EUROPE - SPAIN : MADRID AND THE SPECIAL LURE OF TAPAS
by Barbara Orr




It’s a fine thing to be gadding about spying for chances, visiting castles, lodging in inns at our own sweet will – thus Don Quixote, the lofty idealist, and Sancho Panza, the rustic realist, rode out side by side, together the soul of Spain.

When Sancho warned that the windmills were not giants, Don Quixote replied, not just to Sancho but to all the sensible realists of the world: "It is clear that you are not experienced in adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, turn aside and pray whilst I enter into fierce and unequal battle with them."

Even if you are not "experienced in adventures", a trip to the land of Cervantes, is best appreciated with a spirit of anticipatory eagerness. For Spain is a country of intense contrast and infinite variety.

If France can be called the country of love, then Spain is the country of passion. Think of the sweet thrum of a Spanish guitar, the flash of flamenco, the deep smoldering of dark Spanish eyes ..... this is a country that still believes in the ceremony of a deliberate and dilatory mid-day meal, followed perhaps by a languorous siesta. Madrilenos, for example, seldom eat their evening meal before ten at night and think nothing of a nightlife that ends in the small hours of the morning.

This is a people who invented tapas!

Tapas, which are simply small servings of almost any dish, originated in Andalucía. It is said that they were invented in Sevilla when, in the old days, wine or sherry was served with a slice of sausage covering the glass like a lid (tapa) in order to keep flies from diving into the liquid.

Tapas is more a style of eating than a specific set of dishes. It is the selection of h’ors d’ouevres that appear on the counters of cafes and bars just before lunch and dinner. They come in three sizes: pinchos (one mouthful), tapas (small snacks) and raciones (platefuls). The delight of tapas is the variety. You can sample marinated olives, or grilled mushrooms, baby lamb chops, sweetbreads, squid, mussels, shrimp, or the most famous tapa, Patatas Bravas, roasted potatoes with a peppery sauce, invented at a bar called Casa Bravas near the Puerta Del Sol in Madrid which still keeps the secret to the recipe for the sauce. A fine dry sherry or a robust Rioja wine go perfectly with tapas.

To tapear, however, means to "hop from one place to the next" so Madrilenos nibble and sip at one bar, then drift to another. It’s free-form grazing, highly varied, highly social.

El Bocaito is rated by many as the best place for tapas in Madrid, but there is charm in the more studenty and cheaper bars, like La Giralda, which specializes in pig’s ears, a Madrid favourite. The unstructured nature of tapas is central to its appeal. It isn’t a pub crawl, but more akin to a series of visits to places you love, to sample food, drink and conversation.

Tapas is a uniquely Spanish entertainment, almost a rite of passage when you visit Madrid. It is an old Madrilenan joke that you haven’t been out for tapas unless you’ve done at least half the number of the stations of the cross – that’s seven bars! That would have daunted Sancho, but Don Quixote would have been inspired.

It is easy to fall in love with the land of Cervantes. Whether you are the dreamer Don Quixote, or the down-to-earth Sancho Panza, Spain, home of the leisurely art of tapas, will embrace you.


Photo: Richard Plant
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