Having learned a little about the Spanish Inquisition’s
role in developing Spain's cuisine and then hearing that Madrid holds the GuinessWorld Record for the "Oldest Restaurant in the World", we developed a renewed interest
in Spanish cuisine and signed up for a “Tapas Tour”.
We arrived at the tour to find ourselves the oldest participants by
about 15 years. We felt ridiculously out of place (and seriously overdressed!) but managed to gain some serious street cred and respect when Geoff showed off his incredible ability to drink wine from a bag without getting splashed.
Nonetheless, we did gain a new appreciation for the
development of tapas and pinxtos (the Basque Country version of these shared plates).
Tapas developed hundreds of years ago as a
means of promoting work efficiency. As
wine was safer to drink than water and cheaper to consume than food, many workers would
go to the local inn at lunchtime and have only a liquid lunch. Concerned about worker productivity and afternoon absenteeism, the King ordered that every drink must be
accompanied a snack of some sort. This
created the concept of tapas and also helps to explain why many of the
traditional tapas are so carb-heavy…better to soak up the booze!
Tapas means “cap/top”.
The name was apparently created during a King’s visit to a local
tavern. The doors had been opened and a
huge gust of wind came through bringing with it a huge pile of flying
sand. To prevent the sand from getting
into the King’s beer, the server grabbed one of the snacks and put it on top of
the drink as a cover.
From that day forward, the King called the snacks "tapas" and a new name
was born.
It seems that every dish has a story – patatas bravas was
created by bull fighters who liked to prove they could serve the strongest
sauces, paella was developed by sailors to use up leftovers, croquettes were a way of
getting people to eat ham without them knowing
etc. etc. Some stories seemed
reasonable and others far-fetched.
Nonetheless, it’s wild to think that everything you eat around Spain (much like everything you see!) - likely has some sort of history behind it.
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