You know food is bad when English people complain.

You know food is bad when English people complain. No offense to my ham loving friends, but the food in Spain is, at best, humorous, at worst...even the simplest thing you order here is designed to make you feel noticeably older by the time you finish eating. The strange thing is that they have amazing ingredients all around them and everything grows here - the raw elements are fabulous - almonds, olives, olive oil, avocados, grapes, cactus, tropical fruit, citrus fruits, honey...and the growing season in Andalucia is almost the entire year. I thought I was being picky - I am very demanding when it comes to food, but then my English acquaintances started telling me how bad everything is. That settled it - I will continue to live on the raw ingredients around me, to eat a little too much bread to fill in the missing calories, add a little wine, and be happy with it. Just no more restaurant meals until I find a sushi place! Even the carrot soup I had the other day made me feel bad - don't want to know why. Really. Carrot soup? It's like ruining grilled cheese - a joke that goes way back in my foodie family, from an outing to a place where we all ended up ordering grilled cheese because, well, it's impossible to ruin a grilled cheese sandwhich. Not.

The note I posted about learning that Spanish cuisine is so high in oil and animal products because they wanted to distinguish the True Spanish from the Jews and Muslims in the 16th c., well...I think said Jews and Muslims have had their revenge. Simply by letting time pass, they've seen 4oo years of Spanish people get old before their time, get super duper wrinked by the time they're 30, and die young of hardening of the arteries. Oh, and feel like shit along the way. I think I'd rather promote cultural diversity than die by grease. Of course now it's too late, because they've forgotten why they eat this way and they think it must be their cultural identity. It's as if they don't know they live between France and Morocco, or something. I'd say ignorance is bliss, but it's more like assisted suicide in this case.

And someone needs to arrest the travel writers (who are crazy) who laud chocolate y churros like it's something heavenly. It's a cup of hot chocolate with donuts! I think most people with the wherewithal to get to Spain have probably also encountered a cup of hot chocolate and/or a donut in their lives. Honestly, people. People! Hot chocolate is a wonderful thing - but donuts? Do books on touring the USA tout Navajo Fry Bread as a delicacy? To foreigners? People who come from Paris, and Rome, and even, Madrid, would have to feel insulted by that, no? I'm checking on this.