Remembering our European Honeymoon

 

Jeanne and I spent our honeymoon in Europe.  

I had graduated from Northern Michigan University in May of 1973 and then spent the summer working for a 'pre-fab' house construction company, socking away as much as I could for the adventure (Europe and married life) ahead of us. Our four-man crew always made it home on weekends, but boy, did we work some long days during the week. I didn't mind. All that time-and-a-half mounted up nicely.   

Jeanne had one more year to go for her Bachelor's degree. She wanted to spend the first semester of her senior year in Madrid studying Spanish.

So, off we flew to Madrid a few days after our wedding in September. (Yes, our 49th is upon us)  After getting most of our luggage situated at our pension, (Sort of like an expanded B&B: a room, but with three meals a day) which was owned by friends of Jeanne's favorite Spanish professor at NMU, we set off for the month before her classes started to explore Europe by train.   

I discovered immediately that there was an inexhaustible supply of interesting little stores in whatever country we were in. Many of the items in them were foods I had never heard of. I loved it. 

I thought of those days recently when I ran across a little store down at the very end of Lincoln Road which reminded me of those European stores. It's name is Euro-Dell.  A European deli!

I may be almost 50 years older than I was then, but I'm still a sucker for stores that offer Pulpo en su Tinta (Spanish-Octopus in its ink), Tartuffi (Italian-truffles), Stilton Cheese (English- blue cheese), or Cloudberries (Swedish).  

Oh, boy! Let's go in. 

And oh my, this is truly my kind of place.  

One of many shelves, filled with surprises. 

I gravitated toward the meat coolers. 

Sigh....

I would have liked to have said to the clerk, "Wrap up one of everything, please!"  but that would have broken the bank.  Instead, I chose one meat and one cheese, a small bottle of sour-cherry jam (Croatia) and a really small bottle of fancy anchovies (Italy).  Oh, and a few olives. 

This was the meat choice. It turned out to be the highlight of my visit to the store.  It is Jamon Iberico, ham made from the hind-quarter of an Iberian pig. 

An Iberian pig is unique, black with very little hair (for a pig that is).  It's a breed which has been bred in Spain for centuries.  This special breed lives free-range on farms and feeds on three species of acorns that grow in Spain. It is said that the flavor of the ham, in a large part, develops as it does because of their diet and the fact that they move around as they feed. This ham is salted/cured, and then air-dried for between 14 and 36 months. (or more)

Spain's other famous ham, Jamon Serrano, is somewhat similar, but does not use this special breed of pigs, nor are they fed an acorn diet.  Further, the Serrano is cured for about half as long as the Jamon Iberico.  

Jeanne and I tried some Jamon Serrano in a bar in Salamanca, which is northwest of Madrid, almost to Portugal, in 1973. I didn't really care for it then. Both the texture and flavor were unfamiliar, nothing at all like an American ham and a little beyond my comfort zone. My taste buds were very young and inexperienced in those days.  

My tastes have matured.  I think this jamon is very good. Not as salty as you might think (if you watch the video), very dense, and with a rich flavor that develops as you chew it. 

What you see above is sliced paper thin, and it's all spread out. 

I think they must teach that at butcher school. "When slicing up really expensive meat, make sure whatever the customer asks for looks like a lot more meat than it really is."  At $110.00/kilo or about $75.00 US., I didn't get much, but I had to try just a bit.  

Here is a video I ran across that shows how the pigs are raised and the hams produced. (Rated G)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYvHdf91pSs    

Here is another little gem I found.  The name surprised me.  I wondered if those flavors would  work.  I discovered as we tried it, that the cheese is only mildly salted, and the honey comes through, not as a noticeable sweet taste, but more as an impression of honey that you 'smell' as it melts in your mouth. Interesting stuff, made in Australia. Only $5.00, or about $3.75 US dollars.  It's actually whiter than it appears in this photo. (I didn't use the camera's flash) 

Jeanne thought that when this cheese was cold, it crumbled like a feta, but had a texture when she tasted it, of a cream cheese.  Once we let it warm to room temperature, the crumbliness  disappeared and it literally melted in our mouths.  Tangier than cream cheese.  

I've made cheese here a couple of times, once with my grandsons' help.  It was a complete success both times, and fun to do.  If you've never tried it, I think you should. Watching the curds develop in the hot milk is a rush. 

I wonder if I might make another batch of 'my' cheese and flavor it lightly with honey, just to see how close to this I can come.  Mine won't be as tangy.  

My lunch today. 

That's a fresh ciabatta bun. 

I don't know why, but it's rather hard to get ciabatta buns at the big Pak n Save on Lincoln.  Four times now while shopping I have had to wait for them to come out of the bakery. However, I forgive all concerned when I get them home while they are still warm from the oven.  You know that fresh-bread smell?      

Thanks for letting me reminisce and even digress today.  I've had an interesting life and stored up so many memories.  

Just think, we started our married lives together by having an adventure I would never have imagined and here we are, 49 years later, living a new batch of adventures in the Southern Hemisphere, over 8,200 miles away from our last residence.  Who'd have thought? (And the jamon we enjoyed traveled over 12,000 miles )    

Encore: 

I decided I would try my hand at making some honey cheese just as I said I might. The following pictures tell the story.  My cheese is 'Doug's Jersey salted honey.'   That's because I used Jersey cow un-homogenized milk for my cheese. 

Heating the milk to a simmer. Whoa, I predict a good yield. 

I used mostly lemon juice, but with a little white vinegar as well. Thanks, Ernie, for your gift of lemons. 

The honey is from our own Waitakere Garden bees.  Probably around 3 tsps. worth. I warmed it so it was very runny before mixing it into the warm cheese curds.  I ground 1/2 tsp+ of table salt very fine. (like popcorn salt-which I can't find here) 

  The reaction is almost complete.  I'm going to let it sit for another five minutes. The curds are quite small, maybe because of my enthusiastic stirring, but there are lots of them. The yield was every bit as good as I hoped it would be. Jersey milk is rich.   

The finished product. Jeanne described it as a paneer, with a mild honey taste.  

That was fun.  I think the next time I make cheese I am going to use rennet for it and see how that changes my product/yield.  

YouTube is full of 'make your own cheese' videos.  Watch a few if you want to give it a try.  It doesn't take very long, is quite easy to do, isn't too expensive, and tasting your product is fun.             -djf