Being sort of tisay, and knowing how it would please her tremendously if I could improve on my laughable grasp of the Spanish language, I told her I’d opt for a vacacion en España. How her face lit up. She started to tell me how I would enjoy the museums, bullfights at the corrida – Why she thought I would enjoy the sight of a bull being gored in front of a cheering crowd remains a mystery to this day. I did not go to med school because of my aversion to blood – shopping at the Rastro, the lovely churches, and all the good food. The last bit definitely piqued my interest.
My family lives to eat. One look at us and you’d know I’m speaking God’s simple truth. I grew up enjoying generous servings of paella, zarzuela de mariscos, callos, cocido and many other Spanish dishes my mother labored over in our kitchen in San Juan and served up during Sunday dinners. A food trip was definitely on my travel agenda.
"A country’s cuisine is its landscape in a cooking pot," wrote the Catalan writer Josep Pla. I have always been of the opinion that a glance inside a cooking pot reveals more than just a country’s geography. To savor a country’s culinary customs is to experience the unfolding of an entire culture. But this takes time and patience and a readiness to discover the unfamiliar… and money. I could only be away for three weeks, so time was going to be a bit of a problem. Patience and love of the unfamiliar, I had plenty of. Money? Let’s move on to other more pleasant topics.
But despite all these, I enjoyed my trip tremendously. I loved the Prado in Madrid, laying candles before La Macarena in Seville, driving through the sun-drenched countryside, the lovely Alhambra, but most especially the food. I discovered what a cliché it was to equate Spanish food with just paella, cocido, and red wine. My trip (and my appetite) made room for new culinary discoveries.
Most notable was my discovery of tapas and tapas bars. Tapas (from the verb tapar meaning "to cover") bars are all over Spain. And tapas encompasses small portions of food, irresistible delicacies, served in bars, bodegas and tascas to accompany a copa of fino (dry Spanish sherry), draught beer, wine or chilled sangria. You can enjoy tapas in most bars before the lunch hour – In Spain this is very late: tapas at 1 p.m., followed by lunch at 2 p.m. or after – and again before dinner, at around 8 to 9 p.m., with dinner still later.
I soon found out that tapas bar-hopping is part of the convivial Spanish way of life. With the friends I made during the course of my trip, we would stop in at several bars to have a glass of wine and sample the tapa specialties of each. As it’s customary to stand up at the bar, I was much younger then so I didn’t really mind. What could be nicer than eating, drinking, and chatting in a convivial atmosphere?
The true origin of the tapas culture is still the subject of much debate. Castilians say King Alfonso X was the originator of these delights when his doctors advised him to cut back on his calories. So, his personal cooks served him tiny morsels that supposedly tasted so good that they could well have been the precursors of the tapas culture.
The Andalusians, however, laugh at this theory. In their minds, tapas originated from the sunny south. After all, southerners have always loved outdoor meals, invariably accompanied by a glass of sherry or two. However, as the delicate aroma of this sweet beverage attracted hosts of irritating insects, a small cover (tapa) or dish was placed over the glass. The dish would have a few olives, as well as a small amount of fish, ham, sausage, or other appetizing morsels.
Whoever it was, Castilian or Andalusian, I remain much indebted to him (or her). A few of the dishes, both hot and cold, you might find in a tapas bar are plates of raw, very thinly sliced jamon serrano, which makes a marvelous combination with sherry. Of course, there are olives, whether sweet, meaty manzanillas or gordales, the size of small plums. Then there are rings of tender squid or calamares. The selection is astounding, and it’s very likely that in the course of a visit to a tapas bar, you will not be served the same tapa twice.
So, it was with unseemly haste that I readily accepted my nephew’s invitation to sample the tapas selection at the lobby of The Peninsula Manila. (He probably thought I was feeling a little homesick, but that’s a different story.)
Looking around their nice new lobby, I noticed that quite a few patrons had ordered cazuelitas, the brown glazed dishes that tapas are typically served on, that had croquetas on them, and I knew I had to have those. From the short but well-prepared menu, I ordered broncheta de berenjenas con pimientoas (spicy eggplant-bell pepper bruschetta), gambas al ajillo con aceitunas (sautéed gambas with olives, chili, and garlic), tortilla de patatas (classic Spanish potato omelet), calamares fritos acompañados con salsa de ajo y con limon (fried baby squid with garlic mayonnaise and a wedge of lemon), queso manchego frito al pesto (fried Manchego cheese with pesto), and my croquetas españolas de jamon (Spanish ham croquettes). I wanted to try the other four tapas dishes, but we also had the paella classica that was on the menu and a pitcherful of sangria, and there simply wasn’t any more room for more – a couple of buttons popping, notwithstanding.
Our party of four sampled small but delicious portions of the varied fare spread out on our table, and small as they may have seemed, after consuming several, we felt like we had eaten a very hearty meal.
All this invariably brought back memories of that small meson in some long-forgotten town in Spain that drew me in because of the wonderful aroma that wafted from the kitchen and which turned out to be wonderful tapas. Since then I’ve settled down in Galicia, married my Spaniard, improved on my Spanish, had two wonderful children, but it doesn’t change the fact that deep down, I’m still a tisay from San Juan who’d never refuse a dish of homemade adobo.