Tapas

Tapas are just a little bit more than snacks in Spain. The word “Tapas” means, literally a lid. The term was thought to have come from the habit of having a few nibbles with a drink and the necessity of placing a saucer or tapas on top of a glass to keep the flies out.

In the old days tapas were given away free with a drink. Today, this happens very rarely, although you will often be presented with a few salted roasted peanuts along with your beer, to make you thirsty enough to have another one!

Eating one or two tapas with a glass of sherry or wine will enhance the taste experience and will also slow down the effect of the alcohol. You can eat tapas at just one bar, but it is more customary (and more enjoyable) to move from bar to bar sampling their various specialties.

Each tapas is really no more than a bite, so you can either sample two or three before dinner, or you can make a meal of them by ordering larger portions, called raciones. The Spanish generally eat Tapas standing at the bar rather than sitting at a table and a list is generally displayed on a blackboard.

Here's a tantalizing taste of some of the dishes (hot and cold) you might find in a tapas bar in a region such as Andalusia.

Certainly the superb ham, both serrano , which just means mountain-cured, and the pricey iberico , produced from special Andalusian pigs which grow sweet on acorns. This salt-cured ham is served raw, very thinly sliced. It makes a marvellous combination with Fino Sherry.

And, of course, Andalusian olives. They can be the famed Seville olives, sweet, meaty manzanillas ; or gordales , the size of small plums; or home-cured ones, slightly bitter, flavoured with herbs and garlic, or olives stuffed with anchovy. A tapas of mixed olives might include fat caper-berries too.

Amongst cold dishes on the tapas bar are a variety of salads, some wonderfully exotic. For example, salpicon with chopped tomatoes, onions and peppers might include prawns and other shellfish or it might be made with chopped, cooked octopus. Remjón is a salad of oranges, codfish, onions and olives. While it might sound strange, it tastes wonderful. So does roasted pepper salad; ensalada campera, a lemony potato salad; and cooked fish roe dressed with oil and lemon. .

Andalusia is famous for its fish and shellfish and a tapas bar is a great place to sample the array. Fried fish, from tiny fresh anchovies (boquerones) and rings of tender squid (calamares) to chunks of fresh hake and batter-dipped prawns are enticing, in deed. Look for cazsn en adobo, fish marinated before frying, and boquerones en vinagre, marinated raw fish. The selection of shellfish will astound you--clams and razorshells, mussels, prawns ranging in size from the tiny to the jumbo; crab, lobster, and more.

Then comes a variety of hot dishes. Some are cooked to order--prawns pil pil, sizzled with garlic and oil; garlicky grilled pork loin--while others are dished out of a bubbling stew-pot. You can savour meatballs in almond sauce, kidneys in Sherry sauce, sautied mushrooms, chicken fried al ajillo, with garlic; lamb stew; broad beans with ham; piquant tripe, spicy snails, and, of course, tortilla, a thick round potato omelette. Crisp-fried fritters and croquettes are other great tapas of Andalusia, which produces the world's finest olive oil.

Take a look at the Taste of Spain pages for some recipe ideas

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