Much More Than Tapas And Paella

Today I’d like to take you on a short journey — a short and slightly tempting journey, through the world of Spanish food. Spanish gastronomy is one of the reasons I moved to Spain. I love it. It is my favorite cuisine. Yet I do find it’s misunderstood. For me, Spanish food is as vibrant as its old world marketplaces, where the scents mingle with the chatter of excitable eaters.

It’s a cuisine of incredible diversity. Yet around the world, what is known of Spanish food? Tapas and paella. Two dishes that have come to represent an entire country’s cuisine. Yet Spain is a place of 17 different regions. And each of these proudly independent regions love to hold true to their culinary roots. And they do that by really promoting and offering an organic and ecological way of cooking. What people eat in Spain is based on what is from their immediate surroundings.

I’ll give you an example. So, if you go to Galicia in the far Northwest of the country, just above Portugal, you will eat the most incredible octopus. And it’s so abundant, it’s so good, that it is served as a free tapa with your beer.

Octopus, Arroz, Cava…

Yet come to the other side of the country, come to the Valencia region, and you’ll pay a lot for octopus that they’ve had to import halfway across the country from Galicia. Valencia is the home of paella, and it’s only officially a paella if the rice is grown in the Valencia region and it’s cooked with water from the Valencia region. The Alicante subregion just next door serves a similar dish, but it’s called arroz, essentially rice. Very similar, but slightly different because even within regions, different areas are so proud of what makes their food better. Not just better, but more appealing, more engaging, more captivating than the regions around it.

The same with wine. Spanish wine, arousing the senses. The rounded flavors of a Rioja. Rioja is a region. Or maybe a Ribera Del Duero, same grapes, a different region, a slightly different style.

Then you come into Catalonia and where you’ll see cava. Essentially, producing in the same method of champagne, but not from Champagne — from Spain. And then you’ll have Priorat. And if you are into your literature, that is a wine that Hemingway talks about a lot in his books and his explorations of Spain in the earliest 20th century.

Eating Is Supposed To Take Time

When you spend a few days in Spain, you really notice how gastronomy plays such a big role in the country’s rhythm. It’s not just about what you eat. It’s the entire time that is dedicated to eating. Now, people often say to me, you live in Spain — so they expect that I’m having siesta every afternoon. Which I’m not. But what I am having is a long lunch. That is what everybody does here. So lunch will start at half one, two — on the weekend, lunch might start at three o’clock — but especially on a weekend, it will go on for at least three hours. The same with the dinner, even though dining happens very late. Time is dedicated to dining. Whether you’re at home, in a restaurant, whether you’re with friends or whether you’re alone, it’s supposed to take time.

You’re supposed to savour the food. You’re not supposed to grab something as a takeaway and eat it as you’re walking down the street. You’re not supposed to get some food and have it on your lap as you watch the telly.

Food and gastronomy is such an integral part of the culture that it really deserves this time. And when you visit Spain, you quickly learn that tapas and paella are just the two things you hear of outside Spain. Within Spain, you’ll find a whole variety of different cuisines depending on where you go.

So if you go to the Andalucia region, you’ll get the original tapa. The original tapas, and I really recommend the tapas in Granada. Granada — ask anybody in Spain about tapas, and they will tell you to go to Granada. If you go to the Basque region in the North and do a culinary tour, they have what’s called pinchos. Pinchos — similar to tapas, a little bite that you can have with a drink or on its own. And you hop from bar to bar to bar, at each one having one or two, over the course of an evening, you might visit four or five bars, maybe have eight or nine dishes.

There’s So Much To Try and Taste

Another interesting thing about the whole tapas culture in this way is, if you stay in the same bar, your first tapa might be some olives. Your second, who will be elevated on that, it will be a bit better. And if you really show your dedication to being in this bar — ten drinks in, they are going to be serving you filet steak as a free accompaniment to your meal.

Tapas tours, you can do in Madrid, you can do in Barcelona, you can do in other places and you taste not the original andalusian, but you’ll taste a variance on it. Madrid is a great place to do it because as a capital city, they’ve got restaurants and chefs representing all the different regions. So if you only do one tapas tour, I’d make it Andalucia or I’d make it in Madrid.

And then there’s so much more, so much more. You can explore tour Ribera Del Duero wine region, go out to see Monserrat, the monastery, and do a Cava wine tour from there. Take a private gourmet food tour in Barcelona. Take a private cooking class. Go sherry tasting in Jerez, where sherry comes from. Go wine tasting with the owner, and have lunch at a Rioja castle.

There are so many ways you can really go deeper into the Spanish gastronomy. So many different experiences that you can see on Kated.com that will allow you to go a bit deeper — or a lot deeper — into what this cuisine is all about.

But you don’t need to do those. If you visit Spain, you just need to look out for the local restaurants. You need to find a guide who will show you the local restaurants. Because you’ll find, as you move across Spain and eat in the local restaurants in the towns and regions that you visit, in each place, you’ll get to experience very different specialties, very different gastronomy, and always incredibly local, incredibly organic and ecological gastronomy. Just as it has been for years and years and years.