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I once bought a
tin of squid from a Spanish supermarket on the strength that it had the
word tapa on the side. I assumed it was some endorsement of
the product as suitable for the meal I had in mind. Only when I
got home and read it properly did I discover that tapa means
"cover" or "top" - the sentence in this case being: 'Best before date on
lid' ! |
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| The origin of the word as a
little dish of food is pretty debatable: the most popular theory goes
like this: small plates were given to bar customers to cover their
glasses of sherry to keep out the fruit flies. Bar owners began to put
morsels of food on the "tapa". As the practice caught on, the quality of
the snacks became a way for bars to compete, and "tapas" became an
important custom in the Spanish bodega. To quote Keith Floyd: "...or not, as the case may be." |
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The second
most-popular theory is that tapas "covered" one's hunger for the hours
between finishing work and eating dinner - in Spain, the evening meal is
rarely served before 10pm. And as a happy by-product, it stopped you
getting sloshed as there was always a bit of bread, olive oil and
protein of some sort to counteract the alcohol. A less romantic notion is that Franco ordered bars to serve snacks to stop people getting drunk. |
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Whatever the origin of the name, it's
possible that serving tapas as a custom derives from Muslim tradition of
offering food to guests: after all, Andalusia - spiritual home of tapas
- was once the Arab kingdom of al-Andalus. And its heartland - Granada -
is about the only city where tapas are still free with a drink.
Elsewhere, it has evolved into a tasting menu, more akin to the mezze
of the Middle East or Greece. Some authors put the origin of tapas
as sometime in the 19th century - but at least one bar in Seville claims
a tradition back to the 17th. |
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These days, tapas in Spain and elsewhere
range from a few olives and some bread to complex fish and meat stews.
Tapas are trendy, and the term is being merrily hijacked to reflect any
menu comprising of small portions. Spain itself has seen the advent of
tapas nuevo: a marriage of the tapas concept with nouvelle
cuisine principles of presentation. In the United States, tapas is fused
with Nuevo Latino cooking, and some dishes are more Mexican than
Spanish in character. |
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| Nothing wrong with that - but it's worth remembering the origin of the tapas as a humble bar snack. On our honeymoon in Mallorca, my new wife and I escaped the tourist complex to a fishermen's bar, and were delighted to be served little bowls of pork stew and squid in its own ink - no, I wouldn't have eaten it if I had known what it was. That was 20 years ago, before I - or most people - had heard of the term tapas. MyTapas doesn't carbon-date every recipe for authenticity, we do like to keep the spirit of the true tapas - almost as indefinable as the spirit of true flamenco: you know it when you see it, feel it, and more importantly - taste it! | ||||||||
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