Spanish food or habits to have lunch

Why do people from other countries always ask us if they are going to eat paella when we meet them?
Well, it's true that if you want you can eat typical Spanish food, but it depends on the different parts of the country: If you go to the north-west you can have fabada asturiana or cocido maragato, if you go down South you'll be able to taste the original gazpacho, and the best paella if you go to the east , but we only eat that kind of food a few times, some people almost never.

Unlike many other countries, our biggest meal is lunch, and that's when the most typical plates are made.
The are many stories which explain the origins of these recipies: maybe the ingredients are easy to get (like tortilla), maybe  it's the right kind of food for cold winters or hot summers...
An example is the cocido maragato, a very big meal  made of chickpeas, meat and soup; it's origins are very simple: during war people didn’t have enough time to eat, so they put all the ingredients in a pot, cooked them all together and ate them. Now the plate is a little bit different, but that is basically its history.

Cocido maragato.

What we mean is that our typical food is delicious and it has interesting origins, but it doesn’t mean that we eat that kind of food every day (could you imagine it?)
Nowadays, and due to the globalization, we eat practically the same that you can eat in America, in France, or anywhere in the world, with some differences, of course, but we have less and less time to make very difficult meals, so sometimes you just order a pizza.
Another important thing we'd like to tell you about is the difference between the Spanish omelette (tortilla de patata) and the Mexican tortillas; they're compleeeetely different. Our tortilla is bigger and a lot thicker than the other one, and it's made of eggs, onions, olive oil and potatoes. (In fact, some people think Spanish and Mexican food in general are similar, but they're totally different.)

Spanish tortilla de patata

Mexican tortillas

Another really really good thing about our gastronomy are the famous TAPAS. They're small (or not so small) plates of food they give you in a bar when you order your drink. You usually have to pay for them, but in León...they're free!

Some tapas made of tortilla, jamón, chorizo...

In some bars they only give you some peanuts or olives, but in the good ones they give you much food (and so delicious) that you can have lunch ordering two or three drinks. So what many people does on Friday or Saturday night is having some drinks and tapas in the evening, so they don't have to stop to have dinner and spend money twice, and then maybe going clubbing at night.


So, to sum up, if you come to Spain you can try our typical food if you want it (and you'll probably love it), but   we also have all kinds of food, so don't worry if you're a bit fussy with food, you can always find a McDonald's! (lol)