San Sebastian Gastronomika - National Grill Competition

After the success of the Cooking in Portuguese Taverns, we were really looking forward to the National Grill Competition event. Unfortunately, we had a bit of trouble following the discussion because the emcee spoke really fast. Other speakers (including members of the official jury for the competition) spoke more slowly, but there was a lot of detailed, technical discussion of salt use, how long before cooking meat to take it out of the refrigerator, resting times, fuel sources, etc. These guys are serious about their meat!

In between these discussions, we got to try, and rate, txuleta from eight chefs. One note: meat in Spain, and maybe elsewhere in Europe, is served much more rare than what you generally see in the US. Ordering a steak "en punto" (supposedly the equivalent of medium rare) will get you something that looks about like this:

While that is fairly rare, the quality of the meat is spectacular and it is cooked incredibly simply (with good salt and nothing else). The competing txuletas ranged from good to fantastic. And, although not as interesting as the Portuguese Tavern event, we really enjoyed trying the eight samples, which often tasted surprisingly different despite all being grilled meat with salt. We agreed on the best one but not on how to rate the others. It was a fun and filling event.

Strangely, they served beer at this event. Perhaps because it is common to drink beer while grilling outside? The audience definitely wanted to make it clear that it is FAR more appropriate to be drinking red wine when eating grilled meat. Duh, right? Next year they will definitely be serving red wine or there might be a revolt! 

We are not sure what the next big event is in San Sebastian, but there does always seem to be something going on here.

Hasta Luego,

Jeff and Shana