Walk through any covered food market and it’s clear that the Spanish kitchen wastes little. Tripe and feet, liver and kidneys, heads of lamb, bull testicles, trays of boiled blood, cocks’ combs, and tongue: nothing gets neglected. This is especially true of pork. “Aprovechamos hasta los andares,” one Andalusian told me, referring to a saying about taking advantage of everything except the way that a pig walks. “Del puerco hasta el rabo es bueno,” goes another refrain. “From the pig until the tail is tasty.”
There is often more work in preparing these parts to cook, the flavors tend to be stronger, and the textures can sometimes best be called “distinct” or “unique,” but they are often delicious and frequently healthy. Every part of an animal has its typical preparation—tripe stewed with garbanzo beans (see page 269), kidneys with sherry (see page 267), and liver with onions. These are beloved dishes, deeply rooted in the countryside, and still prepared in homes and restaurants serving “home-style” cooking.
This old-fashioned style of cooking is ironically the most modern and most ecologically conscious, and seen (or rather, tasted) in the rise of North American farmers’ markets and the current fashion of nose-to-tail eating in a number of American restaurants. (To eat “the whole hog” is taking on a literal meaning.) To be ultra-modern, it seems, is to be like the quintessential country grandmother. Instead of buying a chicken breast, buy—and use—the whole chicken. Breast and legs, sure, but make stock with the carcass, and add the feet to soup for flavor as my mother-in-law did whenever Tía Visi would come for lunch. And don’t forget the crest. Staying in the Castilian city of Zamora, I discovered that cockscomb stewed in tomato and paprika sauce is a specialty. (It has a firmly gelatinous texture, and looks rather spectacular sitting in a white dish with its crested points and glistening sauce.)
While I have included pig’s feet in this chapter, you won’t find them in the market stalls specializing in offal. Veal and sheep’s feet are at those stalls, even small salted goat’s feet, but pig’s feet are far too staid for that. They are sold with the other, more sought-after pork cuts—loins, ribs, and chops. The feet need to be boiled before using in most dishes.
Many of these specialty cuts can be found at decent butcher shops, or rather, a good butcher should be able to get hold of them. Call first. Be sure what you buy looks, feels, and smells fresh. Younger animals tend to be less strong-tasting and are generally preferable options.
