I never dated an Andorran.
The only memory that I have that has anything to do with that country was a trivia question that I attempted to answer about European countries starting with the letter A. Oh, how better equipped I am now for that question than I was then.
Andorra is a small country surrounded on all sides by France and by Spain. I learned that it was governed by both France and Spain until 1993. I also learned that 80 percent of Andorra’s GDP comes from tourism. Andorra is about two and a half times the size of Washington DC. These facts all come from the CIA World Factbook.
I also kept seeing reference to escudella as the national food of Andorra. I ignored the fact that it is traditionally served a Christmas time. You see, if I didn’t choose to ignore that, I would have put this alphabetical order exploration of world cuisine off until late September/early October, and who knows what I might be into by then.
Considering that the escudella might take some time, and that the recipe looked like it would make a lot of food. I decided to make a salad…not that I was thinking at all about my salad goal.
Trinxat, a potato, cabbage and pork dish came up every time I looked up Andorran food.
Finally, I decided to make brac de gitano for dessert.
Things turned out okay, but I lost focus during the escudella-making, forgetting more than one ingredient for the stew. Oh, that and I over cooked the cake part of the brac de gitano. The salad isn’t something I’d make again, and the trinxat, while tasty, was not aesthetically pleasing.
All-in-all, this isn’t my best work, but I’m still glad I did it.