Sunday 14 March 2010

¿Como se dice paprika en español?

A couple of weeks ago I was strolling along at way too leisurely a pace to campus from Plaza de las Tendillas, when my friends and I all stopped dead in our tracks. We were distracted by a shop window that we had ignored so many times before; it had been boarded up with brown paper for some time, but now the paper was down and there was a sign in the window. From the glass shop-front that gave a view of the entire store you could see chocolates, spices, teas, and all sorts of fun kitchen accessories that I generally spend far to much money on. The shop was closed at that point, it was mediodía and true to form all the Spanish shops were shut (save for all the tourist traps). But we made a decision that we would have to go back to this shop, rather sweetly named SpicyChoc, and try desperately not to spend the small amount of money we all had.


photo courtesy of pekoe.es

We finally managed to go to the shop when it was open a few days ago. I walked in and instantly felt I could spend all day in there. Not only do they have the biggest collection of loose-leaf teas I've seen in a long while, orangettes (orange pieces dipped in dark chocolate, a speciality in Lyon),  and lots of kitchen gadgets, but they also sell paprika. In a test tube.



I had been looking for paprika for a long while in Spain and was– up until my jaunt to SpicyChoc– unable to find it. I had just taken for granted that the word paprika in Spanish would be, well, paprika. Not so. You see, Spanish paprika is known as pimentón, and is quite different from paprika around the rest of the world. It has a smoked flavour, one that you might find when it's used in chorizo or sobrasada. It's a lovely spice, but I want paprika, dammit! I use it so frequently in day-to-day cooking that making lunch/dinner without it has been quite a challenge. So I was so happy when I saw this little test tube for 0,80€. Undoubtedly I will go through it in about three weeks, but that just means another excuse to go back to SpicyChoc.


1 comment:

  1. I still need to try orangette's dammit! Fancy bringing some to Barca with you?! Also, in reference to your twitter message that I've only just seen - I was forced to buy Skype credit so I could call home and stuff and then discovered you can also use it to text people at very favourable rates... Who needs a phone ay?!

    xxxxxx

    ReplyDelete

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