1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (67 page)

Many proteins-in-green-sauce dishes are found throughout the Mediterranean, and they have become especially popular on menus in the States, where the formula seems to be replicated in nearly every Spanish-themed restaurant.
Salsa
verde
itself is a typical accoutrement of the Basque and Galician regions, often gracing
merluza
(the fish known as hake in Spain, as cod in Italy, and as whiting in the U.S.). No matter which fish is used, it’s complemented by the sauce—add some good crusty bread and a chilled white wine for complete enjoyment.

Where:
In New York
, Café Español, tel 212-505-0657,
cafeespanol.com
;
in Cleveland, OH
, Mallorca, tel 216-687-9494,
clevelandmallorca.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Gastronomy of Spain and Portugal
by Maite Manjón (1990);
cookstr.com
(search twenty minute shellfish sauté).
Tip:
Be careful to scrub all sand from any seafood to be cooked and served in the shell, such as clams and mussels.

Cervantes referenced the stew in
Don Quixote
, a scene from which is pictured here.

Sancho Panza’s excitement could hardly have been misplaced: The wide array of tempting ingredients that go into this lush Spanish everything-in-one-pot dish is indeed cause for celebration. But like so many other multi-ingredient stews,
olla podrida
has become a metaphor for hodgepodges of all sorts. A Spaniard might say, “Let’s not make it an olla podrida”—meaning a big, complicated to-do. In Louisiana, the same sort of event might be labeled a big gumbo, and in France, a bouillabaisse. Yiddish speakers might refer to a tzimmes, to mean an unnecessarily mixed-up event.

The dish itself, with its savory, deeply satisfying complexity, has a long history in Spain. Believed to be derived from the
adafina
, a slow-cooking pre-Sabbath casserole introduced to Spain by the Jews, it is also considered the forerunner of the very similar
cocido madrileño
, one of the country’s many regional
cocidos
(stews). Because the Spanish adaptation included pork, a meat forbidden to Jews, olla podrida was eaten in plain sight by Jews during the Inquisition as proof of their conversion to Christianity.

As Cervantes’s hero, Don Quixote, observed,
olla podrida
translates to “stinking pot.” In olden times, the earthenware crock (
olla
) was rarely washed, and so developed a putrid aroma (
podrida
meanmeans “rotten”). Nevertheless, by the sixteenth century the stew had become a favorite of commoners and royalty alike, and by 1660, Marie Thérèse of Austria had it served at her wedding to Louis XIV of France.

Despite its evocative name, it is a royal feast indeed. The most lavish versions include a vast array of meats: beef, marrow bones, both cured ham and fresh pork, chicken, a chunk of veal shoulder, and chorizo and blood sausages are all in the mix. For extra nourishment, cuts of fresh and salted ivory pork fat might make an appearance. Such meaty richness is mitigated by vegetables, of course, among them cabbage, leeks, carrots, turnips, and tomatoes (along with chickpeas for a little extra protein). All is mellowed with seasonings of caraway seeds and sometimes cinnamon and a gilding of saffron.

Variations according to individual cooks and regions are bound to be legion. Elinor Burt’s
Olla Podrida: Piquant Spanish Dishes from the Old Clay Pot
includes several Latin American versions, among them one based on fish. But at its most traditional, olla podrida is served as a three-course meal. The opulent stew provides an opener of golden, aromatic broth, plain or with rice or noodles. A platter of flavor-infused vegetables arrives, and finally the meats, sometimes graced with sauces of green herbs and capers in olive oil, garlicky potato-based aioli, or a light blend of olive oil, tomatoes, and cumin.

Protocol suggests a white wine with the soup and a red with the vegetables and meat, to say nothing of a long nap for dessert.

Mail order:
For classic olla pots, La Tienda, tel 800-710-4304,
tienda.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The Foods & Wines of Spain
by Penelope Casas (1982);
The Cuisines of Spain
by Teresa Barrenechea (2009);
Olla Podrida
by Elinor Burt (2009);
spanish-food.org
(click Meat Stews, then Olla Podrida);
finedininglovers.com
(search olla podrida).

One of the world’s costliest food products and certainly its most expensive spice, saffron is the 24-carat gold of the culinary world. Warmly sunny, mildly medicinal, and profoundly complex, it is valued for the memorably rich and earthy flavor and golden hue that it imparts to a multitude of beloved foods.

Indeed, saffron’s color was the inspiration for its Arabic name,
za’fran
(meaning “yellow”), which was transmuted to the Spanish
azafran
as the spice traveled the world between the eighth and fifteenth centuries.

