Food writing – two of my passions in one place. My digital storytelling class combines these two passions in a different form of writing. In the past I’ve written about food for articles for the school newspaper The Brown and White, for a food column for the Office of International Affairs and for my baking blog Swell Sweets. This semester I’ve been writing in a different medium, photos and video.
As a class we created a blog called Revista Sacai where each student or pair of students has a chosen topic around which they post content. My friend Shannon and I share a passion for food, particularly healthy food. Shannon has a gluten-free diet and I happened to be gluten-free the month before I came to Spain as a challenge for myself and to see if it would change how I felt. Coming to Spain I knew it would be impossible to stay gluten-free since a main component of the cuisine is bread. As our topic for our section of the blog, we chose to explore eating healthy in Seville. Through our projects we’ve focused on vegan eating most because many vegan restaurants and markets are very conscious of the nutritious content of foods. Shannon was vegan earlier in her life as well, but I think being vegan would be too difficult for me since I love yogurt and chai lattes so much.
Our section of the blog is called Seville Saludable, meaning healthy Seville. Before we chose the topic for our class, Shannon and I found a website that shows the vegan and vegetarian restaurants and markets in Seville; it’s called happycow.com. On a map we scouted out where all of the restaurants and markets are since it’s our goal to visit all of them before we leave. There are twelve total, so it wasn’t an impossible goal to set.
As our first project we went to a Sunday market called Mercado de la Plaza de la Alameda, which is essentially the same thing as a farmer’s market but is more focused on being organic. From the visit we made a photo montage showing the fresh fruit and veggies, nuts, wines and beers and many other organic products.
When we visited a vegan market called Red Verde, the owner of the shop was very sincere and said that she would gladly do an interview with us for our project. The purpose of this project was to share what veganism is, what inspires people to be vegan and how veganism is present in Seville. The owner, Conchi, shared her voice about veganism and her deep passion for eliminating harm to animals in all ways possible, especially through her culinary choices. Additionally Shannon, my mom and I went to an event that Red Verde sponsored in which organic wines and vegan cheeses were tasted. Since I am not vegan but believe in many of the things that vegans believe in, it was inspiring to hear Conchi talk passionately about what motivated her to open the market and spread veganism to others.
While we were at Red Verde one day finishing up some interview questions and photographing, Conchi had samples of torrijas sitting on the counter since it was the week before Semana Santa. Torrijas are one of the classic sweets eaten during Semana Santa; they are a Spanish version of French toast coated in honey and cinnamon sugar. However, these torrijas were vegan meaning they didn’t have any egg, milk or honey in them. Those three ingredients are usually what make up the meat of torrijas so it was amazing that the torrijas were so decadent and indulgent despite them missing the principal parts. That inspired Shannon and I to make our own, especially since we both missed cooking and baking.
Cooking torrijas was an interesting experience because we were using Loli’s kitchen and supplies and we had never cooked in Spain before. Lighting the burners for example required using a lighter and putting your hand right next to where the gas came out. After several attempts I had Loli do it, instead of filling the house with gas. In addition Shannon and I had never deep-fried something the way that the Spaniards deep-fry. Therefore we added a generous amount of oil to the pan, to which Loli added two-inches-deep more of oil. Now this is what I’m calling healthy! Through the various steps we finally figured out how to make the torrijas come out well since we couldn’t soak the bread in the milk or in the batter too long, otherwise it would become too soggy and break. The best way to describe it was that there were too many cooks in the kitchen. Taking over someone else’s territory – in this case Shannon and I taking over Loli’s kitchen – caused disruption and the necessity for her to intervene. Consequently spoons with batter fell on the ground, oil spattered from the pan onto my skin and final products sometimes burned. As with many things in Spain, I’ve learned from the experience.
After we made torrijas, we made a lighter sweet called fresas con leche de soja, meaning strawberries with soy milk. Cutting strawberries and letting them absorb the flavor of the soy milk caused less chaos than the torrijas. They were deliciously refreshing. From our cooking adventure we made videos that instruct how to make the sweets.
For our final project we are combining all the photos that we’ve taken at the restaurants to illustrate the many vegan and healthy options for eating in Seville. Several restaurants that we’ve loved so far are La Habanita, Gaia, La Ilustre Victima and the bakery Veganitessen.
While food always lures people in, the other topics on Revista Sacai such as Andaluz featuring pictures from around the Andalusian region, De tapeo featuring the culture of tapas and Al aire libre featuring sights out and about in Seville can all be seen at revistasacai.wordpress.com.
Sense Seville 