After two fantastic days in Spain's cava wine country planning for The Cava Barcelona Gastronomad Experience, our friends Florian and Veronica made us lunch, which included a delightfully mild, oddly grey-colored pasta. Or so I thought.
It was a wonderful outdoor lunch, and we had a great conversation and very good food and wine, which included local cava and a nice red wine from a very cool winery nearby.
Amira and our hosts talked about the "pasta" in Spanish, and I was kind of spacing out and not really paying attention -- something about seafood, I gathered. The flavor was very mild, boosted by some garlic and chilis.
I had seconds. Then thirds.
Later, in the taxi to the Barcelona airport, Amira mentioned to me that the "pasta" was in fact a Spanish delicacy called angulas, which are baby eels -- a traditional and monstrously expensive Basque dish (some $200 per pound).
Their lifecycle is the opposite of salmon, which live in the oceans but swim up freshwater streams to spawn. Angulas live in European freshwater streams, but swim out to the Atlantic to spawn in the Sargasso Sea.
Upon their return to the Atlantic coast of Spain, fisherman scoop them up with nets.
Thank you, Florian and Veronica for the wonderful lunch! (I have GOT to improve my Spanish!)