My slow and steady conversion to the Spanish way of food
Spanish food is fabulous and...
For 21 years, I have had a love affair with Spain and with a particular Spaniard. During this time, I have
- Struggled against,
- Gone along with,
- and eventually, converted to the Spanish approach to food.
This “conversion” has not been a small matter. It has involved subscribing to a litany of food related habits, and reconciling those with the deeply held beliefs and practices about food that were part of my upbringing. Food has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember.
Childhood memories of family gatherings bring back vivid memories of wonderful food aromas. Most of my father’s family are growers and sellers of food or flowers. The story goes that one winter after the Second World War in Europe, members of my father’s family kept the potatoes they had on hand to plant them in the spring rather than eat them that winter. The potatoes were to have been their food for the winter. Throwing out food, no matter how shriveled, is still something I struggle with. My very first jobs were food related. I grew and sold produce, cooked in a convent, catered dinner parties, and worked in the food industry. My mother has been a food enthusiast since well before it became the popular pastime it is today.
Despite my conversion to the way Spaniards approach food, I haven’t allowed myself to be completely rewired. As such, I suffer the occasional “look” from my husband, in-laws and Spanish friends about eating some food that strays from the patterns and conventions they adhere to. “She knows not what she does” is the subtext of these poignant silences. For the most part, though, where at first I followed along, I have come to admire the deep and complex relationship between Spaniards and the food they eat. Don’t get me wrong: Spanish food is fabulous, and there is a reason why Spanish food is becoming popular throughout the world. Much of this book is dedicated to showing just that. However, it seems to me that eating Spanish food without understanding the relationships between Spaniards and food is only half the story. For this reason, I have been moved to understand why Spaniards take food so seriously. I started by looking at how they live day to day.
To start with the basics, Spaniards generally live free of the spectre of dieting haunting their kitchens. Whereas at any given time, almost two-thirds of American men and three-quarters of American women are dieting to lose or maintain weight, Spaniards are generally quite happy with their weight, thank you very much. So stated about two-thirds of the population in a national survey. Granted, a third of Spanish women and 15% of Spanish men have dieted at some point in their lives, but more than a third of Spaniards consider diets to be completely ineffective. Spaniards seem to have a well-understood weight threshold for their bodies. When they stray from that threshold, they eat less until they feel “themselves”. They do not seen to be obsessed with managing their body’s weight and image. What’s more, Spaniards on the whole are happy with the way they look, slim or not. Well isn’t that a blow for sanity! But look at the way Spaniards spend their time and you’ll quickly understand just how important food is to them.
Lunch continues to be the main meal of the day in Spain
It may seem hard to believe for most of us who slog it out to get to work by 8:30 and leave by 5 (bringing work home most evenings), that the typical work day in Spain has two parts: the morning from 8:30 or 9 to 2, and the afternoon from 4:30 to 8. Close to half of Spaniards have this schedule at work and food is the reason for this two-part schedule. Spaniards split their work day into two parts and double their commuting time so that the period from 2:30 to 4:30 can be set aside to eat the main meal of the day – “la comida” or “the meal”.
As a North American working in Spain, it took me ages to get used to this schedule (to be truthful, I’m not sure I ever did), particularly since my twins were quite young at the time and I wanted to be home before they went to bed. Children’s bedtimes in Spain are an altogether different story. Working with people in other European offices, I found myself thinking that it would not be long after the introduction of the Euro that Spain would start giving up this anachronistic schedule. Surely, the Spanish economy’s ties to the rest of Europe would force a change relatively quickly.
Well, I was wrong. In May 2005, more than 90% of Spaniards preferred to keep the current split day schedule rather than switch to a schedule that would be more consistent with the rest of Europe.
The main meal of the day is such a priority in Spain that people go home for “la comida” as often as they can. This is born out of the fact that only one-tenth of meals (defined as lunch and dinner) in Spain are eaten outside the home in Spain.
Do Spaniards really eat six times a day?
