Gayle Brennan Spencer – sending random thoughts to and from South Austin
While tour groups swarm around and overwhelm La Mezquita and the Jewish Quarter in Cordoba, many visitors are day-trippers who fail to roam very far from that area. A few blocks away, Cordoba almost seems sleepy.
Am delivering a few remaining photographic souvenirs from our stay there.
Torching of seafood atop paella at Al Grano Arroces y Mas
The distance from Cordoba to Seville is less than 100 miles, but the cuisine distinctions seem much greater. The regional favorite tapa is flamenquin. A slice of pork loin is topped with a slice of jamon and a piece of cheese and then rolled up and deep-fried. Fried eggplant drizzled with dark honey is found everywhere. The traditional salad consists of wedges of romaine topped with fried garlic with vinegar and oil for dressing. Sephardic-style preparations are abundant, and oxtail, rabo del toro, reigns.
A by-the-book traditional Cordoba menu removed from the main Mezquita tourist zone can be experienced at Restaurante Sociedad Plateros Maria Auxiliadora. Nothing trendy. A place where large family gatherings are held to celebrate First Communions or high school graduations.
Bodegas Mezquita, of which there are several, proved a popular spot for sampling Sephardic dishes. The warm garbanzo salad was wonderful, and we enjoyed a hardy lamb stew and fried merluza, hake.
Following a delicate appetizer of red tuna carpaccio atop a wispy crust, the Mister got his rabo del toro fix at La Fuente 12.
Restaurante Campos del Mar was far off the tourist grid, and it was well under-populated during its fixe prix lunch hour. The chef was so disappointed we did not order his habas (giant lima beans) con chorizo, he brought us a healthy portion to sample. I sometimes am blood-sausage-challenged, but, in his richly flavored broth, it was wonderful. The goat cheese salad was overdressed, a regional tendency, but the dressing was so good we managed to polish it off.
Reservations are needed to sample the rice specialties of the small Al Grano Arroces y Mas. Grilled apples were a nice change on our salad with the usual generous portion of goat cheese. Rather than try to replicate Valencian paella, the chef throws out the rule book. Seafood is placed atop the cooked pan of rice and dramatically scorched tableside.
In addition to the Mercado Victoria, our favorite spot to eat was the somewhat funky laid-back El Astronauta. A plate of grilled vegetables, always welcome. Perfectly cooked grilled tuna. Moussaka. And a luscious preparation of Moroccan savory-sweet chicken pastilla.
When Ferdinand III (1199-1252), King of Castile, conquered Cordoba in 1236, he launched a flurry of construction projects to formalize the city’s conversion to Catholicism. The mosques destroyed in the process provided convenient foundations and served as quarries for building numerous of these. Through the centuries, the original medieval structures received Renaissance alterations topped by a Baroque overlay.
Shells left by pilgrims who have traveled the Camino de Santiago dangle from the statue of Santiago, or Saint James the Greater, in the temple built atop a mosque and dedicated to the saint. Following the death of Jesus, James proselytized throughout the Iberian peninsula before returning to preach in Samaria and Judea.
In the year 44, King Herod Agrippa I (11 BC-44 AD) ordered him beheaded, making James the first of the 12 apostles to be martyred. According to Acts 12:20-23, Herod himself perished later that same year because: “he had not given the glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.” Legends associated with Santiago as the patron saint of Spain claim he, with neck intact, miraculously appeared armed atop a horse to lead outnumbered Christians to victory in a battle with the Moors – 800 years following his death.
And, continuing on a saintly topic, a large silver vessel enshrined in the Basilica of San Pedro contains a jumbled assortment of skulls and bones purported to belong to the Martyrs of Cordoba. According to accounts recorded by San Eulogio, these 48 Christians were beheaded by their Muslim rulers between 851-859 for their violations of Islamic law, mainly blasphemy and apostasy, or renunciation of the Islamic faith.
Eulogio’s writings, The Memorials of the Saints, ended abruptly upon the priest’s own execution in 859.
Postcards from Barton Springs 