Horchata in Manhattan

A Valencian Woman cares and manufactures Spanish products in United States

By Patricia Fernández

To drink an Horchata made of tiger-nut in the middle of Manhattan, to eat a Spanish-style sausage sandwich in Ohio or to savor a polvorón (powdered cookie) during a busy day of Thanks is perhaps a dream for many of the Spaniards living in the United States. A company located in California named La Española Meats, Inc. can make that dream a reality.  This  company, owned by a Spanish woman and imports all types of products characteristic of the Spanish kitchen beginning from condiments like  saffron, to nougats, piquillo peppers or octopus.  The products that cannot be imported due to the strict North American legislation-mainly sausages, they manufacture in a small factory located in Los Angeles.

To realize the idea they had to congeal among local consumers; Horchata is currently in fashion for the restaurants in the center of Manhattan, The New York Times even published an article on what denominates “the Spanish sweet white milk.”

The La Española Meats company is the idea of Juana Faraone from Valencia, Spain, who has spent the last 20 years living in the United States.  It occurred to Faraone to put the business together not only to provide a living for herself but it permitted her “to do something for the homeland”, she explains.

The company was founded in 1982, primarily importing canned products.  But, little by little, she added to their catalog cured cheeses, marzipans, chocolate, and typically prepared plates of regional Spanish cuisine, such as fabada or Galician soup.

Some years ago, the company launched their own product line, and now manufactures up to 23 types of sausages such as chorizo Pamplona-style sausage, cured ham, salami, blood sausage or sabrassada mallorquina.  The company also carries paella pans and paella pan gas burners.

The business bills about 1.3 million dollars a year, “without investing a dollar in publicity; only by word of mouth from  their clients and restaurant chefs,” Faraone explains.  The company’s success has had a snow-ball effect; the restaurants have begun to incorporate the Spanish products into their menus, in turn their customers taste them and begin to purchase the products for themselves, which provokes them (the restaurants) to use these products in all their menus.   The company does business through-out the United States but its main business is with restaurants and hotels, like the Carlton or the Ritz.

In fact, to the contrary of what they intended, the main consumers of La Española Meats, Inc. are not among the Hispanic population, but ultimately the medium to upper-class Americans whom “little by little, begin to appreciate what it is to have a good-wine or cheese.”

But this apparent success of their Spanish food has a glitch because its products are not exactly typical. “The Americans don't care for fat or hot spices, so we provide foods low in calories, little salt and no cholesterol,” Faraone affirms.  In this way La Española Meats, Inc. sells Spanish products adapted to the American way.  The sausage for example, is manufactured with pig loin.

Spanish food is also becoming apart of the most typical American traditions.  La Española Meats, habitually incorporates new personnel between September and December because that is when “high season” begins, Faraone comments.  “It is the time of Thanksgiving Day - day of giving thanks -, Holloween and Christmas.” Faraone explains, some families have come to incorporate our party products like the sausage in their holiday entertaining.

Ultimately, it seems the Americans continue bringing to our attention details of the Spanish cuisine as published in a cuisine magazine some months ago regarding La Española Meats,  describing their Spanish charcuterías as a “museum of sausages.”