Food and Drink Atlas

How The World Eats
Cuisines

Spanish Cuisine

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Spanish cuisine varies markedly by region, tied to local geography from Galician seafood to Andalusian gazpacho, but shares an abundant use of olive oil, garlic and saffron across the whole country. Centuries of Moorish rule under Al Andalus, from 711 to 1492, diffused rice cultivation and citrus fruit into the Iberian peninsula, and tomatoes and potatoes arrived from the Americas after 1492 and became central to dishes such as gazpacho and salmorejo. Tapas, small dishes traditionally served with a drink, are widely regarded as identifying Spanish gastronomic culture internationally.

Facts
Signature Technique
Cooking rice slowly in a wide shallow pan over an open or low heat, the technique behind paella and its many regional variants. 1
Origin Region
The Iberian Peninsula, southwestern Europe. 2
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

More than three hundred years of Spanish colonization introduced fiesta foods, wheat pastries and a name that came to be attached to the pre existing native vinegar cooking technique, adobo.

Expresses Tradition

Features Dish

Uses Ingredient

In the Other Atlases
Sources
1. Paella, Rice With Everything (Smithsonian Magazine)
Derek Workman, Smithsonian Magazine, 2011View the Source
2. Un Pais de Tapas (Real Academia de Gastronomia, Spain)
Real Academia de Gastronomia (Spain)View the Source
Filipino Cuisine Was Asian Fusion Before Asian Fusion Existed (Smithsonian Magazine)
Smithsonian Magazine, 2015Associated With: Filipino CuisineView the Source

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