. I have several cookbooks on the cuisine, and have cooked several tagines and other dishes with great success. I was really excited to go and have “the real thing”. But alas….it didn’t happen.

While we were in Morocco, fate would have it, it was in the midst of Ramadan, the month of fasting. Faithful Moroccans do not eat from sun-up to sundown.  Tourists and the not so faithful do still eat, but do so discreetly. Breakfast was of course was the usual, at the hotel. Dinner was after sundown (as it was all through the trip, rarely before 8pm), either at the hotel, or we had dinner as part of the “Optional tours” at a restaurant with show combination. Lunch, was at the point of being humorous, I almost felt like a kid with her hand in the forbidden cookie jar.

In Fes, our hotel was conveniently located across the street from the only (but very popular) McDonald’s in the city. Gee…. I don’t even eat at McDonald’s at home, and it was my main option, (other than something pricey from the hotel). I figured, OK…I have noted by the big window ads in McDonald’s in other countries that there is usually an offering based on the local tastes. In Austria, there was a Schnitzel burger, in Turkey, a Kofta burger, in Hungry there was a chicken paparishka burger. So I had hopes.

Then there it was, on the blazing menu a “Mac Arabia Burger”. It looked like a burger (with Moroccan spices?) on Moroccan style flatbread! A glimmer of hope of something different! I ordered one. Alas they were “Out” of this selection. WHAT!!?? How could that be! Oh Horrors of Horrors, it appeared that even the Arabian burger was out for Ramadan.

Of Religion and Men

In Spain, Portugal and Morocco, religion is a cornerstone. Because of this, visits to places of worship are inevitable. Spain and Portugal, like most of Europe have Cathedrals everywhere. As someone said “A-B-C!” (Another Bloody Cathedral). Perhaps these tours take us to these Cathedrals because they don’t cost a lot (if anything) to enter, and there is always much to see. The Cathedrals also tie in very nicely with history. Kings and other noteworthy individuals who have their mausoleums in Cathedrals are not unusual. Christopher Columbus’s mausoleum can be found in Seville, and is quite impressive. After seeing several Cathedrals, they all become one huge cathedral in my mind, since they all have striking similarities.

What really struck me on this trip (and I can’t tell you why) is the amount of money, time and work that went into a structures built for faith. Pounds of gold leaf (which in those times were hammered out by hand) covered huge altars. What was covered in hundred of pounds of gold leaf in the medieval days, nowadays could be covered in mere pounds with our methods of creating gold leaf. The use of “exotic” woods involved the wholesale clear cutting of cedar trees from nearby countries (or should I say complete harvesting till there is literally no more), and other exotic woods from places far away fill these cathedrals on the walls and other items.

Icons to which the faithful pray to for relief of various sufferings, and blessings loom almost garishly everywhere. Fine, I am not a believer of the Roman Catholic outlook on Religion. I never understood what I see as a direct conflict of the Roman Catholic way of praying to a Saint for whatever need needs to be fulfilled. I view this as not all too different than a form of worship of that saint.

The show doesn’t begin and end with the Cathedrals. We stopped at the famed Fatima site in Portugal. You know, the site where three young farm girls had visits from the Virgin Mary with special messages and predictions of the world’s fate. The area used to be farmland, grass and sheep being the main inhabitants. Now, there are streets lined with shops and kiosks selling all manner of religious icons, and souvenirs. There is a large church, with smaller adjacent areas for worship. The faithful come for daily services, to crawl on their knees while reciting the rosary for relief of what ails them or their loved ones. There is a large, paved sloped area, which I believe is for masses people to stand during Mass at the anniversary of the Visit and other High Holy Days. While standing there, in this vast parking lot type of area, I was not impressed by the “Holiness” or “Sacredness” that so many others are overwhelmed by. I found it almost a characateur of what religion should be. I half expected an Elvis like, Bible thumping Evangelist to descend from a helicopter amongst a showering of fireworks to the awe of quivering believers falling to their knees.

Muslims are not exempt from the showiness regarding religion. But for some reason, it did not strike me as garish as the showiness of the Cathedrals. In contrast, there are no human representations in a Mosque, nor are there any animals depicted in strict Muslim art. To depict living creatures and human beings in artwork is considered to be creating in the same manner as God created life. Humans just cannot perform such miracles. It is to be left to God.

Mosques can be very ornate and beautiful. A prime example of that is King Hassam ll Mosque in Casablanca. The tile work on the mosque and minaret is absolutely breath taking. The ornate carving work in the stone is enough to make you wonder how it was done. While the work is very ornate, the simplicity in the way it is presented, did not overwhelm me in the same way as the over the top ornate work in the Cathedrals.

Religious structures are the most lavish, the most expensive structures found anywhere in the world. Even the palaces, and castles of Kings pale in comparison. To enter any European Cathedral, or Mosque in any Muslim country you feel small, insignificant. You can’t help but want to become one of the faithful, to have Religion become your own cornerstone, even if only for that visit.

The Labyrinth of Unimaginable Sensations

Are you the glass ½ full, or ½ empty kind of person? Do you see the above heading as something positive, or negative?

