At the Table: Food and Family around the World - Ken Albala (2016)

Spain

F. Xavier Medina

Spanish cuisine and gastronomy is probably among the most famous internationally: elements such as tapas, wine, and paella are very well known around the world. Nevertheless (and probably due to this same reason), information on Spain and Spanish gastronomy and food culture is usually made up of a number of stereotypes and preconceived ideas that, in most cases, have little or nothing to do with reality.

What really happens at a table in everyday life in Spain? The aim of this essay is to offer an overall view on the Spanish culture and society using a real picture, a real day-to-day image of a meal in Spain as a storyline.

Albala

Two young couples having an outdoor lunch at a restaurant terasse near the beach, during the autumn season in Barcelona, Spain. (Courtesy of F. Xavier Medina)

THE CONTEXT: THE PROTAGONISTS, THE PLACE, THE TABLE …

The picture in this entry shows two young couples at an outdoor lunch in a restaurant near the beach. The place: the city of Barcelona, capital of Catalonia, in the northern Mediterranean coastal area of Spain. The moment: a friend lunch on a Friday during the autumn season.

On the table, we can see a local variation of the popular paella, as a main dish, and a bottle of an also local and cold white wine. This rice, nevertheless, was not the only dish of this meal. Our four protagonists started with a selection of small dishes for tapas: clams, mussels, patatas bravas (fried potato cubes with spicy sauce), and fried calamari. After the rice, just coffee: one café solo (espresso) and three cortados (espresso with a very little milk, known also in Italian as a café macchiato).

About the restaurant, we have to say that this is a very popular one on the beach, specializing in different rice preparations. This kind of restaurant is not uncommon in Barcelona and throughout the Spanish Mediterranean coast but is also present in other big cities all over Spain. These restaurants were founded by a small entrepreneurial group, with different restaurants in Barcelona and all around Catalonia, and also another couple of them in Madrid. They define their cuisine as a creative one but based on tradition and always made with the best-quality products. In the kitchen, there is a mix of local and foreign-born workers (mainly from Latin America and North and Central Africa).

First, we will start with a short discussion about Spain and its present context. After that, we will analyze the different parts of our description, more than in an ethnographic way, looking for a comprehensive pattern to explain the country and its very complex food culture.

SPAIN WITHIN THE EUROPEAN-MEDITERRANEAN CONTEXT

Spain, a country of 46 million people in southwestern Europe, occupies most of the Iberian Peninsula. Spain borders Portugal to the east, France (and the very small principality of Andorra) to the north, and Morocco (Northern Africa) to the south. Spain boasts a wide variety of landscapes: a big central plain, some of the most important mountain ranges of Europe, and nearly 5,000 miles of coast. It is washed by the Mediterranean and the Cantabrian Seas and by the Atlantic Ocean and also has two archipelagoes: the Balearic (northwestern Mediterranean) and the Canary Islands (northwest African coast). There are four official languages: Spanish or Castilian (in all of Spain), Catalan, Basque, and Galician (in their own areas of origin).

An important aspect to take into account is the quality of Spanish products. Spain has been an agricultural country since the mid-20th century: the mild climate and the quality of the soil have facilitated the production of widely appreciated foods that are highly competitive on the international market. Admission (together with Portugal) to the European Union in 1986 was a major boost for the Spanish economy and marked the entrance of Spanish agriculture in the integrated European policies.

Cutlery Proliferation

In certain periods in history, tableware became more varied and specialized. Thus, in the Victorian era there were special fish forks, marrow spoons, butter knives, and doz- ens of other items that were a mark of sophistication and wealth. In the 20th century the variety of items narrowed, with many serving several functions. At home especially, a complete set of cutlery might be only a knife, fork, and spoon. Eventually even these were combined into sporks, knorks, and many other all-purpose utensils, first found in fast-food outlets but gradually making their way into homes.

During the years after 2008, the Spanish economy has been strongly affected by the European debt crisis and the Great Recession. Even if Spain had a comparatively low debt level among advanced economies prior to the crisis, debt was largely avoided by the ballooning tax revenue from the housing bubble, and in 2013 the country suffered 27 percent unemployment. This important fact has affected significantly Spanish lifestyles until the present moment, including food consumption (quality and quantity) and eating out in restaurants and in other public food services and spaces. However, during the second half of 2014 and early 2015, the effects of the crisis seem to be giving way to some recovery, which has begun to be reflected again at all levels.

