Don’t cook polbo á feira if you don’t know how to do it.
Spanish center-right MEP Adrián Vázquez Lázara is hosting a traditional Galician dinner Wednesday evening to defend the region’s role as “Europe’s leading fishing power,” the lawmaker told POLITICO in a statement.
Invitations were sent after the European Parliament canteen dared to serve what Vázquez called a “fake” version of Galicia’s most iconic dish: boiled octopus with olive oil, paprika and salt, traditionally plated on wood and often served with potatoes.
“Everything was wrong with that fake ‘Galician-style octopus.’ Octopus mixed with squid and broccoli — that’s never been eaten in Galicia. That octopus was as Galician as the Parliament building is Renaissance: not at all,” Vázquez said.
His dinner’s guest list includes Galician President Alfonso Rueda and Suso Pereira, head of the association of traditional octopus cooks.
In an April email to MEPs and assistants seen by POLITICO, Vázquez made clear this is more than a culinary gripe, pointing to Galicia’s fishing sector. “Following the notorious fake polbo á feira that we discovered in the canteen, the time has come to put this sector back in the spotlight,” Vázquez writes. “In the spirit of this sacred mission, I am delighted to invite you to a real Galician feira.”
“We promised that in Parliament they would get to know the traditional recipe, and we are delivering,” Vázquez told POLITICO, pointing to plans to scale back fisheries policy.
“Galicia is Europe’s leading fishing power, and we cannot stop fighting every battle to ensure it remains so,” he added.
It’s not the first food flare-up in EU institutions. The EP canteen has served veggie burgers the day after MEPs voted to ban them, and on another occasion, employees at the European Central Bank railed against a sharp drop in the quality of the olive oil being served with lunchtime salads.
