I come from a country that food is really important. If you are ever a guest in a Polish house, you will understand what does the sentence 'Postaw się a zastaw się' or 'Gość w dom, Bóg w dom' mean. You will always be offered amounts of food that a normal person is not able to eat! Am I right, Carol&Dave?? ;)
Spain is like that, too. Although you eat a lot not only when you're a guest. You eat a lot EVERYDAY! And they even have special hours and special names for the times they eat. And since I'm living in Catalonia right now, it gets even more complicated here.
To understand it better, it's useful to know about the daily schedule of the Spanish which I wrote about in the previous post.
What you need to understand is that here, in the summer, it gets really hot. That's the reason why many things you just need to do in the evening, if not at night. To begin with, and one of the most difficult things I had to get used to, was breakfast.
Breakfast, el desayuno practically doesn't exist. No place, no house, no Spanish person will ever, EVER, offer you a plate of pancakes with maple syrup, scrambled or fried eggs with becon and toast, everything bagel with orange juice, white cheese filled crepes with strawberries or a LBC sandwich. They would just drink some coffee (about coffee I will need to write another post, it's ridiculous what they call 'a coffee') and maybe eat a toast or croissant...
But don't worry, the Spanish lifestyle hangs around the food and meeting with people so not long after el desayuno ( esmorzar in Catalan) you would eat a second breakfast (almost like the Hobbits! What proves that too, is that they all have a Hobbit door, with a know right in the middle!) which would be a simple sandwich. But listen, it's not a sandwich you'd see in Subway, especially in Catalonia, bocadillos or bocatas are made with a special bread (some kind of baguette I would say with... meat, or seafood, or jamon serrano or something. I have never seen a lettuce, tomato, vegetables in general, not to mention BUTTER, in a sandwich in Spain...
After that comes a very important time of the day, which is a break from work or school for lunch, el almuerzo!!! Here, you can find typical dishes like paella, seafood, or meat, most of the time accompanied by a baguette and olive oil.
*This part confuses me still, I never know if el almuerzo is in fact a second breakfast, and then lunch would just be la comida? Somebody please clarify this for me :)
You know how important it is to eat regularly, 5 times a day, right? The Spanish sure know it! Around 6PM comes the time for an afternoon snack (which, if it was half lighter would be my dinner), la merienda ( la berena in Catalan), which again would be some kind of sandwich, or what they told us was typical from Catalonia, would be pan con tomate - bread with squished tomatoes and olive oil (will get back to it when I'll tell you about las tapas).
The most important meal in Spain is dinner. Not like any other NORMAL country when you eat dinner at 6/7/8PM after everyone's off of work and school and can finally dine together after the day. No. In Spain you eat at 9PM. Or 10PM. Or 11PM and you continue till 1AM before you go out. How crazy these people can be?! Well, la cena begins so late for a couple of reasons. First of all imagine the hotness during the day, you would not want to eat when it's still 30 degrees outside... Other than this, if you work till 8/9/10PM when are you supposed to eat? Some of my Spanish friends could not imagine dining when it's still bright out haha ;) And as I mentioned at the beginning, you eat a lot, I mean those people have no bottom in their stomachs, and for some magical reason, they can all stay skinny! Life is so unfair...
I'm really glad that I got addicted to working out but I really need to start a better diet soon. And for the end I just have a one small message:
Besos,
xoxo
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