Adult Under Construction: Drink on Fire

I've mentioned the dinners I've had with my teachers on numerous occasions, but for a variety of reasons, I've been unable to photograph any of them. Last night, I had what might be the last one I'll have, and managed to take some photos.

As I have two groups of teachers, I've had two different types of dinners. With the teachers from Albelda, the dinners have simply been at restaurants. With the teachers from Alberite, they have been in a bodega that a few of the teachers own cooperatively. "Bodega" means a lot of things, but in this case, it's simply a wine cellar with a kitchen, a table, and a fireplace.

A few small notes about Spanish dinners that I may have mentioned previously: food is brought in courses, but the table has finger food already laid out when people arrive. I had doubts about whether it was polite to reach, but then I realized that each section of the table had the same selection, making passing somewhat unnecessary. Spanish people also break the one rule of etiquette that I always remember (because I always break it) - elbows on the table. Apparently that's completely fine here.

Last night's dinner was carrilleras (pig cheeks) and a fish whose name I'm still not sure of. It was described to me, but I can't remember the name: a flat, bottom-feeding, ugly fish with antennae. "But the taste is...good." (The music teacher was practicing his English with me) I tried both dishes, and enjoyed them both. I was particularly intrigued by the fried potatoes served with the carrilleras, which were delicious, and I'm not sure what made them different from other potatoes I've had. Knowing Riojan cuisine, it was probably just the quantity of oil involved.

After dinner, we were treated to quemada, a beverage typical of Galicia (or so I was told), which is a bit of a show as well as a drink. Its base is orujo, which is hard liquor made from the leftovers of the winemaking process. Having tasted it before, I was not excited to try it again until I saw how quemada was different. Once the orujo was in the bowl, it was lit on fire. Suddenly it became much more attractive. Then fruit was added to flavor the drink, and all of it was allowed to cook in the burning orujo for about fifteen minutes. My teachers summarized it as burnt sangria, which is about right. But sangria never looked so cool with the lights out. Incidentally, quemada means "burned" in Spanish. How appropriate.

After the quemada and dessert came the party games, which are always organized by Toni, the religions teacher. The one I played involved tasting various liquids and guessing what they were. As we tasted them, the audience was informed what they were. Toni scared us by claiming they were things like puree of sheep's brain and raw fish, but they were fortunately revealed to be completely harmless things like pureed anchovies and tomatoes.

The last game involved watching videos of our students describing something and trying to guess what it was. To my surprise, I was one of the things they described! The sound wasn't very good, and shy kids don't enunciate very well, so all I could hear them say was that I came from Canada, but it was still nice to be included in something like that.

Anyway, enough of my descriptions and on with the pictures.