And as we tapas-ed our way across Spain I learned a lot. Tapas originated as a little snack "on the house" to be served with your caña - short beer - or fino - local dry-ish sherry. The empasis was on salt to keep you ordering drinks.
So here, from left to right are three traditional tapas. Olives - which you never pay for. Boquerones - vinegar cured anchovies. And air dried ham. I had no idea jamon played such a huge role in Spanish food. But more on that in another post.
Then it seems over time tapas became more complex and were now small portions of food you might eat in a Spanish home.
From left to right - fried eggplant drizzled with a sauce that is called honey but isn't. It's cane syrup which sounds odd but works. Then croquetas - fried goodies made from fish, chicken or pork using a thick white bechamel sauce to hold it all together. I never met a croqueta I didn't like. So very popular you can also buy them pre-made at the butcher shop to take home and fry up yourself. Next, tortilla, which in Spain is not the flat corn Mexican type but instead is a kind of thick omelette made with eggs and lots of potatoes. The Spanish are wild for it but to my taste it is stolid and dreary. And, finally, this surprise, ensalada russa, Russian salad, which you probably know is potatoes, peas, carrots, etc. all bound together with mayonnaise. I had no idea how often mayonnaise shows up in Spanish food. In Italy we have ensalada russa - but only at Christmas - and mayo is rarely used in anything else. But it was hard to get a shot of ensalada russa because every time we got to the bar it had mostly been scarfed up.
As we moved to larger cities the tapas definitely got more "fusion".
For instance, I just don't think that tuna tartare - on the left - has been a regular selection until recently. The entry on the right is baked camembert with caramelized onions. Excellent, but I'm pretty sure the "campesinos" aren't snacking on this with their glasses of fino.
By the time we got to Barcelona it had become clear that tapas for many had evolved into the evening meal. One night in an upscale tapas place I saw two local guys come in and order a very nice bottle of rioja, several tapas and then strawberry shortcake.
Lunch is still the main meal of the day in Spain and the daily special - menu del dia - is a very good deal for a hell of a lot of food. But our favorite meal in Andalusia was to go to the Malaga market which is housed in a beautiful cast iron building incorporating an old Moorish stone arch. At the tapas bar near the fish section we had some of our most fun meals - if you don't mind standing up the whole time.
This clam - conchas finas - translates from Spanish as "fine clam". Which is true. This is the best clam on the half shell I have ever eaten and we ordered it every time. Next are cod roes sauteed with garlic and parsley. The Spanish eat fresh roe everywhere and it reminded me of one of my American favorites - shad roe. These snails are called "canaillas". From this shellfish the Phoenicians extracted their famous purple dye and it only lives in the seas where the Mediterranean and the Atlantic meet. After they've been cooked in boiling water, you eat them cold with a squeeze of lemon.
And, to finish, here are a few more shots of tapas that are pretty traditional but nothing I had ever tasted before. Air dried tuna. Kind of like the air dried beef "bresaola" but fishy. Calçots, which could be grilled spring onions or grilled garlic scapes or, what I think was in this case, grilled baby leeks served with a garlic mayonnaise flavored with paprika. And this dish which I had in Cordoba. It's a garlic/almond puree topped with Malaga raisins soaked in Malaga wine, slices of green apple and toasted almonds plus a drizzle of olive oil. Sounds totally over the top and "nueva cocina espagnole" but it's actually a very traditional dish formerly made with a mortar and pestle.
And the amazing thing about all this delicious food is its price point. The two of us never paid much more than twenty euros a couple including beers even in big cities. In fact, in Grenada, we went to a tapas place where each time we ordered a beer they bought an enormous plate of food to accompany it for free. We figured it was probably stuff which wouldn't be as good the next day. Towards the end of the evening we asked for another beer but with the caveat - please, no more food. We were tapas-ed out.
