In the past decade, the Spanish have wrenched the crown of cooking from the French. The new king is Ferran Adria, a gee whiz kind of cook who is known for frozen whisky sour candy, white garlic and almond sorbet, ingredients reduced to foam, – and Kellogg’s paella, Rice Crispies made from shrimp heads and vanilla-flavoured mashed potatoes.
Rice Crispies paella? Francisco Franco, the late dictator, must be fulminating in his grave. No sooner was he underground than the country went to pot. Under El Caudillo, Spain lived in the margins of Europe, a grand and somber country shackled to the past. The food was earthy and regional. Pilgrims to Santiago de Compostela would walk by restaurants boasting the bounty of Galicia, grinning hake, goose barnacles which look like dirty toenails, a cheese shaped like a tit. Paella itself was a moveable feast, rice mixed with local ingredients, eaten straight from the pan, best of all cooked over a wood fire in a piney grove, garnished with fresh snails.
Franco’s spirit isn’t dead. Spain’s foodscape is roiled by a schism among cooks. It was revealed at the 2007 Madrid-Fusion, the annual showplace for avant garde cooks. Before an audience of Spanish and foodies from all over the world (including me) Santi Santamaria, a traditionalist. whose restaurant Can Fabes in Barcelona has three Michelin stars, lashed out at Adria’s techno-emotional cooking. He called it pretentious, even dangerous. “”How can it be that products that are not recommended for your health are being consumed in many of the country’s most important restaurants?”
His Spanish listeners cheered and cried.
I want to eat some of that Franco food in Toronto.
Embruja Flamenco on the Danforth seems to be just the ticket. When I check the online menu I see several kinds of paella and as well, a tapas of the sublime jamon iberica de ballota. This ham is emblematic of old Spain. It is made from black Iberico pigs who live exclusively in southwestern Spain, spilling over into Portugal. They feed on acorns which are full of saintly oleic acid which produces GOOD cholesterol. Go ahead, split your sides. This side of the Atlantic, this incredible food is now being SOLD for its healthiness!
In fact, it’s the taste of the bald pigs’ ham that sends gourmands wild. The leg is dry cured then smoked with beechwood and juniper to produce a taste as complex as that of a great strawberry. The first bite is surprisingly mellow, then deepens into the delicate sweet of nutmeat, streaked with luscious fat that dissolves on the tongue. Along with foie gras, caviar, the Sand Dune oyster from PEI, dover sole, Iberica Belota (the top grade) belongs in the food Elysium.
I describe it in detail because Iberica ham has only been recently allowed into Canada due to a trade dispute.
I’d forgotten the friendly side of old Spain. We’re warmly welcomed into a cozy and dimlit room with a small stage and the sound of the guitar. Flamenco! As essential to the image of old Spain as Carmen and bullfight posters. We hardly have time to have a sip of Cava before the show begins.The dancer seems to have the heel taps right on but it strikes me that flamenco is environment specific – it has to be in the right context where the audience feels it is part of the show. It loses its passion as a commercial floor show.
Soon as it’s over, our waiter delivers a few slivers of Bellota for $25. Not bad considering a whole ham goes for $1,300. We eat it with our fingers, Spanish style.
The other tapas we choose is shrimps sautéed in chocolate sauce,$8.95. I don’t like eating really dark chocolate on its own, but its texture works in cooking. The shrimps are juicy and the sauce is black and viscous.
The main event, paella, comes in the correct two-handled pan. We’ve picked the classic version – $59 for two - made with the unique and super absorbent Bomba rice which expands several times more than conventional short grain, and gives the dish its dense fluffiness. The mouthful of flavours range from iodine shrimp to garlicky chicken to saffron rice which tastes like drying cotton sheets. The strips of squid are very tender. We drink an appealing Volteo Tempranillo $49.
We close with strawberries dipped in anisette, great marriage $9.
**Embruja Flamenco 97 Danforth 416-778-ooo7
Wheelchair accessible. Dinner for two, food plus tax: $127
