This spring break, with no detailed planing (we bought the tickets a week from departure), the Mrs and I took a road trip through Andalusia. We started in Madrid, went to Granada, circled to Cordoba and then back to Madrid, stopping when curiosity struck. Being Semana Santa only added to the fun.

Molecular gastronomy

After the Prado in Madrid, we felt like a snack and walked into a café. The Mrs asked for a torta española, a traditional omelet made with sliced potatoes and onions. The waitress discreetly shook her head at the Mrs, suggesting it was not good. Upon reading the full name of the dish, Spanish Omelet from the XXI Century, I ordered it despite the admonitions. The omelet was a warm foam: the lighter colored one tasted like french fries and the deeper yellow one of eggs. The foam had a few drops of olive oil and in the bottom of the serving glass a surprise bit of caramelized onions. Different and wonderful.

Through the trip we also tried foams as desserts and a wonderful ox breast cooked sous-vide.

Oranges

Oranges are everywhere. And the juice is always fresh-squeezed, sometimes from oranges grown nearby.

Design

At Santa Cruz de Mudela we came across this form follows content container for an individual serving of olive oil.

I also developed a completely unfounded and known to be wrong theory (but still fun) that the rind of the Manchego cheese is not from the esparto grass baskets, but in imitation of cobblestone patterns found in the Alhambra and throughout Andalusia. Dark cobbles, laid on their side, are used in walkways, typically in a V-pattern, and contrasting with rounder white cobbles.