When life gives you lemons...put them on everything!

Once again, as with my previous post a month ago (I apologize for the slacking), I don't exactly know where to begin with this topic.  Lemons...  Well to begin, if you leave the city of Murcia and travel through the Huerta (the massive area of farmland that surrounds the city), you will clearly notice one thing, a incredibly vast fields of lemons as far as the eye can see.  Rather than massive orchards as I had initially expected to see, the lemon orchards are actually quite small, perhaps 2 acres each on average, yet there are hundreds upon hundreds of orchards tightly packed with lemon trees with little yellow fruit popping out from among the leaves.  Thus, as would be expected in a place so blessed with lemons, Murcian cuisine incorporates the lemon into nearly every dish in some way or another, from tea with lemon, soup with lemon, fish with lemon, meat with lemon, potato chips with lemon, etc...More on these things later.  Although one would be hard pressed to be driving down the M-30 and see the world's largest lemon in some sort of Murcian homage to Route 66, it is clear that this little yellow fruit is essential to the cuisine, economy, and general landscape of the Region.  This could not be more clearly illustrated than with the story of a friend who decided to steal a few lemons from an orchard for his kitchen, and ended up fleeing from a farmer's gunfire...Murcia takes its lemons very very seriously.

Now as for some of the more practical uses of the lemon in Murcian cuisine.  First, I must say that until I arrived in Murcia, I had never seen or heard of someone eating a lemon as if it were an orange, that is peeled and eaten...alone.  However sour and unpleasant this may be, it is not the norm and Murcians have developed many much more delicious and practical uses for the lemon.  A personal favorite is its use in the dish "Caldo con pelotas" which consists of a giant meatball flavored with hints of nutmeg, paprika, and parsley served chicken based broth and a lemon slice on the side.  However, as served in any restaurant, this dish is utterly incomplete.  The most essential touch is a generous garnish of fresh lemon juice to give a tangy bite to the smooth sweetness of the meat and broth.  Without the lemon, the dish would simply be a meatball in broth, but with a generous portion of fresh lemon juice, it is absolutely fantastic.  In order to be brief, I will mention one more lemon-based Murcian twist on a snack food favorite known all over the world.  The potato chip.  Chips come in many different flavors around the world, yet as served in Murcia there is only one flavor that is acceptable.  Chips and olives are found in almost every bar in the city as the perfect compliment to an ice cold Estrella Levante lager.  In Murcia, they are always served covered in fresh squeezed lemon juice with a dash of spicy paprika and black pepper and garnished with a generous portion of vinegar marinated Spanish olives. Try it...it beats barbeque and sour cream and onion by miles.  I could go on and on about hundreds of uses for lemons in nearly every dish I've had here, but I'll leave it at that.  So, next time you sit down to enjoy your next meal, splash it with some fresh lemon juice, you won't be disappointed.