Your Dinner is Looking at Me

One of the things the military does for people being stationed in a place like Spain is assign them sponsors. Sponsors correspond with the newcomers before their arrival, giving them helpful information as to what to expect, and help them make arrangements for their arrival. This is particularly helpful for people who have not traveled much. Once the newcomers arrive, the sponsors are available to help them get settled. Often, they will help them get acclimated, take them out to eat, show them around and teach them a bit about local customs. Moving to a foreign land is not for the weak of heart and sponsors help make the transition friendly. 

Since Americans typically have an intimate relationship with food it is common, customary and appropriate to take the newcomers out to eat and help them find their way around a typical Spanish menu. Every person I knew was subjected to the not particularly funny “onion rings” joke. They would tell the newcomers they were ordering onion rings and laugh with delight when they actually bit into a calamari. I never really understood why anyone fell for this. Calamari is a common enough dish at American restaurants but the fact that someone may NOT know was, I suppose, too tempting. While I don’t particularly love seafood, I do like calamari so the people that tried it on me had to resort to plan B. 

Sometime during the first month or two after I had arrived some friends from the naval base and I were at a local “Tapa bar” trying out some of the local fare. My new friends asked me if I liked tortillas. “of course” I replied. To my surprise they ordered ONE. The look on my face said it all. They began to laugh and explained that Spanish food is European, not Mexican, so the “tortillas” are much bigger, and assured me that one tortilla would be plenty. We also ordered several other dishes including snails. When the food arrived, much to my surprise, I did not receive a basket of tortilla “chips” and salsa, which I expected. The tortilla was instead, of all things, an omelet made with eggs and potatoes and served room temperature. They were right; one was plenty and it was delicious and a dish I still enjoy tremendously to this day. I did not try the snails. They were tiny, shell-less and in a small juice class with some brown, brothy, salty, icky looking water. A dish I have not tried to this day. 

A friend of mine named Belinda, a Mexican-American was surprised by the tortillas too. The first time she went to a café in Spain she requested, in Spanish, a dozen tortillas. The waiter questioned her and she assured him that she did in fact want a dozen tortillas. Imagine her surprise when the waiter and a couple of helpers started for a table a while later with 12 omelets. 

I was also introduced to paella, a saffron flavored rice dish that prior to moving to Spain had never heard of, much less tried. Typically, the paella comes to the table in the pan it is prepared in. Everyone is given small plates but the first time and many times thereafter, the paella did not come with a serving spoon. One of the strangest food related experiences I ever had transpired over a pan of paella. 

I was with a group of new Spanish friends and my Spanish was not great yet. I knew they had ordered the rice but did not understand much of anything else. A paella pan almost as large as the table arrived. With great pride and ceremony, the waiter dramatically places the pan on the table and waves his arm over it as though he’s presenting a treasure to baby Jesus. Amongst ooh’s and ahh’s of appreciation I look down and gaze upon what it is that has everyone all aflutter…and I see it…my friends have ordered a seafood paella complete with mussels, shrimp, small whole fish, and horrors to this non-seafood eating American, tiny, whole, complete with eyes, squid; little tentacles popping out of the rice like it’s trying to escape. It makes me shudder to this day. THEN, to make things even more disturbing, they didn’t dish the paella onto the small dishes we were given. They all ate out the same pan. The dishes were, apparently, for catching the droppings or looks or Americans. I’m not sure which. 

I ate a lot of bread that night.