Food

It is a quite Thursday evening. We just finished eating supper (which we usually eat together at around 9) and doing dishes. I went in to La Purisima today to talk to one of the older classes and the kids were shy at first but once we got going it was pretty fun. On Wednesday I had my first really full day of teaching, the longest one of the week for me from now on. I go over to Llado in the mornings, as I have to be there at 9 I have to start maneuvering the bus system at about 8. There I move through the classes with the English teachers. Then at 12:30 I get back on the buses and go to La Purisima where I work with the 6-8 year olds. But it is pretty fun because I get to do PE with them which entails playing outside. All in all I think work will be fun. I am hoping to get some private tutoring work though so I can actually afford living in this city!
I have been being introduced to all sorts of cultural information and food and I am pretty proud of myself (turns out my parents' years of trying to teach me to eat what I am served has panned out rather well).

As far as the food here goes, well, it is quite different from in America. However, their cafeteria food at the schools is pretty standard. We eat off of metal trays with 4 compartments. My first day I was served noodles in a broth. I sat down in the teacher dining hall and started forking the noodles. Marga, one of the English teachers asked me just what I thought I was doing eating soup with a spoon. Realizing that this was soup and feeling rather silly I went for a sarcastic joke, saying, "oh, this is how we do it in America." Turns out that did not translate well and now every time we eat soup Marga offers me a fork. We have now established that Americans do not, in fact, eat soup with forks but she still teases me.

Aside from that incident, I have been trying all the different kinds of food possible. The first thing to note about Mallorcans is that they put olive oil and salt on most of their foods. The first time Marga saw me putting cheese on a slice of bread she offered me some olive oil and was rather shocked to hear that we do not do this regularly. A common food here, pan boli, is a slice of bread, with oil, salt, a slice of tomato and a slice of cured ham (jamon cerrano) to top it off. Also sometimes they put cheese on it. I tried this for the first time tonight and was happily surprised. Look mom, I am eating tomatoes voluntarily! There is also this kind of small tomato which you cut in half and squeeze out over the bread, almost like a lemon or something.

Another local food is called 'sobrasada'. Once a year families get together and slaughter a pig and make meats for themselves for the year. Sobrasada is this meat, ground up and mixed with a variety of spices. Not very spicy but a very full flavor. I like it spread on a slice of bread topped with a local cheese, Manchega.
On Tuesdays Cristina, another of the Spanish teachers, gets done with work at 1 and we have decided to make these girls' afternoons b/c her kids don't get out of class until 5. This past Tuesday we drove up to the mountain village Valldemossa where there is the church where Chopin hung out and composed. Cristina had been coming to visit the village since she was a small girl and she insisted that I try a common snack here called coca de patata. It is made of potato but made like a bread. It comes in the form of a bun and is sprinkled with powdered sugar. Pretty tasty. I also drank a small 'horchata' some sort of nutty tasting milky blended ice.(pictured left is me in the Valldemossa gardens with coca patata and horchata).

A national favorite is paella. It is pretty much a hodge-podge of seafoods and land meats with arroz brut (dirty rice). It is, as I sometimes call the foods which I am not sure about right away, 'interesting'. Marga teases me about that too.
A lot of what they eat here on the islands is heavily based in foods grown here on the islands. For example, the other day, driving back from our mountain excursion Cristina and I saw a bunch of men out picking olives out of the trees with long hooks. They are then processed here on the island and bottled and then I pour them over my pan boli. It is really nice to see the places where my food comes from, so close to home.

The main trees that I see around here are olive, orange and almond. And grazing underneath and around them are sheep and cattle. The olive trees are so beautiful, with gnarled trunks and almost sage-like colored leaves, dancing in the sun and sea breeze. They are representative of these islands as it is one of their large exports, comprising a significant portion of their economy (far second of course to tourism which comprises more than half their economy).
Well, more later, off to bed for now.