About Spanish cuisine, Barcelona, Spain

by lindamura review

► added on 6th of September, 2007

Spain- cuisine

Spain is a country whose inhabitants love culture, art but where cuisine is a form of art too.

Spain offers a wide variety of dishes and tastes and you can find restaurants of high quality where a meal is a unique experience and where you can always try new tastes and combinations.

Spanish people have three main meals: a light breakfast, lunch is the main meal of the day consisting of three courses while dinner is a bit lighter. Between breakfast and lunch they serve pastry and between lunch and dinner they serve little snacks.

The best restaurant is marked with five forks that are the signs used for classifying them. Then there are the Tapas, kind of snack bars where you can have quick bites between lunch and dinner. Drinks can be served in the so called Bares, kind of bars where you can also have a sandwich and have any type of drink. Actually most places where you order a drink also offer something to eat.

Mesones are other typical paces where you can have something to eat.

When you want to try out some tapas you can expect some real unusual snacks like snails, crunchy pig ears, grilled octopus or bull’s tail. Locals use to drink some beer or wine after they had tapas.

You can find good wines in Spain and they pride themselves with Riojas and Jerez, types of wine that are very popular and worth to taste.

Another specialty in Spain is ham. They are crazy about ham and in big cities like Madrid you can see ham hanging in meat shops and in the market. The hoof of the pig is left to see the king op pig it was and it proves the quality of the meat. There is a type of ham called jamon iberico, very appreciated by the locals and if you try out some you will be convinced of its quality. Spanish love their ham so much that there is even a ham museum in Madrid. It is said that this passion appeared after the moors left the country and it was a sign of celebration of their freedom.

But there are other types of food just as popular. Sea food is one of them. They eat a lot and it is said that they eat more than any other Europeans. Sea food is not limited to types of fish. You will be bewildered by the range of offer you can find in the markets. And because we know that sea food is better if it is very fresh there are small restaurants right in the market that prepare the products they buy. You can’t expect fresher food!

Most food is cooked with olive oil which is quite healthy; actually Spain produces 44% of the world's olives.

Of course you can also find fresh food in other restaurants but if something seems “fishy” for some reason, you can ask for a Hojas de reclamacion, that is a form for complaints and the owner of the restaurant has to send it to the local police where it will be analyzed.

The many cultural influences led to a more varied offer of flavors. The moors’ influence can still be seen and “tasted” in Spain today you can taste some traditional recipes.

If you go to Spain you will definitely not starve, you can eat at any time of day and as much as you can, it is not expensive and the best places not to be missed are the markets.

1. Sep 8, 2007 About Spanish cuisine (Barcelona)  ( 5)