To experience the Medina (old town) in Fes, or even just a tiny part as we did, will leave you undoubtedly with either a negative view, or a positive view. It is either something absolutely glorious or something that is absolutely revolting. I don’t think there is room for a middle ground opinion. Not surprisingly, Steve and I have different opinions. He refers to the Medina as the “sewer pit”, with a crinkled nose and a glare in his eyes that spells out utter disgust. He has no interest in ever visiting again. I think he tried to enjoy it, especially since my utter enjoyment was so evident. For him, one visit was interesting at best, but never ever again!

To say that I LOVED the Medina would not fully convey my feelings for the place. At every turn there was something else to marvel at. It is as far removed from the western way of doing things as I can imagine. There is no question that you are far from home, and that you might just be stepping outside of your comfort zone. The only question is, how far outside of your comfort zone can you be and still enjoy the experience?

The Medina is a labyrinth of narrow cobble stoned and dirt streets, in some places just wide enough for 2-3 people to be side by side. There are all sorts of shops selling everything from food to expensive carpets. There are narrow dark workshops where copper smiths, wool dyers, and carpenters create their goods. Shops with all sorts of spices looking like paint powders ready for sale, shops with dried nuts and fruit piled higher and with more abundance than any offering I have seen at home, shops with produce that I could not identify with certainty, and shops with sides of goat, and mystery animals hung unrefrigerated being inspected by flies were at every turn. Pots of fermenting meat (a Moroccan staple of sorts), and a wheelbarrow of still bleeding goat heads seemed to be a common sight to the locals.

Over burdened exhausted donkeys and mules, and man driven wheelbarrows seemed to be the only way to bring goods into and out of the Medina. No car, let alone truck could possibly fit down these narrow winding streets. Donkey and mule dung perfumed the air as much as the spices, bread, and smoke from the coal fed forges.

Sounds too, seemed to be intensified. Perhaps only because the streets were so narrow it all seemed amplified. Sounds of the Arabic language were as foreign and as exotic to my ears as the sights. The shouts of “BARRRAAAK!!” gave warning for everyone to get out of the way or be trampled on by a donkey straining under the weight of his load, punctuated the already sensory overload I was experiencing, and absolutely LOVING!

People of all sorts could be seen. The obvious tourists, some obviously experiencing discomfort, others with the look of wanna-be Indiana Jones stood out from the locals with their pale skin, and cameras clicking away at every view point (I might be guilty of the later!). The locals also had a wide range of appearance. From jeans and T-Shits, to Moroccan national dress (a caftan like cover) to women with full veils. And everything in-between. It all was part of the human tapestry that filled the Medina, and added to its exotic flavor.

We were herded through the Labyrinth like sheep going to market. One guide in front, one in the middle and one in back, hurriedly (for me, and not fast enough for others) from one point to the next. The guides pointed out several points of particular interest along the way: a fruit and nut shop, a mosque, a metal smith, a woman making traditional flat bread, and the visit to the tannery, and carpet shop.

The tannery in itself was a wonder. Animal skins left to dry on rooftops. Vats of dye in saffron yellow, poppy red, and blues where workers stood thigh high in the dye. The pungent odors of ammonia, somewhat diluted if you chose to use the sprig of mint that was offered at the door, was strong enough to make me wonder how strong it was for the workers two stories below, and several yards away.

The carpet shop was dazzling in its colors and arrays of carpets. Like the Medina, each carpet was overwhelming in the play of colors, patterns and feel. Each one was fit for nothing less than that magical carpet ride of the stuff fairy tales are made of. To choose only one to take home (if only I had enough Durham to buy one!) would be impossible.

We only scratched the surface of this marvelous (or hellish) place. There is so much to see and to experience. I would love to go back and explore, and lose myself in all that the Medina has to offer. To say that the Medina will transport you back centuries is not much of an exaggeration. It is a place where time stood still, and standing still is impossible.

I Left My Heart in….

Every trip leaves me wanting more. To spend more time, to sample more of the art, of the culture of food and the way of life. I would like to go back to many cities and towns we visited on this trip. I would like to see more of Madrid and see a bull fight, and eat Iberian ham at the Museo De Jamon, then go spend more time at the Prado Museum which we ran through the day before the tour started. I would love to see more of Lisbon, of her hills and cable cars, and the bridge that looks like the Golden Gate Bridge with the statue of Jesus on a hill looming behind it making me wonder if the great land masses have merged San Francisco with Rio de Janeiro. I would love to spend a week in Seville, the city we fell in love with, riding the City bikes all over, learn Flamenco dancing and guitar and breathe in the sweet orange blossoms in the spring (well over 100,000 orange trees in this city) while getting tipsy on Sangria. I would love to go back to Fes and Marrakesh to explore the Medinas and take in the old ways of life, and learn more of the culture and religion and maybe take a Moroccan cooking class.

A tour is an introduction, a little tasty nibble to make you want more. If you haven’t been on a tour, try one. But be forewarned, traveling might be addicting!