The Siesta: Also known as time of rest...and can also be considered nap time!

1:30 to 4:30 PM, when shops close down; restaurants stay open during this time but usually close from 4:30 to 9 PM.

The Spanish, like many Latin cultures, make the mid-day meal their biggest, stretching it out for hours. From midday to mid-afternoon, everything shuts down, except of course for the restaurants. Then, after this long, leisurely meal (and sometimes even a nap), they return to their workplaces and continue into the night. The evening meal, which is like dinner in the US,  is quite late -- anywhere from about 9 PM to midnight.

FOOD:

To define Spain in food terms is easy: olives, olive oil, parsley, almonds, sherry, garlic, saffron. Add these to chicken, salt cod, seafood, game and to a lesser extent, meats, and you are almost inside a Spanish kitchen.  Saffron is an important spice in Spanish cooking.  This is the spice that turns rice that bright yellow color.  Spain is the leading producer of saffron...the world's most expensive spice.

HERE ARE A FEW POPULAR SPANISH DISHES:

-Tortilla = an omelette (Note: this is very different  from Mexico, where it as a flatbread of corn or flour.)

- Calamares en su tinta = squid in their own ink

- Pollo al ajillo con vino = Garlic chicken with wine

- Ensalada andalusia de arroz = Andalusian rice salad

- Quesillo - Flan, Canary style

- Albondigas con picada de almendra = meatballs in almond, garlic and parsley sauce

- Paella a la marinara = mixed seafood paella, Spain's famous rice dish

- Rabo de toro = Oxtail stew

-Gazpacho = cold tomato soup, almost like a salad

 

Bullfighting:


Bullfighting is a national sport of Spain and is also popular in Mexico, other Latin American countries and S France. The object is for one of the bullfighters, the matador, to kill an untamed bull with a sword in a manner largely prescribed by tradition. The matador is assisted by two mounted picadors and three capemen on foot (banderilleros), who sting the bull with lances and barbed sticks to spur his charge. In the final act, the matador makes daring passes at the bull with his cape, which is called a  muleta.  This is done just before the matador thrusts  his sword between the animal's shoulder blades into the heart.  This is the final act in which the matador has won.  Although a matador's performance is often one of grace and beauty, critics have labled bullfighting as an inhumane spectacle. The Portuguese practice a style of bullfighting from horseback in which the bull is not killed.