Diarios de Madrid

Like all modern women who don't cook™ Natalia, my Spanish host, has no kitchen equipment worth mentioning. A few small pots to boil some water, one of those cast iron Italian cafétières and a small mixer but that's about it.

If I'm to cook here I'm going to need two things.
I'm going to need a knife.
And I'm going to need a wok.

Now, I know what you're thinking: you're in Spain, the land of jamon and chorizo, tapas and pintxos.
Well, yes... but there's no way I'm going to spend 5 months here without a decent curry or stirfry.

Procuring a knife is no problem whatsoever. In a country where several women are joyously stabbed to death by their husbands every week, getting your hands on a good demi-chef knife poses absolutely no problem. In fact, El Corte Inglés had several on offer when I was there, I wonder why.

Finding a wok, however, is quite a different matter. When I ask Natalia where I can find a Chinese store we seem to have a bit of a linguistic misunderstanding. A "tienda de chinos" here in Madrid refers to a shop where they sell a bit of everything as long as it's cheap. (For our Antwerp readers, "De Krak", basically) The Japanes restaurant around the corner can only tell me that "there might be an asian food store" in the Tetuan barrio in the north of Madrid. So it's of to Tetuan where I am of course unable to find any asian food store. Only thing there is a Pier Import store right next to the subway station where I do manage to score a decent wineglass (another thing sadly missing in Natalia's kitchen). Call me old fashioned, but I'm not going to be sampling this country's fine Rioja wines from a stone mug.

Time for a bit of internet snooping and after a few tries I manage to find a page with a few addresses. The first one is a store called 'Tokio Now' that's located near the San Bernabeu football stadion. They have an impressive array of teas and sakes but, get this, no woks. When I ask the store owner why not he tells me there's no demand for it. Asian cooking is still a bit of a niche activity here in Spain, apparently.

The two other addresses are in the neighbourhood of the Embajadores subway station. One of them, Foodland, is a strictly Pakistani affair: they have every kind of bean and lentil imaginable but, you guessed it, no woks. The third address is in the same street, a few houses down, and turns out to be more of an African shop. The owner, a rather intense-looking African woman gives me a "you lost, white boy?" look and has never even heard of a wok. She does however tell me that there's a Chinese food store in the Calle de Embajadores a few blocks down.

When I get there I finally get my hands on an authentic, made in china, cast-iron wok. The shop looks a lot like a smaller version of the Sun Wah in Antwerp and sells everything you might need. I also get some soy sauce, black bean sauce, red chilis etc... the works.

The only thing I have to live with are the slightly dazed looks from the people in the store (I'm the only non-asian person there) and the equally dazed looks from my fellow travellers on the subway on the way home.

For a moment there I felt like Ken Hom, travelling with a wok...