A PICTURE TAKEN IN BARCELONA …

The city of Barcelona is the second-largest city in the country (around 2 million inhabitants), after Madrid, the capital, and is probably the most internationally known and touristic city in all Spain. Barcelona is capital of one of the most important industrial and economic but also touristic poles of the state: the autonomous community of Catalonia.

Barcelona is actually among the most cosmopolitan cities in Europe and is also a very important culinary center. Just as the restaurant in the picture defined its own cuisine as a creative one but based on tradition, Barcelona and Catalonia’s cuisines are also in between innovation and tradition. On one hand, the region is an important pole of concentration of the most innovative and creative cuisine in the international gastronomic panorama: Ferra Adrià was internationally recognized for the first time as the best cook of the moment in 2004; Restaurant Magazine judged his restaurant, El Bulli, to be number one on its Top 50 list of the world’s best restaurants for a record five times (2002, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009) and second in 2010. Another Catalan restaurant, El Celler de Can Roca, founded by the Roca Brothers, was also number one of the list in 2013 and second in 2011, 2012, and 2014.

On the other hand, Catalan traditional cuisine is also very important and recognized. This fact led to an effort for Catalan cuisine to be declared a World Intangible Heritage by UNESCO. This was the first proposal for a nonstate cuisine as an Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

THE PEOPLE AND THE MOMENT: AN OUTDOOR LUNCH NEAR THE BEACH

As mentioned before, our picture shows two young couples at an outdoor lunch in a restaurant near the beach during autumn. Food culture in Spain, unlike in some other European countries, has always been of capital importance. Eating is conceived of as a social act, as an activity that must be shared with others. Spaniards in general highly value eating with their family, friends, and colleagues, spending daily time on it. Sharing food fosters social relationships, and it is not uncommon for meetings to be articulated (or ended) around a dining table. It is not so common to see a person eating alone everywhere or drinking alone in a bar (unless he or she is forced by specific circumstances). As a matter of fact, such situations are avoided, which shows how socially important meals are.

In the last century, Spain changed from a prominently rural and agricultural country into a modern industrialized and mainly urban country that ranks among the top 15 world economies and is one of the pillars of the European Union. This process has brought along deep cultural and social transformations, which have affected the structure of families, the distribution of working and leisure time, and, consequently, the timing of all those activities related to food, both inside and outside the home.

To correctly interpret our picture, we have to say that these fast changes include the transformation of the familial unit traditionally made up of a married couple, children, and even grandparents into a wider variety of family forms: married and unmarried couples, one-parent families (singles, widows and widowers, divorcees), heterosexual and gay couples (Spain approved same-sex marriage in 2005, becoming one of the first countries in the world to do so, only behind the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada) with or without biological or adopted children. (Incidentally, Spain has one of the lowest birthrates in all of Europe and is also the leading European country in international adoptions and one of the world’s leaders.)

Keeping all this in mind, it is noteworthy that social change in Spain has been rapid and steady. While in other European countries this social change has been gradual over decades, in Spain, after the long period of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship (1939-1975), all these changes took place in an accelerated manner after the late 1970s.

But back to the picture, we must remember also that we are talking about a lunch, one of the two main meals of the day (around 2:00 to 3:30 p.m.). Throughout history the timing of daily activities has also changed. Regarding the structure and timing of the meals, and as far as eating hours are concerned, these underwent significant changes in the 20th century; the most important ones concerned main meals (lunch and dinner), which were shifted to a later time of day.

Comida (lunch, between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.) is, together with dinner, one of the two main daily meals. In Spain, unlike other European countries where very little time is devoted to lunch, lunchtime generally lasts from one to two hours, and the meal is usually a complete one (starter, main course, and dessert). Those who have time to return home for lunch habitually eat there, if possible with family. Nowadays, the working rhythm and the distance between working and living places make it difficult for people to have lunch in their homes. As a consequence, most restaurants offer the so-called midday menus (based on the three-course pattern described above, including coffee) that provide a complete enough meal at low cost. It is worth noting that this meal has been traditionally considered a social act, so it is common for people to meet for lunch with relatives, friends, or coworkers. Wine, together with water, is the most traditional drink (as we can see in our picture). Today, however, the consumption of beer and soft drinks has increased considerably.

An aspect worth highlighting is that Spaniards usually eat much later than other Europeans (such as Central and North Europeans but also French and Italians). The difference is particularly evident with regard to lunch and dinner, which are consumed about two hours later than in other European countries. Whereas in places such as France and the United Kingdom lunch is at about noon, in Spain it is around 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. (even a bit later sometimes, such as weekends and holidays). In the case of the protagonists of our picture, they are having lunch together on a workday, using the lunch break that allows them to have lunch between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.

