All my posts this season are “inspired by” a letter of the alphabet!

The Podcast interview this week is in Spanish, and all about food. So, because it’s in Spanish, I’d like to give you the main gist of what we talked about, if you are not a Spanish speaker. If you are, you’ll find some extra stuff here apart from what we discussed. And if you don’t listen to the podcast, I hope you’ll find it interesting, as it’s basically all about Spanish eating habits!

So, we talked about potato omelette, with or without onion. It’s a dish which can be eaten at any moment of the day and is cheap and easy to make. Personally, I’m a with onion person, though some swear against it! What Miguel Ángel mentions is that it obviously depends on your personal tastes, but that he’s definitely not in favour of the experiments done to shake it up, like a deconstructed omelette… Because that’s no longer an omelette, it’s just a mixture of eggs, potato and onion.

Of course, regional dishes came up, and clearly, as anywhere, these are influenced by the area and the availability of certain ingredients. So, historically, Castillian dishes were meat-based, whereas coastal areas, such as Valencia, used their unlimited supply of seafood and fish, to make the world-famous paella.

In the centre and north of Spain, traditional dishes were designed to be substantial, a lot of meat and potato. Imagine in rural communities, working a hard day in the fields, you needed that. We mentioned fabada, typical of Asturias, which is white beans and chorizo or other types of pork, and marmitako, from the Basque Country, consisting of tuna steak and potato. Both these dishes are platos de cuchara, meaning they’re like a stew that can be eaten with a spoon.

However, as you move further south, where there is a far hotter climate, traditional dishes reflect the need for refreshment, hence gazpacho, a cold tomato “soup”, normally with fresh salad vegetables to mix in. Or salmorejo, a similar dish, and ajoblanco, another cold “soup” based around garlic, almonds, oil and bread.

Nowadays, these traditional dishes survive, even if, due to more health awareness, new technologies such as pressure cookers making preparation far less time consuming, different lifestyles and the popularity of TV chefs, they are prepared and enjoyed in a way more appropriate to our times.

There are plenty of other regional cuisines, which are perhaps not as well known outside of Spain, such as pan tumaca, originating in Cataluña, basically toast with fresh tomato, garlic and oil rubbed onto it, or migas, common in Castilla La Mancha, which is fried bread and chorizo.

If you ever go to a Spanish indoor food market, you’ll see casquría, which are the internal organs of pigs, sheep and so on, so pigs trotters, heads, brains. It’s cheap, and I suppose tasty dishes can be made of them, but to a British person, seeing them displayed at the butcher, it may turn the stomach a little! Being a non-meat eater myself, I keep my eyes front as I walk through the market. But when you think about it, do we really know what goes into a sausage…?!

And then of course, we have churros. Very Spanish. Basically deep fried flour, water and sugar in the form of a stick. To be dipped in hot chocolate at will. Miguel Ángel jokes that the Spanish enjoy the feeling of being full, slightly queasy even, because they are masochists, and are prepared to suffer because, by George, churros are good in the moment you eat them!

We also discussed the concept of Tapas, the little free snack given to you with your drink. Tapar means to cover, and there are two ideas about its origin. It could have been that something like a small canapé, a piece of cheese, or bread was given with a glass of wine, in order to cover it to keep the flies from leaping into your drink. The other theory is that by royal decree it became obligatory because there were so many drunken street fights that it was deemed better to accompany drink with food. Perhaps it’s a mixture of both. At any rate, it’s actually quite sensible, isn’t it? Unless the fact that you get something to eat with your drink encourages you to drink more! I remember being in Granada, the capital of Tapas, with my parents and there, you don’t just get some olives or crisps, you get a slice of tortilla, or a small bowl of meat stew, say. Suffice to say, with three drinks you’ve had a free dinner. My mum was a bit doubtful about some of the dishes that arrived and I didn’t eat meat, so my dad ended up eating what we didn’t and it was far more than what one person would eat for a normal meal!

It’s true that it’s not as easy as in the UK to find decent or varied vegetarian alternatives. The produce exists when you want to cook at home, but if you choose to eat out, if there are vegetarian options, they tend to be things like grilled vegetables, or salad, (which usually has tuna!). But rather than being designed as vegetarian dishes, they’re more like side dishes that happen to be meatless. That said, I have had the opportunity to go to a Michelin-starred restaurant, called Casa José, which specialises in experimenting with vegetables, pulses and so on. In my town! Not for every day, price-wise, but well worth a visit!

So that was what we talked about. Of course, in the UK there are regional dishes and traditional ones. You’ve got Bubble and Squeak, which is basically potatoes, cabbage, meat, sprouts, all mixed into a kind of stew, which bubbles up, and squeaks over the fire! And it’s often made for example after Christmas, with leftovers. And what about Toad in the Hole? Sausage and egg with gravy in Yorkshire pudding batter. We do like things in batter! Then Shepherd’s Pie (not made of shepherds), again, meat and potato based, or Cornish pasties, beans on toast… Or even a Ploughman’s, a massive plate of bread, cheese, salad veg and sometimes baked potatoes. Indian food, too, is extremely popular. Chicken Tikka Masala is one of the nation’s favourites.

And let’s not forget sweets. Scones and jam, a traditional high tea, trifle, Bakewell tart. So yes, we do have dishes in the UK, aside from Fish and Chips, Full English Breakfast, or a Sunday Roast!

Any culture has its traditional dishes, you just need to go off the beaten track to find them sometimes. Happy hunting!

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