By: Blake Beshero
During my time in Spain, I tried many traditional Spanish cuisine. I am going to be going over the many dishes I have tried in Spain. While I have had many traditional Spanish dishes for the sake of this project I will keep this list rather short. There are many great things to eat while you are in Spain, this list is going to consist of the things I would eat again and try to make at home since I don’t think I will be heading back to Spain anytime soon.
The first dish you need to try in Spain is the paella. You may be wondering what paella is, Paella is a rice dish that can consist of seafood, chicken, vegetables, etc. What really makes it a paella is how it’s prepared. The chefs cook everything in the skillet and depending on how big your party is the skillet ranges in size. Sometimes different restaurants have different specials for their paella. For instance, the paella I had ordered was blue crab paella. Since everything is freshly caught in Spain most of these specials are only for the day and different depending on which restaurant you go to. I enjoy crab every once in a while and this paella did not disappoint. I just wish the restaurant would have brough out one of those crab crackers to break the shell open so I could avoid getting messy. Overall, I am definitely going to try to make some sort of paella at home.
The next dish I am going to recommend is a tapa called papas bravas. If you don’t know what tapa means it really means small dish or appetizer. Papas bravas in Spanish mean “spicy potatoes”. Trust me they are not spicy at all. From what I have tried the spiciest thing I have had in Spain was equivalent to a Franks red hot sauce. This dish is 2-centimeter-wide cube potatoes, fried in oil, then served with garlic aioli and spicy sauce. This can easily be done at home, which I have done because they are really good. They didn’t taste as good as the ones I’ve had in Spain, but I am going to have to keep working on that.
This next dish is going to be a two in one dish. While I was in Spain I had a lot of calamari, and I didn’t regret it. If you don’t know what calamari is, it is squid. The first calamari I
had was just fried calamari served with lemon slices and garlic aioli or some kind of mayonnaise. Calamari if not prepared properly can feel like you are chewing on a tire. This wasn’t the case in Spain, every place I went to get calamari had the same crunchy texture to it. I would compare it to a tougher fried shrimp. This is very easy to make at home but be cautious about where you live to get the squid. I would not get the squid in Pittsburgh because it won’t be freshly caught, and you run that risk of having it turn out chewy. The next calamari dish I had was a calamari sandwich in Madrid. Madrid is known for their calamari sandwiches. I did a comparison between Madrid and Barcelona and as much as I didn’t like Madrid as a city their sandwich was far better. To make this dish you just need to fry your squid and place it on a fresh baguette, topped with garlic aioli or mayonnaise and have a side of lemon if you want more of a kick. Very easy dish to make at home but I would advise making it if you are close to the beach.
The last dish I will be covering is one that most people will turn their eye to and that is black rice. Black rice is like a paella but is covered in squid ink. I personally have had this dish and I would definitely recommend this to anybody traveling to Spain. This was the best traditional Spanish cuisine I have had in Spain. Just to forewarn you this will make your mouth and teeth black and if you are a messy eater I would choose to recommend wearing clothes you don’t mind getting squid ink on. This is one dish that I would love to make at home, but I don’t have the necessary ingredients near me. Everything in this dish includes rice covered in squid ink, squid, clams, shrimp, and cuttlefish.
Thank you for taking your time in reading my journey of food through Spain. If you are planning a trip to Spain I would recommend trying all these dishes plus more. There were a lot of dishes that I wanted to write about but weren’t as perfect as the ones listed. I am going to try my hand in making all these dishes including the black rice whenever I go to the beach. This journey through Spain has been the most fun I have had, and I would definitely go back in a heartbeat.