La Cocina Espanola

"We started up the road into the woods. It was a long walk home to Burguete, and it was dark when we came down across the fields to the road, and along the road between the houses of the town, their windows lighted, to the inn."
– Hemingway, from "The Sun Also Rises"










August '18


I had remembered the list of tapas inns and more formal restaurants that our receiving tour guide in Salamanca had written out for us. At that moment, before we had even walked into the city, sitting there on the couch in the lobby of Hotel Rector, there would have been no way to fully understand what a daunting task it must have been to quickly sign off only a small handful of places to eat in a city that is, without exaggeration, door after door after door eating establishments. With a quick glance at the website, I could see that el Mason de Gregor located at the far edge of the Plaza Mayor and did not need any reservations before the true dining hours of eight and beyond. We arrived to open tables, white tableclothed, on the sidewalk, and the waiters dressed in full white regalia, dark haired, and quite serious. Next to us the conversation from the table was interestingly English (from England) and something that had more of a Dutch accent. We felt now, surrounded by Spanish speakers, our own American, and European English to our right, like we were steeped inside an episode of Poirot or some other similarly cosmopolitan program. There is nothing quite like this and takes some time to wonder about at a later time. The air here still quite light, but under shade from a boulevard tree; some minor car traffic along the calle near the Plaza; other small restaurants just around the corner beginning to fill up; the air warm; the waiters serious; and a menu that offers some

ver elegant offerings...these are the moments that I think we visualize as we are thumbing through our tour guides and daydreaming of what it might look like. Salamanca never fails the traveler at this level of wishful thinking and as my own suckling lamb arrived and Carly's lamb chops (5), we were literally imbibing Spanish culture. There are several things that makes, in my mind anyway, after a short visit, a soulful refuge of culture is its labyrinthian side calles, uncountable eating establishments, and all commanded over by the original intent of the city as both a university and religious mecca. One could possibly make the point that this moment is a sort of golden era of travel because, compared to the past, these major influences – university, religion, eating establishments – are experiencing relative peace, if not relative and full belief. If religion had been all powerful in the past, sometimes to the point of control and violence (think inquisition) or if the university did not always have such influence (think its early conception in the 1500's when it was trying establish credibility), these things are now all in tact and beautiful and very accessible in time of peace. The next morning we would take a bike tour of the city with a native Spanish speaker from Salamanca. She was very pleasant and willing to share in her insecurity over own ability to speak English. There was no animosity in her demeanor, something that most Americans are sensitive toward as they travel Europe. I was nothing more than another man with a daughter on equal terms with this wonderful guide. As we sat at the table at meson Gregor, it was similar. It was neutral and professional. The suckling lamb was a carver's dream, knifing away at portions for what seemed an hour. Carly learned to cut away the purely meaty portions of lamb chops and when she had succeeded in getting to the red it was something of an accomplishment. The table next to us continued to speak in hushed European tones. The plaza Mayor, just beyond the arch in sight was beginning to whisper in the streets.