Spain
10 articles
Barcelona
Discover Barcelona's distinctive Catalan food culture—rooted in coastal and mountain ingredients, centuries-old restaurants, and a fierce culinary independence. A guide for curious travelers eating their way through the city.
Basque Cuisine
San Sebastián has more Michelin stars per capita than any city on Earth. Discover how Basque chefs revolutionized their regional cuisine, blending traditional dishes with nouvelle cuisine techniques to create one of the world's greatest food cultures.
Catalan Cuisine
Josep Pla called Catalan cuisine "a landscape inside a cooking pot." Discover how this region's extraordinary geography—from Mediterranean coast to Pyrenean peaks—combines medieval techniques refined over seven centuries with the culinary revolution that changed how the world thinks about cooking.
Galician Cuisine
At Fisterra where the land ends, Galician food emerges from the Atlantic's cold waters and green valleys—a cuisine where the fisherman matters more than the chef, and restraint is the primary virtue.
Garum
Garum, the fermented fish sauce of ancient Rome, was so valuable that premium grades cost the equivalent of two thousand loaves of bread. This exploration traces its origins, production, survival through the medieval period as colatura di alici, and its striking parallels to Vietnamese and Thai fish sauces.
Jamon
From ancient Rome to the Spanish Inquisition, jamón ibérico is far more than cured meat—it's a complete history of Spain encoded in salt, acorns, and time. Discover how a unique pig breed and a medieval landscape created the world's finest ham.
Madrid
Madrid is a gathering place for Spanish cuisine: home to food from every region, from Galician octopus to Basque pintxos to Castilian cocido. A guide to the city's centuries-old restaurants, regional flavors, and distinctive food culture.
Paella
From its origins as Albufera farmers' field lunch to its evolution into Spain's most protected culinary tradition, paella represents far more than rice and ingredients—it's Valencian identity itself. Learn what authentic paella actually contains and why the world's versions miss the point entirely.
Spanish Seafood
How geography, invasion, and religious practice transformed Spain's relationship with the sea into one of the world's most sophisticated seafood cultures. A journey from Phoenician salting factories to modern Galician rías and Basque bacalao.
Xarcuteria
Catalonia's xarcuteria represents centuries of pig-curing tradition refined by geography, climate, and fierce commitment to quality. From the iconic fuet to the nose-to-tail bull, discover how a region transformed every part of the animal into products of subtle genius.