Likewise, while in certain European countries dinner is at about 6:00, 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. (even earlier in places farther north), in Spain dinner is between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. (and even a bit later on holidays and weekends). The daily distribution of meals in Spain brings along a different distribution of working hours; Spaniards’ workday may stretch until 7:00 or 8:00 p.m., yet they wake up at the same time as other European workers. In other words, Spanish people sleep fewer hours than other Europeans since they go to bed much later, and yet get up at the same time in the morning. This daily timing, however, is not as old as might be believed but has become established only recently. In the 19th century, lunch was around noon or 1:00 p.m. and dinner was at 7:00 or 8:00 p.m., depending on the season. These mealtimes progressively shifted into the current pattern during the 20th century.

Another feature of Spanish society that is worth highlighting, as we can see also in our picture, is that people like eating and drinking out. As we said before, the picture above shows an outdoor lunch in a restaurant in the Mediterranean area in autumn. The climate, with its mild temperatures, is typical of a South European country. It is very rarely extreme, and it allows outdoor celebrations and meals almost all year long (except, perhaps, in the harshest winter months). Eating out includes popular feasts, communal meals, or simple visits to restaurants, premises with outdoor tables, bars, cafés, etc.

A PAN ON THE TABLE: ON PAELLA, WINE, AND THE BUILDING OF A NATIONAL DISH

If we look at the picture, we can see on the table different interesting items. Near the viewer is a bottle of local white wine. There is a paella (the rice dish) for four people, served in a standard paella (the pan). This rice nevertheless was not the only dish of this meal. Our four protagonists started, as we said before, with a small selection of tapas: clams, mussels, patatas bravas, and fried calamari. After the rice, just coffee: one café solo and three cortados.

As the writer Manuel Vázquez Montalbán pointed out many years ago, in Europe probably only Spain and Italy developed a real culinary culture of rice. Spain is the second-largest producer of rice in the European Union after Italy, and both countries are also the biggest rice consumers on the continent. The Valencia region produces a big part of the rice cultivated in Spain, and it is one of the only rice-growing regions in Europe to have a designation of origin. The Valencian way of cooking rice spread to the whole country to the extent that a local dish such as paella and other similar rice dishes (such as the one in our picture, which is not the most typical paella) has come to be considered the Spanish national dish.

If a particular dish has come to be considered the Spanish national representative, it is the paella. Paella is one of those dishes without a long history but nevertheless is known virtually worldwide. Nowadays when most foreign gastronomes think about Spain they almost invariably link it with paella, although this dish originated only in the 19th century in a little coastal area, the Valencia countryside, in the east-central part of Spain. The growing and cooking of rice are admittedly ancient agricultural practices in almost all the Mediterranean coastal region of Spain, but the dish itself is a product of modernity. Appearing in a precise socioeconomic context at the end of the 19th century, paella gradually became an emblem of Spanish cookery more or less accepted as such by the Spaniards themselves, even though it is not really a national dish (all Spaniards know that this dish is originally from the Valencia area). Paella has become known internationally but has also been integrated into many of the different local food cultures in Spain, thanks to phenomena that are characteristic of the modern period, such as agricultural changes, Spanish recent history and demographic consequences, and the birth of mass tourism.

The name of the rice dish paella is, in fact, one of the dialectal names of the utensil (in the Catalan language) used for cooking it: the frying pan. Nowadays, the word “paella” (from the Latin “patella”) or sometimes its derivation paellera is especially employed to designate the round, flat frying pan in which paella is usually cooked and also served—on the table, like in our picture, where one of the members will serve the plates or everyone will serve their own plate, or carried to the table, showed to the diners, and served by the waiter on individual plates.

But at this point, we must remember that our four protagonists started their lunch with a small selection of tapas. In different parts of Spain, some bars offer tapas menus with more than 100 specialties, which are eaten while consuming wine, beer (a caña is the typical size of a glass of beer in almost all Spain, normally around 5-6 ounces), or the drink that better suits each of these appetizers. Tapas are actually popular all over Spain but are particularly important in the central and southern regions.

In some areas such as Catalonia (northeast), especially over the last century, the tradition is more linked to vermut (vermouth) as an aperitif. This drink, made of herbs and wine and fortified with spirits, originated in Italy. In the Basque country (north), pintxos are the Basque version of tapas: small portions of various—and very elaborate—kinds of food (sometimes small culinary gems), placed normally on a slice of bread.

