De la Navidad

The weather in Sevilla has changed, not very much, but noticeably. Mornings bring more light, and dusk comes earlier each night even after falling back. When we leave the apartment in the morning, the air is more crisp and its even a little fresco at times.

It’s been odd to see pictures of home and especially Halloween on Facebook. While it is becoming a little more popular, the spooky holiday still isn’t a thing here in Spain for the most part. It’s the tell tale sign at home that a change is coming in the season and holiday time. In the States, you can feel the holidays coming. It starts raining like crazy and it gets cold and gloomy outside. Mom and Dad both have their happy lights on because it feels like its never going to be bright out again, and the sun may have disappeared for real this time. Christmas music starts, Starbucks cups change, and Thanksgiving and break become all you can think about. Sevilla hasn’t been like that, so November snuck up on me so fast, I still can’t believe it. I don’t know if it was distractions of moving, or Paris or midterms, but somehow October disappeared. Thank god.

Since returning from Paris, signs of the holidays, aka just Christmas have appeared in Sevilla. In place of platanos and plums in the produce section, holiday candies now fill tubs with their bright wrappers and sweet scents. Unlike frosted sugar cookies in the States, the staples of Holiday sweets have a little more tradition and culture here in Spain. Three cultures in the history of Spain remain prominent in the culture and traditions of holiday sweets - Muslims and Jews and of course Christians.

None of the following pictures are mine!

This semester, I took a Spanish cuisine class at my school. The teacher is a kind and giggly woman in her mid forties. We explored the popular items of Spanish food, as well as the Mediterranean diet - foods staples including olive oil, ham, cheese, wine, and holiday sweets all from Spain.

Every week was interesting and exciting. But the sweets weeks was especially interesting because of the culture and tradition wrapped in those shinny papers.

Polvorón de Avellanas are crumbly shortbread cookies, made with flour, sugar, oil and nuts. They are solid but crumble in the paper if dropped. These are special to the holidays, and can only be bought at this time of the year.

Polvorón and Mantecados are related in the manner they are made, their ingredients and their textures. The main difference being Mantecados are made with fat of an Iberian pig (YUM) in place of oil like Polvoróns. They are solid, but as soon as you bite into them, they crumble and melt in your mouth. These are available year round.

Roscos de vino are sweet ring shaped cookies of sugar, wine, sweet anise and vanilla. They crumbled in your mouth like the first two, but didn’t glue it shut. These were my favorites, if I had to choose.

Alfajores are an Arab biscuit with honey, lemon, flour, almonds and vanilla. They have a hard outside of sugar, and the insides reminded me of a hard, lemon flavored Fig Newton. These were my least favorites, hands down.

Mazapán de Toledo are an Arab and Jewish soft candy made with almonds, lemon, sugar, eggs, and water. They had little designs and drawings baked into the top of them. They were similar to a soft cookie, but very chewy when you bit into them. The sugar used in these isn't fine, so the little sugar crystals are very evident when you eat one. I didn’t enjoy these ones because of their texture.

Turrón comes in three different varieties. The first, Turrón duro is a compact, hard brittle made with almonds, sugar, honey and egg. It's like break your teeth hard, but it's not overly sweet. I love this stuff!

Turrón blando is made the same but with the addition of oil, making it more of a paste or cream like candy bar. I thought this one was too sweet for me and it was mushy, so the texture and flavor together threw me off.

Turrón de chocolate is obviously made with cocoa butter, nuts, and eggs. It had the texture of a chocolate bar with almonds, but the cocoa made it much richer. Unfortunately it's so rich, you really can only eat very little at a time because its so rich in coca.