Burgos, Alubias de Ibeas, Olla Podrida (Rotten Pot Stew) with Ambrosio Molinos and Vermút at Vermutería Victoria and Washing the Streets at Night

 

* * * * * 

 

 

Alubias de Ibeas (pequeña olla podrida) at Restaurante Rincón de España, Burgos.

 

Ibeas de Juarros, just east of Burgos on the Camino de Santiago, home to the great little black-red beans of Ibeas and near to discovery of the world's oldest human remains at Atapuerca, July 10, 2023. Ironically, this mural suggests that the primeval man is soon going to add some pilgrim meat to enrich his Ibeas beans stew.)

 

 

October 3, 2024

 

Alubias de Ibeas, Rotten Pot Stew and Vermút at Vermutería Victoria

Cathedral of Burgos.

 

Part of my night foray in Burgos, a terrific, historic Spanish provincial capital that I know very well (I published an article on the front page of The New York Times Travel Section in 1993 wrote chapters about it in both The Penguin and Berlitz Travellers Guides to Spain).

 

This is what I photographed between 10:30 and midnight, with a light dinner, then drinks in a Vermút bar. The food, one of my all-time favorite Spanish dishes  Alubias de Ibeas (pequeña olla podrida) at Restaurante Rincón de España (just half a block west of the Cathedral), where this version was billed as coming from the famous olla podrida (rotten pot stew), which means everything from a pig goes into it. 

 

 Alubias de Ibeas (pequeña olla podrida) at Restaurante Rincón de España, Burgos.

 

Olla  Podrida (rotten pot stew), according to the late Ambrosio Molinos

 

"One day over lunch at Julián de Tolosa, a superb trencherman´s Basque restaurant in Madrid, Ambrosio carefully related the recipe for a great rotten pot stew into my tape recorder, thus preserving for posterity the secret Castilian formula for mainlining pork: "First, an olla podrida should be made with alubias de Ibeas, the little black-red beans that come from around the village of Ibeas east of Burgos and are the best beans in Spain. That is most important. 

 

Then, in a clay stovetop casserole, you slowly cook the beans with a special adobado (marinated) pig foot, a marinated pig´s ear and pork ribs. The adobo marinade is made with salted water, to which orégano is added or, depending on the area, other spices such as black pepper, bay leaves and Spanish pimentón, paprika, sometimes even pimentón picante, piquant paprika. 

 

 Ambrosio Molinos.

 

The marinade, which gives the olla podrida its strong flavor, also preserves the meat, so it can be left all season in a cool place such as a basement or a cave. 

 

Then you put in some fatty chorizo, the one they call botageño, because it has a higher percentage of fat to lean, and some morcilla, blood sausage"

 

But there is more. Ambrosio continued, "Once the olla podrida is cooked, you make what we call bolas, made from toasted hard bread that is mixed with some of the pork fat from the stew to make "balls," which are then fried and served on a platter alongside the olla. The meat that was cooked with the beans is served on a separate platter, the beans are also served on a separate dish and guindillas (slender picante green peppers), pickled onions and other pickled vegetables are served as a garnish. Then all you need is a big appetite."

 

He then recommended a scandalous precaution, not to be repeated here, for the flatulence he said was sure to ensue from eating rotten pot stew. 

 

Ambrosio Molinos with chuletillas al sarmiento, lamb chops cooked over grape vine cuttings. 

 

I had accompanied Ambrosio and his family to one of these olla podrida pigouts near Ibeas. And he also offered to take me to the mother of all pig festivals at the Virrey Palafox restaurant in El Burgo de Osma in the neighboring province of Soria, where they have multi-course pig meals in February to celebrate the winter hog slaughter.

 

 Chef-owner Galo Rodrigo González, Restaurante De Galo. Covarrubias (Burgos).

Restaurant de Galo now closed (owners retired).

 

But now my concern was for Restaurante De Galo, whose chef-owner Galo was the son of the owners of Galín, who were proud of their olla podrida. Just thinking about rotten pot stew conjured up visions of thousands of tiny porkers lumbering through my arteries in pursuit of the Pig Olympics Gold Medal for cardiac arrest."--Excerpt from Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I.

 

Back in Burgos

 

After dinner, I had a Vermút at my favorite Vermutería Victoria, one of Spain's greatest Vermút bars.   My friend manager Jorge García helped make it a great stop, as did Ángel Alonso and Javier Pontones, whom I met at the bar and who kindly invited me to my Vermút. 

 

 

 Vermutería Victoria, one of Spain's greatest Vermút bars.

 

 

 Jorge García and Vermút at my favorite Vermutería Victoria in Burgos.

 

 

 

Ángel Alonso and Javier Pontones, whom I met at the bar and who kindly invited me to my Vermút. 

 

And one of my favorite bronze statues in Spain, the Chestnut Seller at the end of the Espolón between the Puente de Santa María and the Arco de Santa María.

 

 

 

 Evocative statue of a chestnut seller on the great pedestrian promenade the Espolón in Burgos. 

 

I even stopped to complement the guy washing down the streets, which reminded me of coming home in my early days in Sevilla, where after a bar crawl I would meander home at 3 a.m. through fresh-washed with the workers still hosing down the streets.

 

 * * * * * 

 

Gerry Dawes will be leading a specialized gastronomy, wine and cultural tour to Western and Southern Spain from Tuesday, October 14 – Thursday, October 30, visiting the great cities and towns of Madrid, Segovia, Ávila, Salamanca, Trujullo, Mérida, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, Sevilla, Ronda and Málaga. For further information contact gerrydawes@aol.com. 

 

* * * * * 

 

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition

 

(Available at Amazon, Despana (NYC), LaTienda.com, La Boca Restaurant and Bodega, Santa Fe, NM), at Ibiza Kitchen (Chappaqua, NY) and at Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore (NYC) and at a punto, calle Farmacia 6, Madrid. 

 Comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

Gerry Dawes, author of Sunset in a Glass:  Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I (Available on Amazon (Fuck Jeff Bezos!); Volume II coming in early 2025.)

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2024.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

* * * * *

  Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?

 

Poem by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington,

in the courtyard of the Hispanic Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York City.

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel

 
About Gerry Dawes

My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019

Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)

Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià. 

In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés. 

". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

 

Pilot for a reality television series on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com