The Iberian Peninsula, fixed between the Atlantic Ocean, the Pyrenees, and the Mediterranean Sea was always a relatively poor place, and a world unto itself (and the New World, after 1492). Today, regional cuisines provide for a rich traveller's experience, while the country is held together by common culinary threads and fibers. Wine and olive oil remain important to more than half the country. Wild game, seafood, ham, local cheeses, and preserved meats and sausages make for unavoidable richness. The extensive use of delicious sweet red peppers along with the common cooking base of sofrito—a varying blend of chopped sweet pepper, garlic, onion, and/or parsley sometimes mixed with ham and sauteed in olive oil—help define the range of Spanish cusine. Almonds are another common and very important ingredient, including the wonderful variety known as Marcona, and find their way into both savoury and sweet dishes.

Other than perhaps in the Basque and Catalan regions and Madrid, Spain has not fallen prey to the Star Chef syndrome. Much of the cookery is stil home style, and traditions run deep.

Many overlook the profound Moorish influence on Spanish cookery, which was immediately followed by an influx of New World ingredients, particularly fruits and vegetables. Chocolate, vanilla, tomatoes, squash, beans (as opposed to peas), chilies and peppers, and corn all came from the New World after 1492. Artichokes, cardoon, eggplant, chard, spinach, dates, and sugar all came to Spain and Europe via the Arabs and their occupation of Andalusia and other more northern regions throughout the Euorpena Medieval period.

Spain also has an incredibly strong and diverse artisanal foods tradition, particularly in the area of cheeses and meats. These includes hams and a wide variety of "sausages" and other cured, smoked or dried meats. In fact, the daily use of ready-to-eat specialty items like cheeses, almonds, thinly sliced ham, and hundreds of kinds of sausages from salchicha and chorizo, to morcilla and butifarra. Saffron is another Spanish culinary specialty of high quality.

The most typical of all national dishes include the rice-based Paella, Spanish tortilla (a type of potato omelette), and perhaps flan, a caramel custard. Tapas have become an international obsession, and occur in various forms in different places, including cities as far-spring as Granada and San Sebastian.

Tapas are basically accopaniments to drink, usually wine or beer, provided at bars and cafes. In Sevilla you must pedir and pay for your Tapas, which are often just smaller tastings of regular menu items. In Granada, tapas should be free with your drink and the choice is usually left up to the barman, though you can sometimes express a preference. The unfortunate trend in the Granada region is for the more touristy establishments to make you order and pay for tapas. In San Sebastian, tapas are an elaborate affair, decoratively displayed, and charged for, though with reason, since San Sebastian tapas are more than mere snacks.

Hours of dining are quite different from North America or other parts of Europe, having retained a traditional pace similar to that found in Mexico. The first meal of the day may just be a small pastry and a cup of coffee. Desayuno will be relatively late, around 9 a.m. and consists of tostadas spread with fresh tomato, butter, cheese olive oil, and/or garlic. the main meal of the day, lunch (almuerzo) will be at around 2:30 or 3 p.m. followed by a siesta until 4:30 or 5 p.m. Drinks and tapas may get underway around 8:30 p.m., and if you are going to have dinner (cena), do so at about 10 or 10:30 p.m. to not apear un-Spanish.

Surely with Sherry

Forget about your grandmother’s tipple. True Spanish Sherries are serious wines . . . Or so we discovered a few years ago on an unsuspecting tour of Andalusia.

We landed in Madrid, really on our way to Corsica, France. A cheap Internet fare lured us to crisscross through Spain on our way to the Mediterranean isle, and we settled on spending a few days in transit. Having no reservations for anything anywhere on the Iberian Peninsula, we rented a car and headed unsuspectingly south through the blazing sun, the moonscapes, and the olive groves until after a few hours we stopped in Cordoba, ancient city of learning and culture.

It soon became obvious that somewhere between Despeñaperros, the mountainous frontier of the Junta of Andalusia, and the last olive tree, we had entered Sherryland (though not yet the snooty stuff they produce in Jerez further south, and which every Brit worth his or her instinctive salt knows to order by name). In Cordoba, the waiter of each bar, cafe, and restaurant we entered took it as an insult if we failed to quaff a Fino or perhaps an Amontillado right off, little matter the time of day. Served very cold and produced very dry, it took no more than a few glasses to really love the stuff.

We learned that Cordoba province has its own Sherry production from the region called Montilla-Morilles, and Sherry here, as in the areas surrounding Cadiz further south, is bred in the bone. You must drink it, using little flute-like glasses, there's simply no choice.

The history of Sherry, like that of Port in Portugal, intertwines in an almost baroque way with British merchant interests and worldwide trade, starting centuries ago. That's why you have traditional Spanish Sherry bodegas with names like "Harvey," "Osborne," and "Garvey" in the middle of Andalusia. "Sherry" itself is an English mongrelization of the word for Jerez, while the Spanish themselves simply order a "fino" or an "olorosso." The English also used to call this high-alcohol wine "sack" and transported it in "butts," but we needn't get too intimate. Let's just say that Shakespeare depicts everyone from swarthy Fallstaff to various kings drinking copious amounts of it.

The production of Cordoba finds its way more into Spanish bocas than foreigners, while Jerez wines travel the globe satisfying the Sherry habits of aficionados worldwide.

Unlike the stuff your aunt used to serve from gaudy cut glass decanters, Spanish sherries have a sophistication, complexity, and culture of consumption worthy of appreciation.

If you don't want to get into the messy vocabulary to follow, then stick with Fino, it sounds nice, is easy to remember, and has enough distinction to go for miles (or kilometers, in our case). The Andalusian bodegas make Fino primarily from palomino grapes grown on extremely chalky soils that occur only in two areas. It can be "dry" (seco) and "very dry" (muy seco), and has a very light to light straw color. The stuff from Jerez, which many consider the best, is generally a bit darker in color than finos from Montilla-Morilles, and those are the only two places it's made. When in Cordoba--an amazing city, home to the Great Mosque--you drink Montilla-Morilles, and when in Seville--home to the Alcazar and La Giralda Cathedral--you imbibe Jerez. In Granada, you drink whatever's available.

Fino, served quite cold, is extremely dry--vanish thoughts about Australian Chardonnay; in fact, remove normal wine parameters from your mind. It has bunches of very subtle flavors and smells, all in the dry format. "Like toasted almonds" is a good phraseology here, though there's much more dwelling inside a glass of Fino. It is, in our opinion, the quintessential aperitif. The Spanish work their butts off (no pun intended) making each bottle, in a production method known as solera involving multiple American oak casks and plenty of special yeasts, called flor, all housed in huge buildings, the bodegas, near to the coast for easy transshipment around the world. The flor grows atop the wine in partially filled large barriques and prevents the wine's total oxidation. Flor adds tremendously to the flavor profile of Finos, as does the solera system of blending wines of different vintages to produce a consistent and wonderful production each year. The oak of the New World adds its own character, and a bit of historical continuity, for Andalusia populated most of Latin America.

Each glass of Fino, in fact, contains the history of Sherry, with parts of the wine and the flor going back decades and perhaps centuries. The best known Fino houses include Gonzalez Byass with their "Tio Pepe" and the various sherries made by Lustau--not bad but try some from Montilla-Morilles too, if you can find them.

What the Heck, Give Me an Oloroso

Moving beyond Fino in Sherryland brings you to the sub-classification of Manzanilla, and then on to Almontillado and Oloroso--wonderfully sonorous names, aren't they? There's also "Cream" Sherry, but forget about it--that's the sweet stuff from your grandma's decanter.

Some Sherry Suggestions