So I've already had some pretty fantastic encounters with edibles here. See previous posts for reference to ham haunches hanging from the ceiling, sheep and pig heads in the central market downtown. Tapas for three days straight, delicious coffee, chocolate, and frozen yogurt.
I was finishing dinner with my familia and mi padre happened to mention that they usually make the paella we had had earlier that day with rabbit - they had opted for chicken that day because of me. I quickly informed them that I had no aversion to eating bunnies, so they're putting in the conejo next time, but this led to a discussion of Spanish food and the various ways that my particular family has, wittingly or not, grossed out the American students who have come before me. I mentioned our jaunt through the market with the sheep and pig heads, and my padre, with a worrisome smirk, asks me if we didn't also see any cabezas de caballo//horse heads.
Well.
I flatter myself that I'm pretty good about trying strange foods. There are a few foods (I know, Mom, olives) that I do dislike, but I also enjoy things like raw beef and oysters, so I feel like I'm not really a hard sell when it comes to trying different foods. Apparently unlike other students who have stayed in this house, I didn't bring a list of foods a mile long that I am refusing to eat. But horse. It threw me for a bit of a loop. I probably had a pretty funny look on my face as I tried to process the shocking information that not only do Spaniards eat the animal that carried the men who shaped the American Dream, they think it's pretty damn tasty. My host parents spent the next several minutes sparing me from having to comment by raving about just how delicious horse is. Before you go, they've told me several times since, we're going to the market and bringing back two big pieces of horse. We'll cook it up and you'll see just how delicious it is. Vale, I said. Okay. As long as it's not tomorrow and I have some time to prepare myself, I'll try horse.
I was then rendered speechless again by the conversation turning, as it often seems to here, to the Chinese, and not in a particularly complementary or politically correct way. The Spanish don't often seem to worry about being what Americans would consider politically correct - not in a necessarily malicious way, but they do love their stereotypes. You know, my host mother says conspiratorily, los chinos eat cats and dogs!! Just imagine! How horrible is that? She turns to the couch where the family cat is, predictably, curled up asleep. If she's not asleep on the couch, she's curled up on or under my bed. I don't mind, and at this particular moment, I resist the urge to comment on how Mini el gato wouldn't make a very satisfying meal, given the lack of meat on her bones, because Mini's sweet, she really is, and I can't figure out how to say it in Spanish fast enough. I do mention, several minutes later, that for Americans, eating horse is not really that different than eating cat and dog. My padre shrugs, and says something to the effect of: well, to each his own.
The conversation broadens, and he asks me, half-watching the Spanish news story about Obama's meeting with Hu Jintao, why Americans are so reluctant to open their minds to other cultural experiences. He's already asked me about American gun laws, and why someone as crazy as Jared Lee Loughner was allowed to get his hands on a semi-automatic. I find myself trying to explain the American ideal to someone who clearly thinks (though he's too polite to say so outright) that it's sort of close-minded and self-indulgent. I also wonder about the sort of people who have traveled here before me, and what he has experienced that has led him to create this perception. One of these days, when I have time and energy to concentrate on thinking and speaking at the same time, I'll continue the conversation.
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