Saffron actually begins with the color purple, in the mauve to amethyst tones of the narrow blossoms of the crocus bulb
Crocus sativus L.
Within those blossoms lie wispy inner stamens that divide into fragile slim threads. These are saffron, the golden threads that must be painstakingly extricated by hand, and only in early morning, during a brief harvest that runs from mid-October to about mid-November. Quite a daunting task, considering it takes some 75,000 blossoms to realize a single pound of saffron threads. And therein lies the reason the spice fetches such an extraordinary price, especially when it is of the highest quality. Fortunately, a little saffron goes a long way; a half-teaspoonful of crumpled threads adds enough color and flavor for
eight to ten servings of
paella Valenciana
(see next entry).

Lesser-quality saffron is usually sold in the less-expensive powdered form, but the best saffron comes in threads and is generally grown in La Mancha in Spain, and in even more limited amounts in India and the Abruzzi region of Italy. Once dried by roasting, the brittle threads turn deep brick-red in color, releasing their yellow-gold hue only after being soaked in water, wine, or broth just before being added to recipes.

Almost all the world has loved saffron at one time or another. Cleopatra is said to have taken baths in water suffused with the spice, then believed to smooth complexions and increase sex appeal. And centuries ago, the Chinese and Japanese brewed medicinal tisanes from its threads, still valued as a good source of vitamin B
₂
and riboflavin. During the Medieval and Renaissance periods, saffron was used as a dye for fabrics as well as for painters’ pigments, and even today, it appears as a coloring agent in many cosmetics.

In the realm of the gustatory, saffron is much favored in rice dishes such as Indian
biryani
(see
listing
), Iranian
kuku
, and the sweet Tibetan rice pudding
dresi
that commonly makes appearances during Losar, the Tibetan New Year. At any time of year, the Milanese rely on it for the golden glow it adds to their native
risotto
(see
listing
). The French insist upon it for authentic
bouillabaisse
(see
listing
), and some Italians consider it essential in the similar fish soup-stew
brodetto
(see
listing
). The Swedish gild their St. Lucia yeast buns with the spice (see
listing
) just as some Milanese bakers add it to
panettone
(see
listing
). The English county of Cornwall is as well known for its golden sunsets as it is for the many versions of Cornish saffron cakes, breads, and buns that light up its bakery windows.

Because saffron is so expensive, many cooks are driven to substitutes such as turmeric or the annatto seeds commonly used in Latin America’s yellow rice dishes. With milder, somewhat less complex flavors, these substitutes may fool the eye, but rarely the nose or the palate.

Mail order:
spicehouse.com
(search spanish saffron, annato seeds, turmeric).
Further information and recipes:
For an intriguing history of saffron as a coloring agent,
Color: A Natural History of the Palette
by Victoria Finlay (2002). See also
The Essential Saffron
by John Humphries (1998);
The Foods & Wines of Spain
by Penelope Casas (1982);
Spice: Arabic Flavors of the Mediterranean
by Ana Sortun (2000);
saveur.com
(search saffron for a multitude of good recipes);
festivals.iloveindia.com
(search Tibetan dresi sweet saffron rice).
Tip:
Exposure to light and air weakens saffron’s color, aroma, and flavor, and moisture causes spoilage—so saffron should be stored in opaque containers of the smallest possible size in a cool, dry closet. Assuming it was fresh when purchased, it should keep for between eighteen months and two years.

A chef participates in a paella-cooking competition in Spain.

From their posts halfway down the Mediterranean coast of Spain, Valencians are justifiably proud of their delicate short-grain rice and of the famous dish based on it. For paella is more than just a dish: It is a grand passion, a subject of
controversy, and an exercise in culinary proficiency that has tied with gazpacho as Spain’s best-known restaurant dish.

The key to a classic preparation lies in the paella pan—a giant, flat vessel into whose slightly concave center the ingredients are placed, most authentically to simmer outdoors over a wood fire. That fire is integral as well, lending a smoky patina that adds interest, whether the paella is made with seafood, poultry, or game. In properly made paella, a crust of caramelized rice forms on the bottom of the pan: This is the prized
socarrat
, from the Spanish verb for toasting.

Named for the pan—the term comes from the Latin
patella
, which the Castilians adapted to
paella
, meaning simply a pan or cauldron for frying—the original paella Valencia was a celebratory dish cooked in the open air of the rice field and eaten straight from the pan with wooden spoons. The saffron-flavored rice would be combined with rabbit and chicken, broad green beans, white beans such as lima or butter beans, tomatoes, paprika, and snails in their shells. Seafood paella (
paella de marisco
), which is often confused with the original, was a later invention; typically it is not made with meat or fowl, although sometimes pungent
morcilla
sausage gets added to the mix.