Madrid = Jamon iberico

Traveling with kids is never easy, but imagine two parents who are fairly regimented  about when our family eats (yes, we all get really cranky if not fed), and throwing that family in a place that eats all their meals at completely different times than we’re used to.  Well that was us in Spain...lunch isn’t eaten until after 1 pm and dinner, if you’re lucky, isn’t served until around 8:30 pm. We knew this going in and had our snacks in easily accessible places, but it’s still a shock and a challenge.  With that being said, the kids surprised us with their adaptability, and the Spanish surprised us by being very accommodating.  So my official judgement is that Spain is awesome! Madrid could quite possibly be my new favorite city. 

It is so much more a food city than I had ever expected. For me I’ve always enjoyed the unexpected...like the time we toured a chocolate factory here in Switzerland, and instead of the standard protocol where the tour would end by receiving a single piece of crappy wrapped candy, when we got to the end it was like hitting the jackpot, the mother load...all the chocolate you could stuff in your mouth!  When you’re ready for one thing but you get a different but much better substitution, well that just makes me happy.  So seeing ham at every meal was not what I expected, but it certainly made me happy.  It was everywhere and everyone seemed to love the salted pig...every lunch counter, super market, and deli had it in some shape or manner.  

just a huge pile of cured ham in supermarket

Now I knew that the Spanish enjoyed cured meats because everything I read talked about the jamon iberico or the Black-footed pig that is found in Spain. These pigs roam the country side and have a unique flavor that most definitely comes from them being fed a diet of acorns.  With only a few days in Madrid it was important to belly up to a lunch counter for traditional tapas, visit the Market of San Miguel, and of course eat at the Museo del Jamon (which turns out is not a museum at all...ah, if only such a place existed...but instead is a chain of deli-like, ham-loving hangouts that truly places the pig on a pedestal), and to go to El Botin (the oldest restaurant according to the Guinness Book of World Records).

Museo del Jamon

I must say I was skeptical of making a reservation at Botin as it was sure to be a serious tourist destination, so how could such a place serve quality food and be up to speed with the culinary trends of Spain that I was looking for.  Well you know what I’m going to say...we made a reservation and hands down it was the best meal we had in Madrid and to boot it turns out the oldest restaurant, in my opinion, is the most kid friendly place we have eaten in all of Europe. They had booster seats, crayons, paper for drawing, kids silverware (for some reason this an anomaly in Europe) and the bread came immediately (though they charged 2,00 Euro for butter, who cares, the kids were happy).  Here are a few of the menu items we ordered:

• Green beans with Iberian ham
• Garlic soup with egg (over-easy)
• Roast baby lamb 
• Roast suckling pig - sounds crazy, but they’ve mastered the crispy skin and all
• Croquettes
• Sangria

I’ll make sure I return to Madrid, maybe even tour some of those famous museums everyone was talking about.