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Valencia loves its tiger nut ‘milk’ with fartons

Valencia loves its tiger nut ‘milk’ with fartons

Valencia is famous for more than its rice dishes. Locals have been making a milky drink from the tiny tubers of Cyperus esculentus since the 13th century. Deeply chilled, it's the perfect refreshment on a warm day. The tubers are often tiger nuts because they're striped and have a hard shell. In Spanish, they're chufa and properly speaking, the vegan milk made from them is horchata de chufa. No one in Valencia bothers with such distinctions. The drink is horchata or orxata, pronounced the same despite the difference between Castellano and Valenciano spellings. The center of chufa cultivation is Alboraya, a marshy section of Valencia that was once its own town. You can buy tiger nuts on the street or in any public market, but...Read More
Modern times at the Mercado Colón

Modern times at the Mercado Colón

Valencia may not have the sheer number of buildings in the Modernisme style as Barcelona, but it does boast its own regional wrinkle of Art Nouveau. Valencianos reserved their most flamboyant structures of modernismo valenciano for the essentials of daily life. That includes the main post office, the train station, and two of the city markets. Had the city not built a neoclassical bullring a few decades earlier, the Plaza de Toros probably would have been Art Nouveau too. We've already written extensively about the Mercado Central, but the even more refined example of modernismo valenciano is Francisco Mora Berenguer's Mercado Colón. Mora studied under Domènech i Montaner, arguably second only to Gaudí among Barcelona's Modernisme architects. The Valenciano architect drew on some of the...Read More
SOLDES! Chasing Parisian style at the winter sales

SOLDES! Chasing Parisian style at the winter sales

Of all the mellifluous words in the French language, none has a better ring than ‶Soldes.″ Usually written in all capital letters, it's the term for the twice-annual sales in Paris. We don't really know why the government regulates markdown seasons. But whatever the reason, the winter and summer sales are a real boon for travelers who want to score a bargain and bring home a little memento of Paris style. This year, winter sales took place January 8 to February 4. (Summer sales will be June 24 to July 21.) When we arrived in the City of Light during the third week of January, SOLDES signs were everywhere. We had admittedly missed out on the frenzy of the opening days when the sales racks...Read More