The disarmament
Para el desarme
Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias. “Spinach?” I was wandering through the market, the part where local folk bring their market garden produce to sell, tying to choose just which apples, figs, onions, mushrooms and the like I wanted. “Spinach?” Repeated the woman, “For the disarmament”.
Of course I’m translating, but El Desarme is what she said. Erm, I said.
“Desarme, desarme. You need spinach?”
I’d seen signs up in a few restaurants, they said El Desarme menu, spinach chickpeas and cod (the lovely bacalao, preserved in salt and then washed before cooking), followed by callao (I think) which (I think) is a tripe based stew, one of my students described it to me a few months ago, followed by rice pud.
El desarme is a tradition, rather than anything organized. It commemorates one of the battles of Oviedo in the Carlist wars, or the second Carlist wars. It’s also part harvest festival food (although why they need to use the tripe I’m not sure, the rest of the pig’s available no?).
So of course I bought the spinach and some bacalao and (heretically) added onions and tomato… it was lovely.
Tags: food, market, oviedo
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I can’t see chickpeas without thinking of the bucket of fermenting chickpeas left by James at the villa in Mallorca when he went home after week one. It kind of coloured my view for some time……. though this looks lovely!