| Diet.
The "Mediterranean diet," is a modern invention,
but inspired by what people in the south of Europe have traditionally
actually eaten. And it is striking how much what the Spanish
and Portuguese food eat even nowadays really resembles that
Mediterranean diet - lots of fruit and vegetables, bread,
olive oil, fish, wine.... Admittedly, hamburguer joints are
ever more prolific, but what characterizes Spanish and Portuguese
food is that no se come como en casa (where you eat
best is at home), and even at home pre-prepared food, ready-made
supermarket fare, is rarely found. Iberians disdain vegetables
which are not fresh, meat which has been cooked by anyone
other than their wife or mother, anything which might have
been frozen...
So Spanish and Portuguese food generally has top-class ingredients,
usually simply prepared, and with short cooking times. One
reason this is possible is a liking for the meat of young
animals: ternera (veal) is more common than beef,
cordero (lamb) of different ages including cordero
lechal (suckling lamb) is popular while mutton is simply
unknown, cochinillo (suckling pig) is a speciality
of Old Castile, especially Segovia, but look at the size of
the pork chops here and compare them with those at home and
you will realize the age difference - in short, livestock
has less life expectancy than elsewhere.
Fish and seafood are popular and caught-yesterday fresh,
however far inland you may be. Britons who have spent decades
thinking that cod was the only edible marine animal are surprised
by the delicious variety of fish eaten here: meaty-flavoured
emperador (swordfish), juicy besugo (sea-bream),
delicately textured merluza (hake), charcoal grilled
sardinas (it is wonderful to find that they do not
have to come out of a tin) and many more. Strikingly, the
bacalao (cod) eaten here is not usually fresh but
salt-cod, and it is the basis for some of the great recipes
of the Basque Country and parts of Portugal, including Lisbon.
Many things with tentacles are highly esteemed delicacies:
different species of squid - calamares and chipirones
(which are the same animal in different sizes), or chopitos
- cuttlefish (sepia), octopus (pulpo, especially
in its Galician form, boiled with potatoes and spiced with
pimentón, smoked paprika). So the variety
(and quality) of sea-food here is not surprising, either:
shrimps of all sizes, especially gambas or the diminutive
quisquillas, prawns, lobsters...
Food. In general,
unlike the British, Spaniards like to eat one thing at a time.
It took me months to realize this, for one thing because many
of their dishes contain the word y (and) or con
(with): conejo con patatas (a rabbit and potato stew),
or pollo con tomate (chicken braized with tomato),
for example. But these amalgams are considered to be individual
foods in their own right, and they will be eaten on their
own, in other words, without side-dishes and often without
vegetables, except perhaps three or four chips or a token
piece of lettuce. This even goes for combinations as basic
as huevo con chorizo (fried egg and chorizo) or huevo
con patatas (egg and chips) - huevo con chorizo y
patatas would be overkill.
The Portuguese, on the other hand, like their dishes to be
accompanied by potatoes and/or rice and/or pasta, and occasionally
all three. And while in Spain, the only soups generally eaten
are gazpacho, sopa de pescado (a fish soup)
and sopa de cocido (to the extent that if you order
just sopa, it is assumed that the latter is what
you are talking about), in Portugal they love their soups,
all kinds of soup - vegetable soups, meat soups, fish soups
- and budget travellers can often use the soup and a sandwich
option.
In keeping with the Spanish one-thing-at-a-time approach
to eating, Spanish first courses are the
filling part of the meal. Alubias or lentejas,
(bean or lentil stews, not soups even though they are eaten
with a spoon), different kinds of revueltos (wrongly
translated as scrambled eggs, more like a kind of omelette),
pimientos del Piquillo (stuffed peppers), and so
on. Even a green salad, when served as the primer plato,
will be immense, and a mixed salad a complete meal. Indeed,
a number of Spanish primeros platos are conventionally
served as a plato único, especially at lunch,
in which case the main course is dispensed with altogether.
This is generally expected of you if you have something like
fabada or judiones de La Granja (more bean
stews), or the most famous (and most mistreated) Spanish culinary
export, paella.
So the main course is approached with the
belt already being strained at, and the lack of accompaniment
to your meat or fish may actually be a relief (but if you
are unable to eat without chips (French fries), you can ask
¿viene con patatas? and make a side order
if the answer is no). As I have said, preparation tends to
be simple, especially if you are eating in a bar or mesón
rather than a restaurant as such (see my pages on budget
eating and drinking), and your filete, steak,
or pescado will probably be fried (in olive oil,
of course) or grilled (I say "grilled," as that
is the usual translation of "a la plancha."
In fact, la plancha is a large, heavy, stationary
griddle or hot plate, usually gas-heated).
