Madrid, Spain We started our day at the Museum of the Americas, commemorating Spain’s dramatic colonization history, and the reason Spanish is the world’s most spoken language.
There were several ways the story could have been presented. I was curious to see if there was any sense of apology for the destruction of whole civilizations and the brutal imposition of Christianity on indigenous populations.
Spoiler alert: No.
Though there was no English provided in the legends, it was clear that the ‘discovery’ of the so-called New World was one Spanish triumph after another. The ironically titled “Columbian Exchange” really boiled down to “we’ll give you heathens religion and every disease we are carrying, and you give us all your gold, wonderful new food crops and lots of slaves.” Of course, there are other versions of this history, but I’ll stick to mine.
Starting with Columbus, each voyage contributed to the plunder of North, Central and South America and brought back lots of goodies, a nice sampling of which is on display here. This included objects brought back to Spain by Columbus himself.
Our next stop was the National Archeological Museum. While Spain could not be accused of conquering any of the ancients, it did join in the collection of artifacts from all of them, keeping up with all the other world powers with museums to fill.
Just to whet our taste buds for Egypt, we first toured that collection. It wasn’t a huge exhibit, but very nicely arranged.
Medieval art and Greco-Roman mosaics were also well-represented.
We are now museumed-out, and resting up to meet our London friends for a reunion dinner. Onward!
Don’s Food Corner
Breakfast highlights: The Spanish specialty of the day was an “Iberian sandwich.” And a not-so-Spanish specialty – pancakes.
The Iberian sandwich was half a roll toasted (think Texas toast) covered with tomato pulp and topped with two cylinders of goat cheese that had been run under the broiler to melt the cheese. It was actually pretty intense for a breakfast item, especially the goat cheese. It could sure wake you up. But I think “boldness” is a way of describing all Spanish dishes.
The twist on the pancakes was that there was fruit in between the layers of pancakes (bananas) and topped with more fruit. Rather than the American convention of maple syrup, the offerings were a choice of different fruit syrups or a caramel syrup. We tried the caramel, but supplemented it with maple syrup that was on the buffet table. It was a welcome change of pace for pancakes.
Last night’s dinner was Chinese. We always like to try Chinese food in the countries we visit. They always seem to adopt some version of the local cuisine into the basic Chinese dishes. Perhaps they know they don’t want to scare the locals with anything too weird. And last night we were not disappointed. The fried rice dish featured Spanish ham. Probably a version never seen in Beijing, but for Madrid, it’s Chinese.
We were a little too quick to eat before the photographer was ready. But you’ll get the idea.
We also had a serving of fried beef. It was strangely heavily seasoned with regular curry powder. We’ve never encountered that before. The steamed dumplings were the most familiar, but also filled with minced Spanish ham.
It’s impossible to avoid Spanish ham once you get here. The pig population must be vast.
Lovely photos. I am telling on you guys to Chef Yu.