Even though I consider myself a “foodie,” I’ve never been someone who takes pictures of my food and probably never will be. I don’t know if that’s because I don’t take many pictures in general or because I just don’t understand what I’ll do with a picture of French toast a month down the road. I don’t have Instagram, so it’s not going there.
However, since this is a travel blog, and food is a huge part of travel, this week I want to feature some of the food from last weekend. Last weekend was a good food weekend. Let me explain what I mean.
Last Saturday in Madrid, there was an event called Madreat. Of course, a cutesy amalgam of “Madrid” and “Eat.” Food trucks in the past few years in America have become super popular, but apparently here in Madrid they’re still a rarity, so I was glad I was in town for it.
My favorite Airstream style food truck
It was held in the a large park, which was perfect, because it prevented the crowds from getting too stifling, which can be a problem at food truck events. The other thing that I noticed that the event had going for it was killer trucks. The food trucks weren’t just trucks selling food, they were sights in and of themselves. My favorite was one that was in an old Airstream trailer. Others were designed to look like retro mail trucks or ice cream trucks.
The first thing I ate was a cheesecake cake pop, which I’m not proud of because it was something I could get anywhere. Literally, I could walk down the street and order one at Starbucks right now. The next thing I tried though was homemade guacamole, which I was heaven-sent, because guacamole isn’t really a thing here in Spain, and I have been craving some good old-fashioned chips, salsa, and guac. I didn’t take a picture of that one, because at that point I was famished so I pretty much just scarfed it down right away.
Kimchi Korean Tacos
I did take a picture, however, of this next food item, Korean barbecue tacos. Since Spanish food is not up to my standard of spice, I asked for the spiciest sauce, which had a picture of “Kim Jong Un” on the bottle. (It seems like that would mean it’s the most mild…). But no, my tongue was prickling with heat for the next fifteen minutes. Asian spice is the one spice where I haven’t built up a high tolerance, and whatever tolerance I had was gone after eating Spanish food every day. Despite the heat, the flavors of the taco were a welcome change from paella and tortilla with its spicy beef and kimchi with parsley and onions.
The sad thing about food trucks is that there’s so many things, and you can’t try them all either because of the lines or in our case the money. Lucky for us though, almost every food truck was attached to a store front somewhere in Madrid, so on Sunday we decided to try out some pastries at Mamá Framboise (Mama Raspberry, which doesn’t sound as good because it doesn’t rhyme). We couldn’t get seat so we took our pastries to the street.
Una tarleta de yogurt con frutas del bosque
I had una tarleta de yogurt con frutas del bosque (frutas del bosque is their fancy way of saying “berries”). The crust was a chocolate-blueberry flavored, and it’s center a creamy, tart yogurt, embellished on top with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries.
So that’s what I mean when I say it was “a good food weekend.” Arguably, every weekend is a good food weekend, because my host mom is an amazing cook. But picture for a second that you have to eat Italian food every day, pasta, meatballs, etc. It would get old, wouldn’t it? That’s why it’s been important for me to seek out the variety of food Madrid has to offer outside of the realm of jamón serrano, and there is a lot.