Desserts are simple (in the sense of uncomplicated
to eat, not necessarily to make), and practically always served
cold: flan (nothing to do with what we call a flan,
this is Spain's crème caramel), púdin
(not a lot like what we usually call a pudding, either), natillas
(cold custard), arroz con leche (cold rice pudding,
invented by the Arabs to their eternal glory), etc. Often
a piece of fruit will be preferred, an apple, a slice of melon
or a peach, in which case the diner peels it before eating
(it being a general belief here that eating unpeeled fruit
is dangerous because of pesticides) and probably cuts off
slices as he goes along.
Drink. A drink
before your meal is considered a kind of aperitivo
and you will probably get some kind of tapa with
it. Meals may be accompanied by wine (vino tinto,
red wine, vino blanco, white wine, or rosado,
rosé), beer (cerveza), water (agua),
or a soft drink (refresco, though you'll probably
have to ask for it by name). If you drink wine with food,
it is not unusual to water it down with casera, a
mild-flavoured fizzy lemonade. After your meal, you may want
a coffee (probably not con leche, that would be too
filling - see 'Breakfast,' below) and if you are not going
back to work, some kind of licor - brandy (coñac),
sloe gin (pacharán, it's a Basque word), anisette
(anís) or a liqueur (licor de manzana,
apple, de melocotón, peach, etc.).
Meals. Breakfast
(el desayuno), elevenses (also called el desayuno),
lunch (el almuerzo), afternoon tea (la merienda),
and dinner (la cena). Both kinds of desayuno
are light, a cup of coffee (café - sólo
(black), cortado (with a little milk) or café
con leche (coffee so milky it's filling and so appropriate
for breakfast)), and perhaps a bun, a croissant or a piece
of toast (tostada, made by spreading butter on the
bread and doing it lightly a la plancha, so I suppose
it isn't really a 'toast' but a 'griddled'). El almuerzo
is so much the main meal of the day that its synonym in Spanish
is la comida, 'the meal.' It is famously eaten late,
around 2.00 or 3.00 pm, even later in some parts of the country
and at weekends, and is traditionally a leisurely affair (lasting
a minimum of forty minutes, an hour not being considered excessive).
La merienda is optional, or at least food is - you
as a visitor will almost certainly want a pick-me-up coffee,
soft drink or a beer at half five or six, but a drink on its
own is not usually referred to as the merienda. Like
lunch, la cena is also eaten late, ten o'clock at
night, for example, to the extent that, except in areas catering
to foreigners, most restaurants will not even open before
eight o'clock. Even in a restaurant, la cena is a
much lighter affair than el almuerzo - whereas a
lunchtime primer plato may be your plato único,
at dinner it is common to skip the first course and go straight
to your segundo plato. And, especially when in company,
it is even more common to avoid formal restaurants (even budget-friendly
ones) and dine on tapas or raciones, shared
dishes, in bars and taverns.
Eating customs.
Don't worry, there are no strange eating customs in Spain
and Portugal which will result in your being picked out and
stared at if you don't observe them. What follows is more
for your interest and entertainment than a set of guidelines.
Bread. In Spain, served with every meal,
eaten dry, without butter, and emphatically not dipped
in your soup. In fact, bread is most eaten with dry things
rather than wet things, the exception being when you use it
to wipe the remains of a particularly delicious sauce off
your plate (not done in refined places, of course). In Portugal,
bread (and butter, delicious butter. And often cheese, delicious
cheese) is served before your meal with your aperitivos,
usually olives.
Cutlery. See 'Knife and fork' and 'Other
cutlery'
Floor, the. In bars and taverns in Spain
(not in Portugal, unless you notice the floor has
already been littered), it is usual to dispose of your used
paper serviettes, olive stones, prawn heads, sunflower seed
shells, etc. by throwing them on the floor. Get used to it:
there is no fighting this custom, however much you dislike
it - waiters sweeping up generally find it easier to empty
any rubbish containers onto the floor rather than directly
into the dustbin, so one way or another that is where your
waste is going. The floor may serve this purpose even in restaurants
(not elegant ones, I stress, check what everyone else is doing
first).
Knife and fork. Used British-style,
holding both at the same time, fork in the left and knife
in the right hand. No-one will care if you use them in any
other fashion though, really, not in the slightest. And if
you don't need to use a knife (e.g. for paella), wield your
fork prongs-pointing-up in your right hand, just the way your
mother told you not to.
Other cutlery. The start-at-the-outside-and
-work-your-way-in rule is almost never followed, and you are
likely to find your soup spoon to the left of your knife,
and so on. It won't be a soup spoon as we know one, either,
but shaped like a dessert spoon, i.e., with a rounded tip
- it is considered "wrong" to take your soup from
the side of such a spoon (insofar as anything is considered
wrong here, etiquette not being a Spanish obsession - in fact,
how not to drink your soup is one of the few rules of table
manners that all Spaniards recognize as such), so follow your
instinct and shovel it into your mouth tip first.
Pepper. Not used at the
table (not often in the kitchen, either).
Salad. Not accompanied by
mayonnaise or a prepared salad dressing, but aliñado,
dressed with olive oil and vinegar (unmixed and poured over
the salad from their respective bottles) and salt. Dressing
the communal salad is traditionally the host's job - allow
about twice as much oil as vinegar, be generous with both,
but be sparse with the salt.
