Christmas Eve Gangsters

Useful Spanish saying of the Day

"Me encuentro mal."

English translation:  "I'm getting sick."

This Christmas Eve, instead of putting ornaments on the tree, listening to the Little Drummer Boy, and sipping on hot-coco, I went across Madrid to pick up Abuela Titi - Manuel's grandma on his father Antonio's side of the family.  What I had done most of the day I don't quite remember.  Surely it was a mix of napping, reading 1984, napping again, eating, and more napping.  It's all kind of blurry still.  Anyway, sometime around 9pm, dinner time in Spain, Manuel's three brothers and I drove across town to escort grandma to dinner at the Fraile's apartment.  Dressed in Manuel's stylish jacket just barely large enough for me, wearing my nice $12 Moroccan shoes, and cruising round Madrid in a mini-van with 3 nearly identical, similarly well-dressed and combed over Spanish speakers- I had the not so discomforting feeling that I was a friend of the main Mafia-family and we were escorting the kingpin Godmother back to headquarters.  The click of my heels on the salmon colored walkway up to the apartment building and our seemingly tacit agreement of silence added to the effect.  I tried to keep from smiling lest I should ruin the moment.  It was pretty funny.  In my mind that is... ok, ok. Anyway, we got grandma.  We brought her back to the apartment and commenced operation "La Noche Buena." This is the name for Christmas Eve in Spanish and it translates to The Good Night. About as creative as Christmas Eve if you ask me.  This consisted of setting the table and having hors d'oeuvres from the sea. As you can see from the picture below...

this is the colorful (mostly red and pink) food typical of a meal from the northwest corner of Spain known as Galicia (the c pronounced as th in think).  Visible foremost in the picture is a big spider crab known as centollo, or in English, Spider crab.  The body is mostly removed but remaining in the shell, behind the eyes where I imagine the brain would be, is a soft brown cream that tastes like the sea.  Everyone usually takes a little spoonful of this brain-pudding then grabs a leg or two with which to wrestle for the chewy insides.  To the right in the picture above you can see gambas, or shrimp.  The Spanish wash the shrimp but serve them with head, shell, legs and all.  It's your job as the eater to clean your own damn food by disarming the little bastards and removing their chain mail and helmet.  As the meal progresses you can keep your body count by admiring the growing number of shrimp heads and legs piling on your plate.  I kind of like the Spanish mentality of, hey- I was kind enough to go out and buy the damn shrimp, you can clean them yourself.  It's minimalist.  It's minimalist, right?  Anyway, the Spanish pinch the heads off the gambas, suck the juice from the head, then remove the rest of the undesirable parts and gobble up the body.  In the picture below

you can see camerones, a smaller, cuter version of gambas.  These crunch in your mouth as the shells are too small to bother with but just large enough to offer resistance.  Finally, the orange blob pictured below is made of nécoras, Spanish for crabs.  Everybody gets a nécora and you remove the heavy plate of armor, tear apart the insides and savor the white meat within.

After these starters comes the pork dish with a side of mash potato purée, salsa de frambuesa (raspberry sauce), home made applesauce, and a rip of bread to clean the palate in between bites.  Altogether, with a little white whine to wash it down, the dish looks like this...

Here is the family altogether, American included.  After that mouth watering meal, the Useful Spanish saying of the Day comes in handy.  Fed with nothing but Dickinson College caf food for the last 4 months my body is still recuperating from the sudden change to Spanish delicacies.

After dinner I proceeded to school Manuel's twin brother Jaime in chess, finishing the night with a record of 1-1.  Slowly the evening unwound as the brothers drove Grandma Titi back to her hideout and each then slipped into their respective beds.  T'was la Noche Buena, when all through the apartment, not an animal was stirring, not even a rata.

Merry Christmas to all!  Hope you enjoyed the blog. There is more to come of my Spanish Christmas Adventure.  Much love from yours truly,
World Citizen