You know your husband is Spanish when….
- at noon you offer him a cup of tea and he says, “At this hour? Wouldn’t a glass of wine be more appropriate?”
- he looks out the window and says “Bundle up the kids if you are going to the park. It’s only 18·C today.“
- He declares, “I’m going to cook lunch”, and automatically empties a litre of extra virgin olive oil in a pan, then rummages through the fridge to see what he can fry.
This is what he found to fry today. Pimientos de Padron.
Pimientos de Padron are tasty mini green peppers. They are native to a little place called Padron in northern Spain, close to my father-in-law’s village in Galicia. Now you can buy them everywhere and in fact, these ones were imported from Morocco. And so goes globalization. Padron has lost its monopoly on tasty little peppers.
You give them a quick fry until they shrivel up. Toss some coarse salt on them and pop them in your mouth, seeds and all.
Pimientos de Padron are super fun to eat, especially with people who don’t know about them. Because a good batch has a few surprises. So you’re with friends, tossing back sweet little peppers, and then once in a while BAM, someone starts jumping up and down, tongue out, reaching for their beer, while the rest of the group points and laughs. They are sweet peppers, but one or two in a batch are spicy hot. And as far as I know, visually you can’t tell a spicy pepper from a sweet one. You are just merrily munching away and WHAM, your tongue is burning. I think they specially breed Pimientos de Padron to mess with the uninitiated.
Most Spanish folks, at least the ones that I know, don’t like spicy food at all. My father-in-law will turn up his nose at a sprinkling of black pepper. But they love to put out a plate of Pimientos de Padron and then laugh their asses off at whoever picks the spicy one.
You know your wife is not Spanish when she hopes that she gets the hot one.
Not So Spanish 
This is wonderful. I have a bottle of sweet chilli sauce in the fridge and I’m wondering when Spanish husband is going to get curious and try it – I’m sure I’ll hear the shouts from wherever I am! (It’s not THAT spicy!!!)
I nearly died eating one of those, Asil laughed his arse off!
I love everything about this post. I didn’t know that about their etymology, but nor had I cared to look it up.
My father-in-law is an “amante de picante” like me. Personally, I can’t get enough of these things.
Also… 18ºC??? My scarf and gloves and I hate you!!
Yum – must try these! I miss spicy food. We went to an Indian restaurant the other day and had to ask them to cook like they would at home, not for Spanish people!!
18ºC! So not fair! We’re at -5 these days at night, and it does go up a little during the day, but it’s damn cold here. I love those peppers too!
Not spicy enough for me. I’m really, really missing my spicy food. It’s a great dish though and you’re right about Spaniards being the first ones to laugh a friend out of the bar tongue ablaze and all 🙂
but the authentic pimientos de padron from padron are better, and have denominacion de origen..from marruecos arent the same. But i dont think pimientos de padron are spicy at all..well at least for me..maybe i have good luck and never eat the spicy ones.