Lent Lunch

So, I decided to try it out. You know, Cuaresma. Why not? I can abstain with the best of them (for short periods and when large quantities of food are available).

I bought a book: La Cocina de Cuaresma (The Cuisine of Lent), Raquel F. Moran. It's from the same series as The Cuisine of the Nuns, if you must know: a little murky on the details, but altogether a fine source of ideas.

This Friday, I invited Yukiko, an accomplished cook in her own right, to try my Lenten creations. The imagined menu was a salad of some sort to start (I had an eggplant in my fridge so it was going to feature); Arroz de Cuaresma (Lenten Rice); a seafood item; Judias Verdes con Pimientos (Green Beans with Peppers); and, for dessert, Bollos de Semana Santa (Easter Rolls), a traditional Lenten sweet containing no less than half a litre of olive oil.

Predictably, and despite my best intentions, the last two items were dropped due to time contraints. Let's face it, the beans would have been excessive. And we were really much better off going for a coffee and buñuelos at Forn de Sant Jaume (Rambla Catalunya, just south of Arago), one of my favourite places for fresh buñuelos (bunyols, in Catalan) and outdoor people watching. Buñuelos, by the way, are delicious balls of fried and sugar coated dough and are also typical of Lent.

The on-the-fly eggplant salad went a little something like this: on a bed of mizuna, a.k.a. Japanese mustard greens (could have been arugula), I arranged three slices of eggplant (brushed with olive oil and roasted the night before in a 220 C oven for half an hour, flipped once), a piece of fresh goat cheese (could have have been ricotta, queso fresco or another mild, soft cheese), and the honeyed walnuts I had purchased at the Santa Maria del Pi market a few weeks ago. I drizzled the whole thing with balsamic cream, which is easily found here, but which could substituted by a good balsamic reduction where it's not available. And presto: simple, beautiful, scrumptious.

In contrast, the arroz (think of it as a vegetarian paella) was complicated. But I decided to follow the recipe to the letter this time--more or less. Here's the tweaked version.

Ingredients:

For the stock:
1/2 kilo sardines
2 onions
2 bay leaves
6 cups of water
salt

For the rice:
1 large red pepper
1 medium onion
3 tomatoes
1 green pepper
3/4 cup fresh or frozen peas
2 cups short grain rice
6 tbsp of oil
pinch of saffron
1 finely chopped garlic clove
handful of chopped parsley
salt and pepper

First, prepare the fish stock (caldo)--The recipe doesn't give instruc- tions, but I used sardines (any cheap and flavourful fish will do--Spanish markets have inexpensive "pescado de sopa" or "pescado de roca" which will remind you a bit of the fish you used to have in your aquarium, but which are perfect for stock), quartered onions, bay leaves and salt (as above) covered with about 6 cups of water. Bring to a boil then simmer slowly for 30-40 minutes. Strain out the solids and keep warm. (Actually, I give you permission to use a pre-packaged stock--fish, chicken or vegetable--if you want to save yourself the hassle and your home the smell of boiled sardines.)

While the fish stock is simmering, roast a large, red pepper (I halved it and left it skin side up in a 220 C oven for 30 minutes). Remove from the oven, peel and slice into thin strips. (If you don't want to fuss with the roasting, just slice the red pepper and add it at the same time as the green pepper.)

Also by way of preparation, finely chop the onion; peel and chop the tomatoes (score them on top and immerse in boiling water for 30 seconds to peel); cook the peas; and slice the green pepper into strips.

Once everything is ready, heat two table spoons of oil in a large paella pan or wide bottomed, high sided frying pan. Add the onion and sautee until soft (about five minutes). Add the chopped tomatoes and cook until they start to take on a sauce like consistency. At this point, remove from the heat and, according to the recipe, puree the whole thing and set aside. (I pureed half because I have a crappy manual press and it was proving too frustrating a process. I believe the rice would be just as good if you didn't puree at all.)

Add another 3-4 tbsp. of olive oil to the pan and sautee the green pepper until soft. Add the rice and tomato puree. Shuffle the whole thing around in the pan for a bit then pat down evenly and add the stock along with a bit of salt and pinch of saffron. You'll need about twice as much stock as rice (you can play with the rice and stock quantities and add more stock through the cooking process if it's evaporating too quickly). Allow to simmer for about 20-25 minutes until the stock is fully absorbed by the rice. Do not cover. And be careful with the heat: it needs to be high enough to keep the pan simmering, but not so high that it burns the bottom of the rice (my perennial mistake).

