Cheers.
Food is my true passion.
I’m Gemma Stafford, a professional chef and host of Bigger Bolder Baking.
So that means great food is a huge part of my every day life.
You’ve seen me boldly bake over the top recipes.
Now travel with me on my culinary adventures around the world.
In this episode of Gemma Eats, I’m back in Barcelona, Spain exploring the city on
a secret food tour to enjoy more amazing Spanish treats and you’re coming along with me for
the ride all right now, on Gemma Eats.
Hi from sunny Barcelona.
Myself and Kevin are here on vacation and we are about to embark on a culinary adventure.
We are a part of a secret food tour here in Barcelona where we get to experience some
of the real hidden gems of this city.
I really can’t wait and I’m going to take you along for the ride.
So let’s go.
Barcelona is a city built from passion and there’s no better example than the famous
architect Gaudi.
As a brilliant creator, he infused his love of nature with architecture to create such
distinctive designs.
What I was about to experience was how passion is the secret ingredient that transforms even
the simplest Spanish dish.
This is our Secret Food Tour guide, Miguel.
He’s originally from Salamanca Spain but he knows Barcelona so well and he definitely
knows great food.
I hope you feel like another member of the group as we explore this amazing city together.
We started in the Born District to get a really good sense of not only the city’s food but
its history too.
Our first stop took us to a shop run by a husband and wife couple dedicated to making
the best breakfast pastries.
Inside is a very sweet woman named Maria who does churros and chocolate.
She’s like my grandmother so I’m very happy.
But how do I explain that?
It’s…Everything inside is homemade, okay, from the chocolate to the base to the churros,
okay, but you can almost already know that without or before being with me, if you know
how to read this.
Look at the words here.
Churreria, that’s nothing, it means a churros place.
So the important word here is Granja.
Granja means a farm, both in Catalan and Spanish.
So basically 40-50 years ago, the farmers from the countryside started with the idea
of opening small shops like this one to be able to sell their fresh produce to more people
in the big cities.
We’re talking…milk places, cereals, meat, anything.
There are many of them.
Check it out when you see one because it’s always, like, very authentic.
Some of them became a bit messy but most of them are the same way you think about the
product, it’s always good to try, okay.
Let’s go.
In addition to their olive oil fried churros, I was about to try churros popular cousin,
porres, and of course, thick drinking chocolate.
Try before you dip inside so you know how it tastes.
She adds some addition of cinnamon and orange blossom.
It’s like a delicious spoon.
Do you see how thick that is?
And it’s not too sweet either.
It’s perfect for the churro.
Now I’m going to try to porres.
This guy is thicker and not as sweet as the churro.
It is lighter.
I’m still going to eat it but I prefer the churro.
And of course, I had to get a photo with the chef before we left.
So our first stop on our culinary adventure, we just had some churros and some really lovely
thick hot chocolate and then some porres.
They were absolutely delicious.
I think the churro was my favorite.
As we walked through the streets of Born, I started to get a better sense of how the
locals lived.
Our next stop, the Santa Catalina market.
It’s the second oldest market in the city after La Boqueria.
Miguel’s tip was to keep an eye out for the grandmas when you’re shopping.
Because just like I learned growing up in Ireland, no one makes food with more love
than you’re granny.
If you open a book about Spanish food or Mediterranean gastronomy for example, they will tell you
Spanish gastronomy or Mediterranean gastronomy is a gastronomy of produce and a gastronomy
of transformation.
Meaning that the idea is to take the produce you have of the best quality and to transform
it to make a dish that is going to feed your people.
Transforming sometimes means actually not doing anything.
When you have an amazing squid, don’t cook it too much.
Don’t many sauces, it’s good enough.
Maybe some spices, maybe some of that.
So that is an ability that is hard to have: to adapt.
And when you do that every day, not for a fancy product, but to feed your people so
you have to do it, you have to improvise with that every day for 30 years.
When you do that for 30 years, it becomes a part of your DNA to improvise, to adapt.
The good thing is that you’re never going to starve in Spain.
We will always feed you, okay.
Let’s go.
I’ve already seen three grannies.
And feed us, Miguel did.
We enjoyed a variety of Spanish cheeses including a lesser known one called Payoyo, a goat’s
cheese mixed with a little bit of sheep’s milk.
That’s good.
Kind of creamy and salty at the same time.
There’s a little nugget in here.
I’m definitely all about food in cones.
Then it was on to the jamon, where we learn about how the Spanish create these amazing
results.
There are four elements you can play with to higher the quality.
So let’s say we all in a group want to raise and pig and make some good ham.
The first element would be obviously the animal we choose to grow or raise.
The second element that we’re going to give you is how we feed the animal.
This is the important thing.
The third element that is very useful to know, the leg we take from the pig is going to make
a difference.
What we call jamon in Spain is only the back legs.
Only the back legs of the animal.
The front legs are called paleta.
We make a difference like you make a difference when you take any piece of animal, steak or
roast beef, right?
But the paleta will be a little more muscular, a bit harder, when the back legs are more
tender, more fatty.
Last element, very important, the curing process.
We cure the ham.
We don’t cook it.
You’ve seen it hanging, right?
So what happens is we do the same as the cheese.
So which one is this again?
I’m not going to tell you.
I’m going to tell you after.
Okay.
I promise you.
It’s like a guessing game.
So which one did you like the most?
This one.
