Tenerife, Canary Islands

Hard work but SOMEone has to do it: Go to Tenerife in the Canaries for an international conference. Sigh. Especially since it was February in Montréal, with snow up over my knee. So, my duty as I saw it: go there, work hard, eat hard. Herewith, a short report.

The Foundacion put us up in a hotel-appartemento in Puerto de la Cruz, on the north central side of the island. The place is absolutely colonized by die Deutschen. Just look at these two menus:




The hand-lettered bit tells about the various würstchen on special—Nürenberger, for example!




Heiße würstchen here, too!


But it's not only the Germans who've set up camp in town, the Brits are there too:





Yes, the Blue Lagoon fish 'n chips, with everything a lad or lass could desire:





But, in the end, I thought what I really needed was some of the local grub, so, hot tip in my mind, I headed off down (and I do mean down to the port.




Basically, there's not a flat spot on the island except for what's been excavated, terraced and flattened out by the hand of the inhabitants.

Right down in the port I ran into something to make any LTHer's heart sing: the local ham guy. Just looky here:





The guy has a truck whose side folds down, and a tarp to cover the counter. He's right on the beach. Here's his wares:





The pig head is a nice touch. He's got a bit of supply, eh?





Nicely enough, just on the other side of the ham guy was my sought-for resto, the Min:





First, I had the Andalusian octopus salad, simple vinagrette, some smoked paprika, and coarse salt, with the local beer:





Then came the grilled sole:






Accompanied by the local speciality papas arrugadas, or 'wrinkled potatoes': a wonderfully firm local potato is boiled in its skin in sea water, then served with a red and/or green mojo. Interestingly enough, potatoes of all sorts are a big crop, since they flourish in the volcanic soil of the mountain. Different varieties are grown at different altitudes.

The next day, the parents of one of my colleagues at UMKC, who live in Tenerife, came by to show me a good time. We saw some sights, including their incredibly beautiful home, and then they took me to a wonderful local resto,






La Bodequita de Enfrente. It's a beautiful little place, with cozy nooks and great tables







upon which to put some of that most excellent local ham:







and where I *finally* get to taste that wonderful treat I first heard about here on LTH, piments de padrones:






It was a perfectly lovely afternoon spent with perfectly lovely folks, eating great local food. Tenerife is a great place to visit for foodies like you and me--you know who I mean!

Geo