Spaniards generally eat two sit-down meals a day: the main meal at lunch, and a lighter meal in the evening. However, there are indeed six eating occasions throughout the day in Spain. More to the point perhaps is that there are six socially-accepted times of day when people break from their normal work to eat, quench their thirst and socialize, which means that eating is not the solitary experience that it can often be in other parts of the world. It seems to me that there is nothing lonelier than a 24-hour fast food drive-in window. Because these six times a day are set aside as potential times to eat, Spaniards rarely eat alone.
Here are the six times in any given day during which Spaniards may eat.
Breakfast is eaten in two parts: something quick first thing at 7:30 in the morning, and a mid-morning snack, referred to as “desayuno” or breakfast, at about 10:30. The main meal of the day is usually at 2:30 or 3:00. Late in the afternoon at around 5:00, people may have a hot drink, perhaps with something sweet. Children will often have a larger snack at this time, which is called “Merienda”. This is seen as a good time of day to eat chocolate! Then, there is the option of stopping at a bar or café before lunch or dinner for a small glass of beer or wine and a tapa. Finally, supper is eaten around 9:30 or 10:00 at night.
Those are the six times a day. Do all Spaniards eat six times a day every day? Not on your life. Most people in the workplace have a mid-morning breakfast. The mid-afternoon snack is often reserved for children. As for tapas: contrary to what we may think, most Spaniards indulge in drinks and tapas only occasionally. But if the occasion presents itself, tapas are definitely part of “opening the appetite” before lunch or dinner.
While the people who would indulge in all six of these “meals” every day of the week are rare, rarer still are the people who would eat at other than these prescribed occasions. What’s more, Spaniards do not use these six eating occasions to graze on what is convenient and available. Quite the contrary, there is a strictly adhered-to convention about what is and is not appropriate to eat at any given time of day.
Food in the day in the life of a Spaniard
Here is an example of typical meals eaten by Spaniards any given day of the week.
7:30 a.m. - Most Spaniards rise between 7:00 and 8:00. They have a hot drink, perhaps coffee with milk or hot milk (with or without chocolate!). Bread with fresh tomato and olive oil is a popular breakfast. This is as simple as possible. Take about a quarter of a baguette. Split it open length-wise. Toast it if you prefer. Take half a tomato. Smash the tomato into the bread so that it is soaked into the bread. Throw away the remaining tomato skin. Drizzle with olive oil. Add a pinch of salt and presto – breakfast! Fresh fruit may also be part of early breakfast. Breakfast cereals are not typical; children have waking up rituals other than reading the cereal box!
10:30 a.m. - Half a morning’s work done, it’s time again for breakfast, usually a small sandwich with Serrano ham or potato tortilla and a hot drink such as coffee or herbal tea, or a glass of fruit juice. This small break to eat is especially important for people who work morning shifts only and will work until 3:00 before heading home for lunch.
2:00 p.m. - The morning’s work is complete. There may be an opportunity to have a quick tapa before heading home to lunch.
3:00 p.m. - Time for “la Comida” which is comprised of three courses: A first light course usually of vegetables, a second heavier course which may be stew (“plato de cuchara” or a spoon dish) or a more traditional main meal comprised of a protein and a vegetable but minus the potato or rice. Fruit or milk-based desert such as yogurt or flan is served as the third course. Many Spaniards drink wine with this meal and fresh crusty bread is always served.
5:00 p.m. – The second part of the day begins for many who go back to work. For children who have ended the school day, there is the much anticipated “merienda”. Parents may give their children something sweet. For the family as a whole, “la merienda” is often reserved for weekends when people get together with family or friends to share coffee and small cakes bought at neighborhood pastry shops.
9:30 p.m. – Supper is a meal that is quick to prepare and easily digested. Usually lean meat or fish with minimal garnish, bread in moderation is often the only starch. Older people will often substitute this later meal with something very light such as a glass of milk or yogurt.
For each of these meals there is a rich backdrop of what food is considered right and what definitely is not. Believe me I learned the hard way!
Many Spaniards choose where they live so that they can get home for lunch
So important is “la comida”, that many Spaniards choose where they live so that they can go home for lunch. Seventy percent of Spaniards live less than 30 minutes from their place of work, with more than half living less than 20 minutes away. Traffic is bad at lunchtime with most Spaniards driving home, but more than a quarter live close enough to their work to be able to walk and the rest take public transit. As you would expect, the only way to build cities that can accommodate two commutes a day is to build them up.