It’s kind of sweet.
This one?
Yeah, sweet and salty.
This one?
Oh, it’s yum.
I think this is my favorite.
This jamon was a little big softer, and it was like sweet and salty.
Oh, yum.
After the cheese and jamon, I started to get a little bit thirsty, so fortunately, Miguel
had a plan.
Now the bottle you have here, this one, is called a porron.
P-O-double R-O-N.
This bottle was invented at the end of the Middle Ages when it become a problem with
men sharing the same bottle.
It is nothing more elegant than this.
They used to all go to the taverns and the bars and all would share from the same bottle.
Very fun, not super hygienic.
They started with the idea of making this so they all share in the same atmosphere,
but not share other stuff because you don’t touch this bottle.
Only later did they realize that the wine bottle was very well designed for making the
wine breath.
It wasn’t at all meant for it.
So of course, everybody had to try some, including my husband Kevin and I.
There you go.
Go Kevin.
Perfect.
You didn’t even dribble.
Okay, got this.
Do you want me to help you?
No, I’m good.
Yeah, very good.
Alright.
Now that we had a few snacks to start out the day, It was time for something a little
bit more substantial.
Let’s go, tapa time.
Or tapas time.
I love tapas and our lunch stop reinforced that even more.
It was just a reminder about how even the littlest bite brings people together.
Tapas is not…now it’s like a design.
You think it’s a design, its like, basically when you do small portions.
The reason we started to eat like this wasn’t for a design.
We didn’t… it wasn’t like some people in an office like, we’re going to do this,
small portions.
No, it happened naturally from a very convenient process.
Basically, imagine you’re a working class person, you work in the construction or something.
These guys are really poor, so when they used to go to the bars and taverns, they used to
ask for the same but they could only afford either the drink or the food.
You can imagine the choice they would make.
So of course, they would choose the wine and no food, and they would go back to work tipsy
and nothing in their belly, which was probably very fun but not super nice for productivity.
So the king established a new law saying that for every glass of alcohol that was poured
in every bar, restaurant, or tavern, you would have to give a free sample of food, a free
tapa.
It started to be something that was very convenient.
The bars were always giving away small portions because it was convenient.
That was the beginning.
That was how tapas were born.
A fried sort of ball, with mashed potato and meat.
Gently…
Nice.
Gorgeous.
Thank you.
Oh yeah.
Yum.
Oh yeah, that’s yummy.
Those patatas bravas are really good, aren’t they?
What I like about them is they’re always really crispy and crunchy.
I think it’s the double frying.
I think it is the double frying.
You reach a level where food becomes emotions, there’s a story in the dish.
In this case, of course, the way it looks tells… is the beginning of the story.
So it plays a big role.
But when you talk about tapas, its popular.
Its like all together, you don’t even look at the food.
You take and you don’t even look at it and then you have it in your mouth and you’re
still talking with your friend, and then like, oh well that was good, so you don’t even
look at it.
It doesn’t need to be pretty.
It’s my opinion.
It’s a little bit like Irish food.
Irish food, it doesn’t always look the best, but it tastes the best.
Exactly.
Yeah.
I loved it.
I had patatas bravas, which are like my favorite thing ever, had two glasses of cava for lunch,
which is absolutely delicious.
I had some calamari, what else did I have Kevin?
I had two glasses of cava.
Next up, we explored a shop that has been doing what they do best for years.
They light a fire behind here, there is a funnel here, you put your nuts and stuff here,
and it smokes it and toasts it at the same time.
It’s pretty incredible isn’t it.
Did he say it was like in the 1800’s?
1851, is that right?
It’s incredible and I guaran…this is all original wall and original kiln.
That’s impressive.
Smells unbelievable.
All of these nuts here, macadamia nuts, almonds, hazelnuts, they are all roasted in the fire
back there in the kiln.
Amazing.
Look at that.
Delicious.
It’s like caramel and nuts.
Toasted almonds.
Check these out.
They’re Spanish toasted almonds.
What I love about them is they’re all different shapes and sizes.
Different textures, thickness.
This is what almonds should be.
They’re not uniformed.
They’re absolutely lovely.
We made our way to Barceloneta, a seaside neighborhood that featured our next eat.
Miguel had definitely saved the best for last, lovely rich rice and seafood paella.
That’s beautiful.
Thank you.
Look at the color.
Like, you don’t get prawns the color of that where we’re from.
Yeah, aren’t they gorgeous?
According to Miguel, paella can succeed or fail by seconds.
The goal is tender rice and perfectly cooked shellfish all at the same time.
They make you work for it, don’t they?
For paella.
There you go.
They are really good.
I think this is some of the nicest paella I’ve ever had.
Now, of course, we had to end our meal with a little dessert.
This is the end of our meal, tarta de Santiago
It’s like an almondy cake.
It’s good.
How’re you holding up?
Good.
I’m stuffed.
Paella, sangria, cake, cheese, jamon… stuffed.
Cheers.
In Spain, great food is about the magical combination of good ingredients, simply prepared.
What Barcelona exemplifies is that great food really is about emotion, especially love.
I want to say a huge thank you to Miguel and Secret Food Tours Barcelona for bringing us
on a fantastic adventure.
Coming up next week on Gemma Eats… at Disneyland.
I am taking you to the happiest place on Earth to show you some of my favorite theme park
eats and even enjoy a few other adventures all right here, on Gemma Eats.