One of the building blocks of Spanish life is its meal schedule. While no one is quite sure how many meals the average Spaniard eats each day, the guesses range from 1 to 14. Within this brief culinary diversion, I will examine the meals.
1. El Desayuno
First is breakfast, which is some fruit, cereal, or a pastry. While I usually grab a banana, peach, or apple at the apartment, while I'm out for breakfast I enjoy small Napolitana pastries filled with chocolate and a refreshing glass of orange juice. Usually, though, it's quite a light meal and doesn't really tide people over until lunch, which necessitates...
2. Tomar el Café
Getting a mid-morning coffee. Typically drunk during a break from work around 11 or 12 and could be accompanied by a small snack. The coffee here is apparently extremely strong, so I believe the formula for dilution is approximately 1 Tsp. Spanish coffee = 1 Gallon Water + 1 Quart Skim Milk. This brief meal allows people to hold up until...
3. La Comida
The 2 o'clock lunch. The lunch, while translated by every previous Spanish class I've taken as "El almuerzo," is apparently called "La comida" here and "El almuerzo" instead signifies "I'm not a Spanish native and you have every right to yell at me for calling this meal El Almuerzo." Indeed, there is a reason why this meal is called "the food." Every group of the food pyramid is represented here and a typical lunch usually includes a hearty bowl of soup, salad, bread, a main course of meat or pasta, and dessert. When eating at a restaurant, this meal has taken an average of two hours, seriously. Just for the record, a hearty bowl of soup means what a typical American would eat for dinner while the main course usually has twice the amount served during American dinners. Does this seem just a little excessive? In the opinion of some Americans, yes, especially when the cook forces you to finish everything served, leaving the author to wonder whether he is being Hansel and Greteled.
How can people eat such a large lunch and make it through the rest of the day? Well, that's what siestas are for. Here, between 2 and 4 are usually break hours for everyone. People spend an hour eating and then relax for a little while before heading back to their jobs. This meal keeps people full for most of the day until it is time for...
4. Tomar Algo
Later that afternoon - afternoon here defined as anything before 10 PM - there is the pre-dinner nibble that can also involve a drink. Just some nice patatas fritas and una cerveza o copa de tinto de verano. This gets people through work and leads to the final meal of the day...
5. La Cena
Dinner is eaten after 9 and for me usually consists of a PB & J or leftovers. Apparently there's a Spanish saying that goes "Eat breakfast like a pauper, eat lunch like a King, and eat dinner like a pauper" or something to that effect. It's an interesting way of eating, although sometimes the author enjoys a little more balance.
I haven't even mentioned tapas here, but that's really a chapter unto itself, and as such it will be addressed in a later chapter called "Tapas A Chapter Unto Itself." So that's the general meal schedule which leaves just one question. When do los Españoles find time to work?
The answer will be addressed in a later chapter entitled "They Don't."
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