Madrid food diaries: April 2024
The living room smelt of coffee and chinchón after lunch. I inhaled the smoky, aniseed-laced scent greedily. I didn’t partake in the drinking of the chinchón (an anise-based spirit from the Spanish town of the same name) and my post-lunch coffee was decaf, as I’m still breastfeeding. What I missed in terms of chupitos and caffeine, though, I made up for in food. In April last year my trip to Madrid was marked by pregnancy-related dietary restrictions and anxiety. This time, I could eat with carefree abandon…and I did.
On our first day we ate cojonudos from the local take-away shop - small, dense, honey-soaked pastries powdered with icing sugar that melts on your tongue. We ritualistically buy a box each time we’re here and I like eating them with a strong coffee to cut through the richness. For weekend breakfasts we had churros that were crispy on the outside and soft on the inside and fat, oily porras (the churro’s bigger cousin) dipped in mugs of thick hot chocolate. We bought flaky little pastries called palmeritas that are sort of shaped like a heart or an old fashioned telephone receiver depending on how you squint and had them for merienda, which is afternoon snack time in Spain.
On a cold Friday morning we walked to the bakery, baby and pram in tow and warmed ourselves up with hot milky coffees and napolitanas (Spain’s answer to a pain au chocolat). The baby enjoyed people-watching while we ate in greasy-fingered bliss. I spotted milhojas (or mille-feuilles) at the counter made up of the fattest pillows of meringue cream I’d ever seen, sandwiched between thin squares of pastry. We bought one in all its wedding-cake white glory and ate it the next day after lunch. (Full disclosure, it was sickeningly sweet.)
Dinner with friends one night ended with a cheesecake brought from Talavera that came in a round wooden box, which we ate from with little spoons. It was gorgeous and tangy and soft and if I ever find myself in Talavera you can bet I will be heading to Materia Pedro Trujillo first.
Then there was the big batch of fresh rosquillas (a sort of little sugared doughnut) made by J’s grandma. She knows I love them and kindly makes them each time we visit. Last April we came home with a bag full of them, which meant I could have a little taste of Spain for a while after the trip ended, softening the blow of knowing I wouldn’t be back for a year. This time, we brought two along with our sandwiches for the plane. We’ll be back for more soon.
Whisked to Spain for a brief moment of culinary delight 😍
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