Eating in Canarias, Part 1: Home Cookin’

Happy Friday! I am sitting on the roof of my apartment building, listening to waves crashing against the shore as my laundry spins in the washing machine. I spend a lot of time up here, taking my time arranging my clothes on the drying racks while scanning the water for dolphins. On normal laundry days, I’m zipping up and down the four flights of stairs to do other chores between cycles, but today, I’ve been forcibly sidelined by a sprained ankle. So I hauled my laptop up to the roof and am here to write about what really matters: Canarian food. 

the view from up top

When I found out I’d be in Canarias, one of my first Google searches was, of course, “Canary Islands cuisine”. I was initially a little sad that the famed Spanish tapas didn’t seem to have a strong presence in the islands, but was very quickly appeased by the mention of cheese, fresh avocados, papayas, and cilantro, as well as the incorporation of almond (one of my all-time favorite flavors) in many desserts. It was still hard to get a grasp on platos típicos and general themes, however, as every website said something different and many descriptions were written by tourists and highly subjective. The one thing everyone mentioned but failed to really describe was something called gofio. Every so often in my ocean of pre-departure panic, “what if I don’t make any friends?!” and “do I actually know how to speak Spanish?” would be replaced by “What the hell is gofio?” (to be explained in future post)

Bananas are also everywhere!

Before leaving the States, I remember having a conversation with my best friend Elizabeth about cooking for myself in a foreign country and the kinds of things I thought I’d eat. I wondered aloud about whether or not I’d gain weight. “Oh, I bet you’ll lose weight”, she said. I agreed, picturing myself wandering around in the sand hungry and barefoot, fueled exclusively by fruit. How wrong I was!! The food I have eaten since arriving on La Gomera is some of the best I’ve ever had. When I video chat with my mom, she often says “you look like a cream-fed cat!” Well, I feel like one, too. I’ve had so many satisfying meals, both in restaurants and in my very own kitchen. In this first food post, I’ll talk about how my home cooking has translated over here, and in the next, I’ll dive into what other people have fed me. 

In comparison with the US, grocery shopping here is cheap and efficient, and I’ve been able to find a lot of surprising ingredients I never thought would be available on this little rock. German ex-pats have opened up many markets with imported goods, and there’s even an Italian specialty store owned by my new friend Nando who gave me free wine for the chicken marsala recipe I wanted to try. Sure, a single head of broccoli may only appear in stores roughly once a month, but there are plenty of other more exciting things to try. Predictably, I’m hooked on the avocados, and am also currently heavily dependent on my daily kaki, which is an (imported but fantastic) variety of persimmon. I was hesitant at first, used to the little wrinkly Ohio winter variety, but my mom gave me so much persimmon envy that I had to go for it. Most days during my walk home from school, I stop in the frutería and pick up whatever looks good. The owner now loves to feign surprise when I plop three kakis on the counter, and sometimes throws in a little almond candy for me to try. I love it here. 

A typical frutería haul: a kaki, an avocado, an almond candy, and... shallots?!

Grocery shopping is always something I look forward to doing here in Valle Gran Rey. The one chain grocery store, SPAR, has two locations in town, and I go there for all of my staples. I’m now a recognized community member (as opposed to a tourist passing through), which means that the guy at check out greets me with “¿Cómo estás, mi amor?”, and my friend at the meat counter always says “¡Hola, preciosa!” Our friendship started the first time I did a big shop, after I apologized for staring at the selection for ~10 minutes without speaking. I told him I was utterly unprepared for shopping in Spain after a lifetime of buying prepackaged meats in the US and largely ignoring the metric system. Of course, he was incredibly patient and gave me suggestions on what to buy and how to cook it. Now, when I’m having a bad or lonely day, I go talk to him and buy something new to try. To top it all off, meat is blessedly cheap here, and cooking just two recipes can feed me all week. 

I’ve never considered myself an intensely creative person in the generic sense of the word. When presented with a blank canvas, I totally freeze up. My little brother, on the other hand, can come up with a character, scene, or comic strip off the top of his head and fill the page with color and humor. He clearly got the artist genes. However, over the past few years, I’ve realized I can be creative as long as I have some sort of constraint. If I’m at point A and need to get to point B, but can choose my own route, I’m thrilled. Thus, cooking here is a challenge I very much enjoy. I find recipes online knowing that I won’t be able to follow them exactly, but put my all into recreating them to the best of my ability using the resources I have here. Innovative is what I think they call it! 

This is where the magic happens

My biggest constraint in cooking here is that I do not have an oven. Or a microwave! Just one 2-pot electric stovetop. When I put my big sauté pan on, nothing else fits. But I’ve managed just fine, and am now very skilled in the art of reheating leftovers on the stovetop. In the past month, I’ve cooked cilantro lime pork chops (Iberian pork is truly unrivaled), steak fajitas with black beans, Thai coconut chicken soup, broccoli with fried shallots and olives (pounced on the broc when I saw it), pork ragout, mango sticky rice, and chicken marsala. While these aren’t Spanish dishes, I do try to select recipes that put Spanish/local ingredients in the spotlight. More recipes will come with time! Each meal has been surprisingly successful, but I also think my pride is the world’s finest seasoning that can mask almost any error or ingredient shortcoming. But hey—I’ve had a few guests and think they came away happy. 

My biggest cooking feat thus far: Thanksgiving! Yesterday, I ran that little electric stovetop into the ground making a four point menu. Up until about a week ago, I wasn’t planning on anything special—I’d go out to eat with the teachers and just be quietly thankful in my head. But then I thought about my dad’s mashed potatoes. And realized I didn’t need an oven to make them. Then I mentioned mashed potatoes aloud to my favorite Gomeran, Oscar. And he said he’d like to try them. Aaaaaand then I decided I’d just do the damn thing! 

I wasn’t expecting to find turkey here, but lo and behold, when I went shopping on Wednesday, SPAR had one fresh turkey breast. I found a stovetop recipe with fresh herbs and sautéed vegetables that seemed doable. I also bought a ton of potatoes, re-upped my butter supply, and grabbed some green beans to stir fry in garlic and soy sauce in my mom’s style. I was fretting over dessert until I realized that I had all the ingredients for the beloved grapefruit (+ avocado + pomegranate + honey + lime) salad my mom and I make each winter. Yesterday, I cooked for ~5 hours, and finally invited Oscar over at a quarter past 10 pm (had to make it a little Spanish, ya know?). I think everything tasted quite good (my guest said it was buenísimo), but really, I was just deliriously happy to have pulled off a Thanksgiving meal given the constraints and to be sharing it with someone who has made this place feel like home.