Most Spanish city streets are made of residential buildings that are between six and eight stories high. That’s a lot denser than North American or British cities. Just imagine cities that are built to make it easy to get home to your family, and a drive to work that’s a fraction of what you have today. There are trade offs. Not having one’s own garden is one of them. So Spaniards look for housing in neighborhoods that are close to parks. Some Spaniards also have a second apartment close a beach where they will spend spring and summer holidays.
Spaniards eat out only about a third as often as the average European and less than a quarter as often as folks in the UK. When Spaniards do go out, it is often for something less than a meal: a small sandwich and coffee at a mid-morning break, a glass of beer or wine and a tapa before lunch or dinner, or coffee perhaps with something sweet mid-afternoon. In the main though, these outings are not to restaurants, but rather to bars and cafés (“cafeterias” as they are referred to in Spain) where Spaniards spend close to three quarters of out-of-home food expenditures. But, surprisingly to me, the focus in bars and cafés is on food. Alcoholic beverages make up only a third of total sales in bars and cafés (Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries - 2004).
With such low revenues from drinks, bars and cafés earn their success by serving a lunch that is as close as you can get to the quality and quantity of home cooking. Often the food served in bars and cafés is not fancy. There are neither elegant garnishes, nor luxury ingredients, but it tastes homemade and a three course meal in a neighbourhood bar generally costs less than 10 Euros even in Madrid or Barcelona.
Fast food outlets in Spain don’t even come close to rivaling bars and cafés. While close to three-quarters of Spaniards say that they never visit fast food stores, very few of those that do would eat fast food for the main meal of the day, preferring instead to eat the lighter selections of Mcfood as their low-key evening meal. Fast food restaurants such as McDonalds had to adapt to Spanish tastes for high quality food with multiple “healthy Mediterranean offerings” well in advance of the overhaul of the McDonalds menu globally.
Food is a matter of self respect and eating is an occasion every day
Whereas in North America eating is often viewed as refueling, much like filling up one’s personal gas tank, in Spain eating is not done to optimize time so much as to take care of what is most important – ties to family and friends, and good health.
Given how Spaniards view food, it will come as no surprise that a Spaniard who stints or skimps on food is a pariah. It is, quite simply, undignified not to take the time to eat, and not to eat as well as one can. Taking time to eat and eating well – these are first principles of everyday life, not sporadic attempts to impress others. To stray from accepted wisdom about how to eat, is to court quiet ridicule from others. There are stock phrases complete with expletives that are used to refer to people who do not take the time to eat properly or who stint on food.
So serious is Spaniards’ commitment to the “occasion” of eating that they rarely if ever eat in public beyond the walls of an eating establishment. You will rarely see Spaniards eating while walking, sitting on a bus, sitting on a park bench or driving a car. There are two notable exceptions. One is the beach, where whole families will create what might be called a home away from home ( an acceptable space to prepare and eat food as a family). The second exception is for children. Children—especially small children—eat after school in the school yard. Children are indulged in many ways in Spain and food is one of those. Among Spanish adults, however (as I learned early on in my acquaintance with the country), there exist some indelible rules about eating in public. Forever etched in my mind, is the look of horror on my husband’s (then fiancé’s) face when, years ago, I suggested we have a picnic in the park.
While there is a pattern to the way people eat in Spain the food consumed by the average Spanish household is certainly not the same throughout the country or from one household to the next. Quite the opposite is true. Spain is a subcontinent and possesses an array of extraordinary locally produced food-stuffs, which reflect the local climate and geography as well as a number of cultural “invasions” over the past 30 centuries (Chapter 4).
Regardless of where they live on the Iberian Peninsula, most Spaniards trust themselves more than the food industry to prepare the food they need and to be as healthy as they wish. I have the sense that Spaniards fear the changes to which dependence on processed food might lead. Meanwhile, in the UK where people are more accepting of storebought food, market researchers are busy pinpointing attitudes and factors that lead them to eat meals that are prepared by the food industry (be they restaurants, fast food stores or food processing companies).
