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Food Glorious
food
One thing is certain in Spain. There's no
reason to go hungry. Restaurants of every
variety, food venders, and food markets
are almost everywhere in the inner cities.
At regular intervals along the regional
highways of Spain, one can find roadside
restaurants. |
In my mind, what makes Spanish
cuisine special is its freshness, regional
dishes, and the plentiful availability of quality
seafood. Go into any major food market in Spain
and you will see a huge variety of produce.
| Photo Right: Food stand
in the Barcelona Mercat de Sant Josep.
Finding
the best restaurants:
The general rule
of thumb for finding the best places to
eat in Spain\ is to go to restaurants with
Spanish- only menus, but this rule is not
universally correct.
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In my experience, you are more
likely to find the better eats in establishments
frequented by the natives than in the ones strictly
targeting English-speaking tourists. Interestingly,
some of my best meals for the price have been
from those roadside restaurants. One of my best
meals was from a restaurant attached to a hostal
(Hostal del Senglar near Poblet), and though the pleasant staff spoke
almost no English, they surprised us with menus
translated into English.
If experiencing the absolute
best in Spanish cuisine is important to you, take
the advice of guidebooks for Spain, but be
forewarned: Reservations are usually a
prerequisite for the finer restaurants. For example,
Madrid's smallish and much recommended Casa Poco has some of the best steak and
Iberica ham in town (oddly it doesn't serve
coffee), but don't drop by during lunch and expect
to be seated.
Above:
This cold soup, similar to gazpacho, is a
specility of Sevilla. |
Ordering the
Food
Outside of Barcelona and the tourist
areas, selecting restaurants of local
character can often mean little or no
communication with the waiter in English,
so it is best to be able to recognize a
few food- related Spanish words. It is
also good to be the adventurous type of
person. When the unexpected meal shows up,
you will at least have the nerve to give
it a taste (see
my unexpected tapas in Cuenca). |
Start by learning the Spanish words for the
food categories, for example: salad (ensaladas),
soups (sopas), fish (pescados), seafood (mariscos),
meat (carne), etc. If you can recognize the food
category, you will at least know you are geting
some type of fish dish when pointing to one of
the offerings listed under PESCADOS. A technique
used by some people is to look around at what
others are eating. If something looks good, they
will point to it when the waiter comes to take
their order.
The restaurant norms
in Spain are very similar to those in
the U.S.
On entering a restaurant you generally
will wait for the server to seat you.
When menus are brought to the table, you
will likely be asked what you would like
to drink or if you would like white (blanco)
or red (tinto) wine (vino). The waiter is
also likely to bring you Spanish bread,
sometimes placed right on the tabletop. A
dish of olive oil, possibly containing
slivers of butter, will also come with
the bread in some regions of Spain.
Usually, the waiter will ask for your
order when bringing your drinks or if an
attendant brings you drinks, the waiter
will take your order when he is available.
At the end of the meal, you will need to
ask for your bill (la cuenta, por favor).
In cafes the norms are
slightly different. One generally will
seat oneself and when
it comes time to pay, it is better to
ask for the meal's cost (cuanto cuesta?). |
| One of the
typically Spanish dishes you
encounter in Spain is paella. Paella is a
rice dish, usually cooked with either
seafood, pork, rabbit or chicken and
seasoned with saffron. Traditionally a
dish of eastern Spain, with variable
quality you can find it in almost all
tourist areas. This dish is best when
fresh; do not order as the ‘menu de
dia”. Often restaurants will want
two people ordering the dish in order to
cook up a serving. Cooked sometimes over
an open fire, the finished paella is
brought to the table (most of the time)
in the very hot metal pan it was cooked
in. |
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| A
"café con leche," hot
espresso coffee, is half coffee and
half milk. If you want a standard
U.S. sized cup, you will need to add
the word "doble" when
you order. |
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I like
seafood, so when in Spain I take advantage of the
abundant availability of squid, fish, and
shellfish dishes. Try the calamari, particularly
the offerings in southern Spain. The calamari
there is served as large rings, nothing like the
little calamari rings I have been served at
seafood chains in the U.S., where you need to chew
forever before you can swallow.
In eastern Spain, you might
consider ordering suquet, a tomato stew of
fish, shellfish, potatoes, and wine, spiced with
saffron. Around Madrid and central Spain, variations on
regional Spanish dishes abound. It is also a
region known for its meals based on wild game,
pheasant, partridge, and wild boar.
Southern Spain cooking was strongly influenced
by its time under the Moorish Kingdoms. The Arabs
introduced a number of food types to the Iberian
Peninsula, among them olives, lemons, and oranges.
Along the Costa del Sol you might want to try
fritura de pescado, a squid and fish
dish with lemon wedges.
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