This is not so in our meal (because paella is a main grain-based dish), but normally we can also find on the table some bread as well as some oil and salt. Traditionally, bread has always been the population’s principal food, and even if its consumption is actually decreasing significantly, it is normally omnipresent on Spanish tables. Made from various kinds of cereals, the most appreciated has always been white bread. On the other hand, a set with oil, vinegar, and salt (almost never butter) are present on Spanish tables (particularly in restaurants) at lunchtime or dinnertime.

Olive oil, which is nowadays so famous and appreciated, is extracted from olives and is very commonly used in Spain nowadays (and is the basic fat we use to sauté the ingredients of the paella). Over the centuries olive oil became the predominant edible fat and spread toward the inland and northern regions of the peninsula. Spain is the most important producer of olive oil in the world. In recent decades cardiovascular health and dietetic properties have been attributed to olive oil, which has turned into one of the pillars of the food regimen known and promoted as the Mediterranean diet. For some people, a slice of bread with olive oil and a bit of salt can be a nice appetizer. In our picture, nevertheless, no bread is on the table, because paella is made with rice (also a cereal). In this case also, olive oil is not needed.

Finally, we also have a bottle of cold white wine on the table. Spain is currently one of the main international producers and consumers of wine (red and white mainly but also rosé) and, together with France and Italy, has some of the most valued wine designations of origin in the world (such as Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Priorat, Jerez-Sherry, and Penedès). Wine has been historically the main alcoholic beverage in Spain, and its culture still is very significant throughout the country. On the other hand, beer became definitely (and strongly) established in the second half of the 20th century, and Spain is currently one of the largest beer consumers in the Mediterranean area.

But even if we can identify a kind of national dish such as paella or a popular and common way to eat tapas, we must also say that Spain is a country that boasts a great cultural, geographical, and gastronomical diversity. It is a country with high potential in terms of both cultural relationships and geographical and environmental resources: from the Mediterranean coast, with a mild climate, to the Atlantic coast, colder, wetter, and with more vegetation, and from the flat and dry Castilian meseta to the high mountainous ranges. These diverse features make each Spanish cuisine different and unique, since each of them specializes in specific products, flavors, and cooking methods.

In this context, most Spanish cuisines have evolved around strong identities and representative elements that have changed along the centuries. Historical, social, and cultural factors marked a particular evolution in the various Spanish cuisines, giving each of them a specific character and individual features that distinguish them from each other and from the cuisines of other countries.

More than a single Spanish cuisine, in Spain we can find a very rich mosaic of cuisines and gastronomes with very strong personalities: Galicia and the Cantabric area, the Basque area, Catalonia, the Levantine coast, Andalusia, and the two Castilles, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. Every landscape, culture, language (in Spain there are, as we said before, four official languages), and lifestyle has contributed to create a particular cuisine, even a specific food culture, that is strongest at the regional level rather than a unified general Spanish cuisine.

Paella

Rice (a cup/handful per serving plus some extra ones)

3 garlic cloves

1 onion

1 tomato

2 pounds of meat (pork loin ribs)

1 rabbit, chopped (or chicken)

1⅔ tablespoons peas

1⅔ tablespoons tender green beans, chopped

Saffron (1 pinch)

Salt to taste

Olive oil

Water (enough to double the quantity of the rice)

1.Sauté the meat (ribs, rabbit, and/or chicken) in a paella (typical metal pan, round, flat, and with two handles) with some oil.

2.When the meat is golden brown, add the minced onion, peas, beans, whole garlic cloves, and finally the minced tomato.

3.When the mixture is ready, add the water and bring to a boil.

4.Add the rice, and turn to high heat. After a few minutes add the saffron.

5.The rice must cook for about 20 minutes until all the water has been absorbed.

6.Once ready, cover the paella with a cotton cloth, let it sit for 5 minutes, and then serve it.

Note: Paella is a flexible dish that can be made with several ingredients. The recipe above follows the traditional preparation with meat and vegetables, which is originally from Valencia.

Only ingredients that are more or less easy to find have been included, whereas regional ones such as local species of snails and garrofons (broad beans that have a floury texture and are larger than usual) have been omitted.

Different kinds of paella may be made using other ingredients: fish and shellfish paella, meat paella, vegetable paella, or even mixed paella, the most popular with tourists, which blends in one recipe all the other kinds (meat, vegetables, fish, and shellfish).