Shellfish is so key to the diet in parts of Spain—especially in Galicia—that more than one regional cookbook on my shelf opens with the shellfish chapter. Fish follows, and then soups, breads, pulses, and other staples. “Shellfish,” begins the introduction of Matilde Felpeto Lagoa’s wonderful Recetas de la cocina familiar gallega (Recipes from the Galician Family Kitchen), “is our ‘jewel in the crown,’ one of the greatest treasures to enjoy.” Indeed. The wholesale seafood market in Madrid is the largest in Europe and second in the world only to Tokyo’s Tsukiji market. It sells around 290 million pounds/132 million kilograms annually, and an important part of that is shellfish. Spanish fleets bring back to port the largest percentage of Europe’s collective haul—some 16 percent of the catch.
While Galicia is the dominant force and key source, it is by no means the only region with significant seafood industries. Along the Atlantic Ocean, Asturias, Cantabria, and the Basque Country all have extensive fishing fleets and well-known ports. In the south, Andalucía straddles the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. On the Atlantic side, the provinces of Cádiz and Huelva draw from the waters below Portugal, while Spain’s 1,000-mile-/1660-km-long Mediterranean coast has its own important seafood industry.
Although many species come from either the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, there are species found in both—though usually with a difference between them. Navajas (razor clams), for instance, gathered in Galicia tend to be larger and meatier than those from the Mediterranean, which are more delicate in texture as well as flavor. Among many celebrated varieties of shrimp, the gamba blanca (literally “white shrimp,” but correctly called rose shrimp, Parapenaeus longirostris) from Huelva and the gamba roja (“red shrimp,” Aristeus antennatus) from Dénia in Alicante are two of the jewels previously mentioned.
With such fine materias primas (raw materials), preparations are often straightforward, and allow the shellfish to properly and loudly express their potent flavors. As I learned in Galicia, the classical way to prepare most shellfish is in boiling salted water with a bay leaf. It is only a matter of buying fresh products and calculating—and respecting—cooking times. Cooking shellfish, then, doesn’t only begin in the market, but that is often the most important step in the process.
The best season tends to be winter. There is a saying in Spanish that you should eat shellfish during the months with an “r”—septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre, enero, febrero, marzo y abril. That is because the waters are colder, there are less algae blooms, and the cooler weather often means that the shellfish make their way from sea to market to table in better condition.
