Roll Cuisine Corner
TAPAS
by Pierre-Luc Moeys, Owner/Chef Oriole 9
If a utensil (like banderillas, decorated toothpicks that get their name because they look like the darts used in a bullfight) is required to eat the food, the tapa is called pinchos. Cazuelas (little dishes) are tapas that usually come in sauce, for example, albondigas (meatballs) or shrimp fried in garlic. Neither appetizer nor full meal, but something a bit more than a snack, tapas are in a class of their own.
A step into a Spanish tapas bar (or tasca) is a wonderful experience even if you don’t speak Spanish. It’s lively and animated as Spaniards like to talk, and you may be approached by patrons wishing to practice their English. Spaniards sometimes go to the tasca before lunch and before supper to meet friends, to converse, and to watch—but it’s usually an evening affair.
Some of the most memorable tascas I’ve been to were indeed in Andalusia, especially in Seville. I remember the low yellow light, the wooden tables and walls, sawdust on the floor. Elegant men, beautiful women, scruffy students, a tourist here and there, old folks and young ones, they all are denizens of the tasca. The raucous conversation surrounds you, conversation about the bullfight, the soccer team, national politics, a business deal, the exams, the lottery and it goes on and on, fine dry sherries drunk with countless tapas. Pedro Soleras, a journalist with El Pais in Madrid offered that “the tapa, invented in an age less obsessed with productivity, is a trick for spinning out your drinks without getting drunk.”
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