Do not stir. This is not risotto.

About 10 minutes in, add the roasted red pepper, peas, and the parsley and garlic moistened with 2 tbsp. of warm stock. Now you can stir. When everything is incorporated, distribute the rice evenly around the pan again and pat down. If you need to add more stock, this is a good time to do so. It's also a good time to check the seasoning and add more salt if necessary.

Cook on low heat until all the stock is absorbed. When done, set aside to rest for a few minutes and take the opportunity to make the chipirones (baby squid).

I picked up the chipirones the day before at the Boqueria and cleaned them ahead of time by rinsing under cold water and pulling out the crystalline spines.

I had no particular recipe so I sauteed a finely chopped garlic clove in 2 tbsp of hot olive oil for a minute or so, tossed in the chipirones (about 1/2 to 3/4 pound) for 2-3 minutes (until just firm) and sprinkled with half a handful of fresh, chopped tarragon and some salt about a minute before I turned off the heat. The tarragon gives them a delicate sweetness and they are great alongside the rice. They're also a quick and easy tapa.

You can serve all of this with cava (Catalan sparkling wine, comparable to champagne), as I did, or maybe sauvignon blanc (I like the ones from New Zealand).

And, if you're not as much abstaining as indulging, no one will be the wiser.

La Cuaresma

We're in the middle of Cuaresma, Ladies and Gentlemen. That's right, the seven weeks of Lent are upon us--well, upon the unlapsed Catholics among us anyway.

In case you're unclear, Lent is the 40 day period of abstinence and fasting between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday. The modern rules of Lent require fasting on Ash Wednesday (Miercoles de Ceniza) and Good Friday (Viernes Santo) and abstinence from meat on all other Lenten Fridays--that traditionally includes eggs and milk, but not fish. Apparently, that's the reason Fillet of Fish sales spike in North America before Easter.

Why doesn't fish fall within the meat prohibition? Some say it's the shedding of animal blood during Lent that's really the issue and, in particular, the blood of warm blooded animals, which tends to arouse the passions; that's not so much of a problem with fish apparently, which are as cold blooded as they come. Others think that meat was prohibited during Lent because it was historically a sign of wealth and power and its removal from the diet was a true deprivation; again, not historically the case with fish.

Sardines, salt cod, herring and eel are typical of Cuaresma. So are stews of chickpeas and beans. The staples of fast food cuisine--bread (flour), water and oil--are also commonly used in Spanish Lenten cooking because they are viewed as "poco nutritivo" and therefore in keeping with the tradition of abstinence.

That brings us to the ushering in of Cuaresma on Ash Wednesday, which occurred in Barcelona with the Entierro de la Sardina (the Burial of the Sardine). I guess if you're going to bury something, a sardine is as good as anything else.

The burial, I must divulge, was not as much a burial as a cremation, which this year took place before a couple of hundred spectators in Parc Clot, where I dutifully took myself a few weeks ago.

As legend has it, the tradition of the burial of the sardine goes back to the 19th century when Carlos III allegedly ordered the burial of a shipload of spoiled sardines on the eve of Lent. The burial acted out today recalls this event and symbolizes the letting go of all vices in anticipation of the traditional religious period of spiritual cleansing.

In modern day Barcelona, the burial is accompanied by a parade celebrating the end of Carnaval and the beginning of Cuaresma. La Hijastra de Cuaresma (the stepdaughter of Lent, pictured above), an emaciated hag whose seven legs symbolize the seven weeks of Lent, carries with her seven sardines reminding spectators of the Lenten diet. In case that doesn't bring the message home, the seven stooges that accompany her menace innocent bystanders with raw sardines. (A related aspect of Spanish Lenten tradition, by the way, is the hanging of a cardboard Hijastra de Cuaresma in the kitchen and the cutting off of one of her seven legs on each Sunday of Lent to mark the passing of the time of deprivation.)

La Hijastra de Cuaresma and her seven companions vanquish the seven days of Carnaval and send the Carnaval king (King Carnestoltes) off to be buried along with the sardine following the reading of Carnestoltes' will by his weeping widow. This is all very dramatic and really gets the crowd going, as does the samba over to the sardine's funeral pyre.

The whole spectacle is finished off with a sardinada (a sardine grill up), for which eager Barcelonites line up for hours. This isn't as much an indicator of popularity as it is a side effect of the 2 hour tardy start of the sardine cremation; así es la vida en España, Cuaresma or no Cuaresma.