A Taste For Tapas

Spain offers a cornucopia of tasty delights for the adventurous palate. Anita Roy visited to widen her horizons—and her waistline

 

- Anita Roy

The reason for my recent trip to Spain was, ostensibly, to do some nature writing. But after a week, my bathroom scales told a different story. Between the crusty bread-and tomato breakfasts, the fragrant paella lunches and the morsels of tempting tapas liberally sprinkled throughout, Nature, I confess, didn’t stand a chance.

I landed in Madrid, first, to spend a few days with my friend, Eugenia. Her attempts to show me the sights—the spectacular Palacio Real, the basilicas and cathedrals, the tree-lined tracks winding through Retiro Park, Madrid’s ‘green lung’—were stymied by my inability to pass a food shop without stopping. In the run-up to Easter, the patisseries go crazy, piling up all kinds of festive pastries to tempt the unwary passerby: torrijas (made either with milk or wine), pestiños, huesos de santo (literally ‘saint bones’!), rosquillas, buñuelos, lechefrita…

“What are those?” I pointed to a pile of sugar encrusted loops, lying like rope in one window. “Churros,” Eugenia explained. “They’re basically deep-fried fat dipped in chocolate.” My mouth was willing but my arteries quailed, so we settled instead for a bag of tejas—‘roof tiles’—thin curled biscuits, a little like langues de chat, which were both crisp and soft simultaneously, melting on the tongue with a burst of vanilla and crushed almond.