I have friends that recently left Australia for a few months in South America. I’m jealous. Some of my favourite memories thus far are chowing down on ceviche on the coast in Peru, or eating empanadas on overnight bus rides. Food plays such a huge role in any trip to Latin America, which is why I almost wet my pants with excitement when I heard about the Latino Fiesta held in Johnston Street, Melbourne’s Latin district, this weekend. Not one to ever miss a paella opportunity, I spent most of the week counting down the days and went to bed especially early on Friday, so that I might be able to get a full weekend of filling my belly. I never claimed to not be a loser.
Melbourne’s Spanish and Latin American community isn’t massive, but isn’t exactly non existent either. Latino HQ is pretty much Johnston Street, which is home to tapas bars, Jamón shops, authentic Mexican restaurants and Spanish clubs. Once a year the street is shutdown for a weekend of Salsa classes, over-priced Sangria, tacos and Columbian BBQ’s. Heaven for this little cerdito.
The fiesta also has a significant amount of hand made crafts, Flamingo Dancers and Latino music for sale, though for me today, it’s all about la comida.
Rule of thumb for any street food festival is to do a reconnaissance lap, check out what’s going on. You don’t want to jump in too eagerly and fill up before you get to the good stuff. So away I went.
I saw Lechona (stuffed pig) at a Columbian store that had been cooking since 3am (it takes about 10 hours). There were Anticuchos (sort of like meat kebabs, anticuchos de Corazon – beef heart- being the most popular) grilling at one of the Peruvian stores. I passed an impressive amount of revelers waiting in line to be served Sangria at many of the bars that line the streets. I found my first stop of the day.
Sangria is summer punch served in Spain and Portugal. It usually consists of a inexpensive red wine fruit, spices and a sweetener like syrup or sugar. It’s also delicious and over indulgence, at least for me, often results in the mother of all hangovers. Still it’s a small price to pay and nothing that some aspirin and huevos rancheros can’t fix.
After the sangria party for one, I was on the move again, navigating past the nervous looking guys getting salsa lessons and found the empanada store. These delicious little parcels are like a South American samosa, dough with a meat, cheese or vegetable filling, and served with salsa. Stopping myself at one, I then made a beeline for the Taco stand.
Western versions of the Taco are wrong, god damnit. To start with, a taco isn’t served in a hard corn shell in Mexico, but rather come in a small soft tortilla. Secondly there’s no lettuce to be seen in an authentic taco, rather it’s topped with diced raw onion, tomatoes and an abundance of coriander. I was a served pork taco with a wedge of lemon on the side, and encouraged to squeeze it on liberally. My first bite is extraordinary; a fusion of delicious tastes and smells.
Keen readers of this website know that I’m a vegetarian who bends the rules a bit when travelling. I decided to adopt this rule today; instead of me travelling it was Latin American that came to see me. I welcomed it in all its carnivorous glory.
Getting full and a little sleepy I decided I had room for one more dish. I did another lap so I could way up my options. I was deciding between paella and quesadillas when I stumbled across Fideuà. The icing on my gluttonous cake.
Fideuà
Fideuà is from Valencia, Spain and is similar to paella except that it uses a thin noodle like vermicelli instead of rice. The Fideuà I chose came with an abundance of crustaceans and was served with aioli. It was exquisite. I’m not a man that goes around liberally declaring things to be exquisite, so I hope this goes some way to describing just how intensely tasty it was.
Being quite content with my finds for the day I waddled over to the tram stop to head home (the laundry isn’t going to wash itself). I left with a full belly and a happy heart, knowing that my sojourn into the culinary delights of Latin America and Spain cost me little more than a tram ticket and a few extra inches around the belly.