A recent UK study highlighted the following reasons people turn to pre-prepared meals.
- Lack of energy to cook meals from scratch
- Lost desire to cook meals from scratch
- Growing desire to maximize leisure time
- Rising stress levels in general
These factors lead people to spend less time cooking, which in turns leads to:
- Lack of culinary skills
- Low confidence in cooking from scratch
And the cycle continues. In spite of their busy lives, Spaniards resist this invasion into what they deem to be a personal responsibility: preparing food and eating it with loved ones.
Many Spaniards eat the main meal of the day at their parents’ home
Many Spanish families have help sticking to their principles when it comes to eating food that is prepared at home. That help often comes from family. When Spaniards go home for lunch, it may not be to their own home but rather, to that of their parents’.
You can see the commitment that Spanish grandparents have to the nutrition and health of their grandchildren through the demographic breakdown of spending on food. Spanish households where the oldest resident is over 65 spend a third more than the average Spanish household on food. To put this figure in context, consider the US equivalent figures. American households headed by people between the ages of 65 and 75 spend only half the household national average.
The “efecto abuelos”, or grandparent effect, is also evident in the food spending of those who are most pressed for time. Spanish households with children spend 15% less than the average household, while in the US, husband and wife households with children spend 40% more than the average American household.
Spanish grandparents have figured out how to get to see their grandkids as often as possible! They shop for food and they cook for them. Yes, it’s work and it cuts into leisure time, but it’s also a way to stay active, to strengthen family ties and to be hugely appreciated by both your children who are trying to get through the tough early years of their career and your grandchildren who can never get enough of their grandparents’ love and attention.
Where real estate prices and job demands make it hard to afford housing close to work or to live close to family, Spaniards who can’t get home for lunch eat their mid-day meal at one of the many bars and cafés that offer good quality 3-course hot meals for less than a burger, fries and shake might cost at a North American fast food restaurant. While these meals may be eaten with colleagues, their focus is not on replicating the workplace over a meal (honestly do you really enjoy that?) but rather on eating a good meal at a reasonable cost. These restaurants usually operate with a chalkboard rather than a menu and offer five or more selections for each of course. They are often open only for lunch.
Similarly, many Spanish children eat 3-course hot lunches at school, in canteens that offer healthy balanced meals and which Spanish children will actually eat! Finicky Spanish parents stand in for Jamie Oliver in Spain in the campaign to improve school cafeteria meals. Sure the food is not as good as at home, but in general it is Spanish homestyle, with beans, lentils and fish making weekly appearances on the menu and fresh fruit and vegetables daily. It is worth noting that the definition of fruit in school cafeterias is not limited to apples that have been shipped half way across the world. Even in school cafeterias, fruit is served when flavourful and varies with the season. Universities operate similar canteens that are seen as an essential service for the student body.
The food culture in Spain is so deep that you can see it in the cookbooks. In Spain, cookbooks don’t look anything like their North American or British counterparts. In the shape of a brick or a small dictionary, many of the most popular Spanish cookbooks have no pictures whatsoever, not even on the cover. It would seem that there is no need to inspire people to cook good food or--as some might say—to substitute actually cooking food with looking at it! Spanish cookbooks are filled with expressions like “cook until it is ready” or refer to standard steps without any detail like “prepare a sofrito”. Spanish cookbooks provide a basic definition of each dish and no more.
These are the ingredients. These are the steps. You know what to do.
By the numbers…
10%, the percentage of meals (lunch and dinner) that Spaniards eat out
45%, the percentage of meals that UK citizens eat out
30%, the percentage of meals that average Europeans eat out
18%, the percentage of additional bars and cafés in Spain compared to Italy
30%, the percentage of additional bars and cafés in Spain compared to Germany
70%, the percentage of Spanish out-of-home food expenditures that are made in bars and cafes as opposed to restaurants
32%, the percentage of revenue attributable to alcoholic beverages in Spanish bars and cafés
90%, the percentage of Spaniards surveyed in 2005 who prefer to keep the current split day schedule to accommodate the main meal of the day at lunch
35%, the percentage of additional expenditure on food made by Spanish households in which the oldest resident is over 65.