Guest post: Spanish Mealtimes
Our intern reflects on mealtimes in Spain, and comes to a conclusion which is close to the heart and motive of what we do here at Sobremesa.
Throughout my culinary adventures in Spain, I have come to realize there is an association certain foods have with certain meals. In the United States, for instance, a typical breakfast might include pancakes with syrup, bacon, eggs, an orange juice, and a cup of coffee. These foods are strongly associated with a hearty American breakfast, and it can be considered strange to eat this combination of foods at any other time of the day. One certainly could; the meal tastes just as great for lunch as it does for breakfast. Nevertheless, the cultural association these foods have with morning time is very much ingrained into American attitudes towards breakfast and food. A hearty breakfast, a well-portioned lunch, and a filling dinner make up the “three square meals” a day that Americans are used to, each with their own specific times at which they are eaten as a result of the worker’s 9am-5pm standard work schedule. Breakfasts are sometime in the morning around 7 am, lunch is usually around 12pm noon, and dinners tend to occur around 7pm. In other words, you could say, Americans eat to work.
This mealtime norm that I was so accustomed to and thought was a worldwide norm is in fact very different from how Spaniards schedule and portion their meals. First and foremost, Spaniards do not tend to have huge breakfasts. They’ll have a small, early morning breakfast to get them going, and then a coffee and pastry sometime around 10 or 11 am. When I first tried this approach to breakfast, I thought I wasn’t going to have any energy throughout the day. Surprisingly, a small snack in the early morning, and a pastry or small sandwich around 11am was actually a great way to get the day started easily, without much delay. It avoids feeling bogged down by a large amount of food, and allows your appetite to gently “wake up.”
While breakfasts are small, and often broken up into two meals, lunch tends to be the largest meal of the day in Spain, eaten sometime around 2pm. From soups and sandwiches, to seafood and roasts- the important aspect of lunch is that it is usually eaten slowly, often at a restaurant, following the menú del día. This hearty lunch, usually followed by a moment to relax and socialize, takes an hour or two, and will tide people over until quite late in the evening, when they eat dinner. Needless to say, a long lunch like this is an enjoyable way to spend a meal, but you’ve got to make sure you can schedule those hours into your day, because if you don’t it will push the rest of the day back a bit, which is the case for most locals.
Not usually earlier than 9pm or so, and extending far later into the night, dinner tends to be a special meal in Spain; not because it’s eaten so late in the day, but because of the sobremesa that often is part of the meal itself. (On weekends, this is the case with lunch.) The food eaten at a Spanish dinner tends to be similar to lunch, though perhaps a bit lighter, but is still a large enough meal to tide you over until the early morning hours when the first -light- breakfast is eaten.
My roommates and I have unassumingly incorporated the sobremesa into our regular “family” weeknight dinners. After the food is gone, we just sit back in our chairs and chat about whatever’s on our minds: sports, school, work, what adventures we’ve got coming up, or our plans for the future. I cannot give all the credit to the sobremesa, but I can say that by lingering at the table for a bit and enjoying the moment, we have bonded as roommates, and more importantly as friends who didn’t know each other before our abroad experience. This unbreakable connection has stood strong through all of the ups and downs of living together, in another country, in another culture, during a pandemic filled with so many unknowns and hardships.
As I’ve come to realize, central to all that Spaniards do, meals are a time to relax, socialize, and enjoy the moment, which is embodied in the concept of sobremesa and can be seen exercised during the longer lunch and dinner hours. The “no-rush” attitude of the sobremesa tends to be a special time where stories are shared, memories made, and friendships strengthened.
In a way, cuisine is the final product of a region’s culture- all of the farmers, cheesemakers, fishermen, wineries, bakeries, restaurants, and other gastro-artisans are able to create foods from what the region provides, with each regional take on a certain concept being defined by what is locally produced. So much information, history, backstories, and creativity can be packaged into a meal, sharing all of these complexities into an experience which words tend to struggle to describe.
Of all the amazing aspects of Spanish cuisine and culture, the sobremesa is by far the most meaningful to me as it allows the time be enjoyed, creates a sense of community through shared experience, gives us a chance to relax and unwind, and is the epitome, the perfect example of what it means to translate culture through food. Long live sobremesa.
