A Spanish sugar rush

Puneetinder Kaur Sidhu

A wet, wintery day, you will agree, is hardly the most conducive for an activity such as window shopping. The inanity of the decision becoming apparent coincided with the setting in of the bone chill, boldly underscored by a sudden bout of teeth-chattering. This was followed by an insistent craving for something warm, sweet and starchy. In the past, a longing such as this, I have often assuaged with a round or two of that most comforting of energy-dense Punjabi food pairings — piping hot chai, fresh-out-of-the-wok samosas and crispy jalebis.

That drizzly day, however, I was in the bylanes of Puerta del Sol, one of the busiest squares of Madrid. Aborting a desultory attempt at looking around the swiftly closing Christmas Market in Plaza Mayor, I allowed my olfactory sense to lead me to the source of an aroma that had trailed me for a bit, that of frying batter. Turns out I was 100m from the city’s oldest chocolateria.

Best known for their ridged churros con chocolate, San Gines have been treating Madrilenos and out-of-towners to their lightly fried dough sticks and thick, almost pudding-like hot chocolate since 1894. A sign at the entrance informs they’re open every day, all day and all night. I joined a fast-moving queue of semi-frozen people, placed my order and found a snug corner to thaw in. Around me, mirrored walls punctuated by B&W photographs of famous patrons reflected old-fashioned marble-top tables and leather upholstery in forest green. The time it took for my racion of churros to arrive, I read up a little bit about their history. Spain’s traditional and most popular breakfast, it seems, may have Chinese origins. It may even have been introduced to the region by its sea-faring Portuguese neighbour. That is, of course, but one of the several inconclusive theories about its genesis. By some accounts, Spanish shepherds—with little access to bakeries in the mountains—may have fashioned a sautéed substitute for fresh bread.

Chocolate would come into the picture sometime in the 16th century, when conquistadors ferried the churro to South America and brought back cacao, then sweetened it with cane sugar to a consistency best suited for churro dunking. A delicious tradition I happily and greedily succumbed to when my order was placed before me. I would repeat the experience many a time during my stay, at a number of churreria sprinkled across Spain. In Sevilla they are called calentitos de ruedas, are airier, and come as a smooth-surfaced continuous spiral that is snipped to size after frying.

The tastiest I had were at a street side kiosk near the Real Maestranza Bullring. Cold and hungry after a tour of the place, a friend and I hoofed it to the stall and watched the spirals take shape with childlike fascination. Safe from the rain showers under their extended canopy, we whiled away a fair bit of the afternoon, waiting for the gooey goodness to re-energise and spur us on to our next destination. This craving for sweet treats in the cold is evidently a universal phenomenon. Studies suggest it may have something to do with an evolutionary memory that helps the human body brace for tough conditions. I’m of the opinion, however, that whosoever came up with that hypothesis was really just looking for a euphemism for hedonic hunger!