Salt. Unless there is a salad set (an oil
and a vinegar bottle) on your table, there will probably not
be a salt cellar, either. Ask for a salero if you
need one, but your food will probably already have been salted
in the kitchen, so be careful (and if you are on a salt-free
or low-sodium diet, say sin sal very emphatically
when you order and stick to things like meat and fish a
la plancha which are prepared immediately before serving).
Seafood. The following is not true
of Portugal, where table manners are more conventional.* But
in Spain, it is considered almost offensively pretentious
to use cutlery to peel your gamba or langostino.
Instead, hold it with the thumb and index or middle finger
of your left hand, pull its head off with the thumb and index
or middle finger of your right hand (it is acceptable to suck
the head before throwing it away) then peel the cola
(tail or body) with the same fingers and eat (it's good policy
to decide which fingers you are going to use before you start
and stick to your decision. I must confess that,
in spite of my years here, I always forget which fingers I
am using and end up up to my elbows in prawn juice. Fortunately,
no-one ever minds in Spain).
Snacks and sandwiches. Briefly
(you'll find more on my page on Budget
Eating and Drinking in Spain), tapas are, as
you probably know, the Spanish fast-food, little titbits of
food which may be free with your drink or available for a
small price. Bocadillos are the Spanish version of
the sandwich: ham, cheese, chorizo or other cooked meat, or
omelette (Spanish (potato) or French) presented inside a length
of French bread (usually half a loaf, sometimes an entire
loaf) sliced lengthwise. The bread is not buttered and doesn't
need to be, bocadillo contents being greasy by nature.
Montados are smaller versions of bocadillos.
Sandwiches are toasted sandwiches. Tostas
are a kind of canapé. Raciones are plates
of cooked meat, ham or cheese, or cooked dishes of something
(one thing again - mushrooms grilled with ham, prawns cooked
in garlic, etc.). They are best eaten in company, everyone
choosing one each from the menu then sharing.
*Portuguese table manners notwithstanding, you can get away
with using your fingers if you are foreign, especially (trust
me on this), if you can pretend to be Spanish.
SPV Articles and Links Pages
Budget Eating and
Drinking in Spain
How to get the most out of your euros while remaining well
fed and watered. A three-page article combining practical
advice with the usual brilliant insights and scintillating
wit.
Cava
Spain's sparkling wine, made by the champagne method.
SPV
Food and Drink Links Directory
Covering cheese, ham, cuisine, tapas, and wine
and other drinks, not to mention places where you can purchase
online.
Spanish Wine
An introduction to the subject, with a directory of denominaciones
de origen.
Elsewhere
on the Net
(The following list is obsolete, having been replaced by
this
page).
Accua.com
This site claims to allow you to book at over 500 restaurants
in Spain. It offers summaries of the establishments, articles,
recipes... Unfortunately, Spanish-only.
Cheese
from Spain
An entire site dedicated to the subject of Spanish cheese
and cheeses, and the fact is that the subject is entirely
worthy of so much attention. Find out about the different
types of cheese, the "denominations of origin,"
where to buy it, how to store it, recipes... For aesthetic
reasons, my own favourite Spanish cheese is a product of Galicia,
queso de tetilla, shaped like an ample female breast
with an enticing nipple on top.
The
Chirimoya Regulatory Board
This is a real curiosity. The chirimoya - custard-apple in
English - is a tropical fruit now grown in Granada, especially,
and has its own denominación de origen, regulatory
board.
Food
dictionary - from GoMadrid
A nice glossary, if a little simplistic ("ahumados" are not
always smoked fish), from this informative site.
Internet
Guide to Spanish Wine Best
of the Net
A really first-class site, with plenty of information interestingly
presented, but unfortunately no longer maintained. Even so,
wine lovers will be able to spend days happily lost in its
pages.
IVP - The
Port Wine Institute
Everything you could possibly want to know about port wine.
The section on Types of Port Wine is especially helpful for
port neophytes.
Orujo
de Galicia
Orujo (also called aguardiente, lit. "firewater")
is a strong drink, native to Galicia, distilled from marc.
The very comprehensive information on this site belonging
to the regulatory body is no longer available in English,
unfortunately.
Puros
from the Canary Islands
And after the meal, a puro (cigar). The Canary Islands
have an important and surprising place in the history of the
cigar.
Spanish
Cuisine
A nice overview, covering generalities and regional differences.
Spanish
Cured Ham
You may find the Spaniards' ham cult a little over the top.
They talk about their cured ham with the same reverence wine
buffs give to special vintages. There's no denying it's tasty,
though.
The
Spanish Wine Page
A very good introduction to the subject, covering Riojas,
sherries, grape varieties, vintages... It is mere carping
to say that the look is a little old-fashioned.
Tapas
The history of this recently exported Spanish fast-food. Take
a look at the recipes, as well. |
