The food is as rich as a king’s silk robe. It is always fresh and full of variety. Although it is very popular to fry food here, it is void of preservatives and other harmful ingredients. Believe it or not, many things that we have in processed foods in the USA are banned here. If you name a region in Spain, they have a specific cuisine for that region. Andalucia for instance does not fail to amaze your palette with tortilla de patata (an egg and potato dish – sort of similar to quiche, but is very much it’s own unique dish), croquete (mini fried rolls with different fillings like meat), lentil soup, and many others. I cannot wait to see what more dishes are in store as my semester progresses.
Many of you may know (at least a little bit) that Spain has a different meal schedule than we do in the USA. That is very true. I can definitely confirm this. The emphasis on each meal is distinct as well. Breakfast is not a big deal here. They eat it at around 8am or so. A piece or two of toast with butter and fruit is enough to get the Spaniards going for the day, until lunch that is. Lunch times is where it’s a little different. Between 2-3pm is when Spaniards eat their lunch. Lunch to Spaniards is what dinner is to us, but possibly even more important. One thing I hadn’t counted on was eating multiple courses. It’s typical to have soup, salad, a side dish of some sort, and bread to go along with it all. I would say it is a good thing they have siestas here because the food is rich and plenty (more on siestas another time). For our next meal, dinner, it’s a smaller version of the lunch here, minus one or two courses. The time, even more still, is way later than many Americans could ever imagine eating dinner (this doesn’t count those who love their late night pizza or what-have-you, haha). It isn’t uncommon for Spaniards to gather around the dinner table at 10pm or later. During the weekend, just add later times (at least one 1-2 hours later) to each meal.
With these seemingly strange meal times (just realize that it’s not strange to the Spanish culture) it would make sense that work schedules and such are configured to fit the meal schedules.
With that main course of words, I say, “Buen provecho!”
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