Comedia
Eating and cooking in Spain is a great adventure. The Spanish eat more fish per capita than any other country other than Japan. They probably rank pretty high for pork too. Learning the rhythms of eating is a little difficult and complicated by living in an area with a lot of tourists and foreigners. Where we live the cafes and restaurants always seem to be full of people drinking coffee, having a small beer or eating large meals. When we venture further into the old parts of town away from the beach the rhythm is more decisively Spanish.
If you show up for lunch at 1:30 a restaurant might be empty but by 2:00 it is full and it is often closed at 6:00 which is when our restaurants are usually getting busy. In the early morning many people eat a small breakfast of toast or cereal, then at 11:00 or so they may have a coffee and a sandwich or bread with tomato. From 2:00 to about 4:00 is the main event. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day you might have some soup, a main course and a little desert. Wine or Beer is often consumed as is coffee. The Spanish take eating seriously and slowly. Don’t expect to grab a quick take out meal and eat between meetings. No rushing to shovel a salad in while doing some work. You must stop, rarely do you see a cell phone on a table, often people are in groups. Eating is to be shared and enjoyed. I haven’t been here long enough to know the phrases or terms people use that explain how mealtimes are expected to be observed but I am sure there are many. After work between 5 if you work a non Spanish schedule or After 8 if you work a split Spanish Schedule many people meet in bars for a drink and maybe a piece of cake or a Merenda. No one is hungry because of the large, late lunch but dinner isn’t until 9 or 10 so a little something sweet to tide you over or for kids after school is common. Dinner is a lighter affair but is very late.
To complicate the eating we are still on a normal school schedule. Aftan start school at 9 and finishes at 3:30. Sol starts his meetings for work at about 4:00pm which is 8:00 am at home. Aftan has lunch at 12:30 and is starving when he gets home. Sol and I are starting to get into a rhythm of eating a little in the morning after we drop Aftan off then having lunch the same time as the Spaniards. Aftan gets a large snack when he comes home and we eat dinner at 7/8. It is a compromise between two worlds.
We have only been out for dinner once. We booked a table for 8:00pm and we were the first people in the restaurant. I don’t know how people eat so late. The meal was wonderful but it was hard for me to sleep after eating so late. In Madrid most people don’t even meet for dinner until 10:00pm. I am not sure I will ever be much of a Spaniard when it comes to the hours they keep.
Sun Family in Spain 