For my first meal in Spain, lunch in fact, we went to a small cafe on the water. Since it was warm weather I went for a tuna fish salad, something nice and cool. It was not as I was expecting...like a tuna fish salad would be at home, but it was even better. As shown below, the tuna, so fresh I could barely stand it, was served on tomatoes and a bed of lettuce and onions. Even though the heat can sometimes take away my appetite I ate every last bite.
The first thing to understand about Spaniards is that they eat their dinner very late, even by Italian standards. We got to the restaurant around 9:30 and had to wait and were not seated until 10:15....because the restaurant was so crowded. Even then, people were still sitting down to start their meals as late as 11:30. To read more about Spanish eating habits, take a look at this great article from Spanish Lifestyle Magazine. Anyways, once we were seated, we were quick to order pan con tomate....a starter of bread with tomatoes, and a pitcher of sangria to share.
My friends ordered ravioli with brie cheese and shrimp and I ordered a sauteed prawns dish. As I ordered the waitress looked at me hesitantly saying it was a starter dish and may have less than 10 prawns. I'm not sure about you but where I come from 10 prawns is a feast. When I got my meal I found that the prawns were the size of a small shrimp, but there were still 16 for me to enjoy, clearly an entire meal. I could barely finish it in fact, but the quality of the seafood was far too good for me to leave some on my plate. I would certainly recommend this place to anyone visiting and would also recommend trying these dishes or something like them. The pan con tomate is found just about everywhere and is an essential starter or tapas choice.
My second day I explored two long standing Spanish traditions, tapas and paella. Fof lunch, we stopped at a cafe on the street and ordered paella. While we ordered chicken, or mix, paella, the dish started in Valencia containing seafood. Paella has much history behind it and it's important to understand before you can look into the food of Spain.
For dinner, we had a friend who is studying in Barcelona take us to an authentic Catalan tapas place. I ordered Cava to drink, a Spanish sparkling wine, and was able to munch on all sorts of traditional dishes that our entire table ordered. The entire concept of tapas was very interesting to me, and I especially loved experiencing it at a place where we had to ask for recommendations....because they didn't have an English menu.
If there is one other thing to take away from this experience, besides the incredible food, it is my new outlook on food media. The friend who brought us to the tapas bar had found the place on a food blog. A Catalan women had posted about her favorite places and it has now become a go to place for an international student. I keep this blog up weekly, talking about my food experiences, but it never occurred to me to use this platform in reverse. While clearly my opinions can never compete with a locals, it is interesting to really start to think of all the ways digital media can be used to spread food traditions around the world. With this blog, I set out to compare the food in the United States to that of Italy, and various other countries a long the way. I think now I have found a very important similarity, tradition. Whether its tapas, pizzas, or burgers and fries, there is always something to talk about. I guess you can say I had my break through today. And maybe when I am back in the United States I'll pay a little more attention to how it all works ,and to participating in American traditions I've never even heard of........
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