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Pin the Tail on Franco

November 6, 2007
By Maggie Heyn Richardson

Six months ago, I honored Italy with a dinner party that included an all Italian menu and wines list, games involving Italian cinema and effigies of Mussolini. Now it's Spain's turn. Our pals are coming over this weekend for tapas and Spanish wines, and the research has begun in earnest about what to serve. I want to stay true to the spirit of tapas -- small portions of authentic, nothing-fancy dishes slowly parceled out over the course of the evening. I guess I'm trying to relive our one and only trip to Spain, where I had a serious love affair with fresh anchovies and learned there's rarely a need to order anything beyond the vino de la casa.

Tapas experiences like that are hard to duplicate outside the old country, and at the risk of sounding like a nauseating foodie, I must say restaurants in the United States fail miserably at tapas. The dishes are too pricey, too fancy and they feel like meals rather than snacks. Baton Rouge's own brush with tapas some years back, a place called Jumelles on Old Hammond, was like that -- tapas-inspired maybe, but nothing like the real thing. I remember big plates of fried stuff. You can't really blame them, though. Imagine the bellyaching that would have ensued if dinky plates of olives or marinated octopus were the main event.

That's why I love the idea of conjuring up tapas at home. Five couples will each produce a dish, and I'm still playing with our submission. Tortilla Espana (Spanish omelet) seems universal and appropriate; patatas bravas (roasted potatoes with spicy tomato sauce) would appeal to the vegetarian in the bunch, and ham and cheese croquettes, sound especially good with cava, Spanish sparkling wine. But none of them quite grab me yet -- not like those fresh anchovies anyway.

Share your thoughts on Spanish food, wine or your own experiences in that fabulously sultry country.

Let's talk Spain.

Comments

Posted by Jon_Cogburn on November 11 at 9:20 a.m.

I’ve only read about tapas and have yet to travel to Spain.

I’m trying to learn to cook good finger food now, and have found Rick Tramonto’s (chef of Chicago’s Tru) cookbook “Amuse Bouche” to be just fantastic. I’m trying to combine his stuff with techniques from traditional bourgeois French cooking, with mixed success so far (I’m not a very advanced cook). I’ve blogged the results at: http://drjon.typepad.com/jon_cogburns_blog/2007/10/i-never-promise.html , http://drjon.typepad.com/jon_cogburns_blog/2007/10/1b--more-repuls.html , http://drjon.typepad.com/jon_cogburns_blog/2007/10/slightly-less-h.html , http://drjon.typepad.com/jon_cogburns_blog/2007/11/2-cogburns-weir.html . The dishes look progressively less repulsive. The next thing I’m going to make is braised beef on little tartlettes topped off with a little bit of gorgonzola cheese on top. I might make some kind of spread to put in between the beef and tartelettes, but that might be too busy. In any case, it should be really yummy.

I’m going to get a Tapas cookbook next and try to incorporate those things. I started with Tramonto’s because it’s easier in Oklahoma (I’m up here on sabbatical from LSU) for me to get the ingredients associated with his food than those associated with the tapas dishes I’ve heard about. Does anybody reading this know of a good Tapas cookbook?

Here is another question, how do you define “tapas”? I don’t mean strict necessary and sufficient conditions, rather- what are the prime properties people associate with “tapas.” Is it elastic enough to include any kind of simpler finger food that still has the wiff of haute? Of does it have to have a family resemblance to traditional Spanish fare?

I hope that MHR posts some pictures of the food she cooks for the party. It would be really cool.

Keep on cooking in the free world.

Posted by Jon_Cogburn on November 12 at 7:58 a.m.

O.K. it can't just be Spanish inspired finger food, because the revolutionary cuisine at Ferran Adria's El Bulli ( http://www.elbulli.com/ ) don't count as tapas. If you can't get to Barcelona, the closest thing over here is Grant Achatz's Alinea ( http://www.alinearestaurant.com/index.html ) in Chicago. It's amazing stuff (the full tasting menu with wine will set you back about three hundred bucks a person, and it is well worth it for anyone who wants an educated palate). Check out the tasting menus and pictures at both sites.

Maybe part of what makes tapas tapas is that the food must be served in sets? At El Bulli and Alinea each course is served alone on a plate. At tapas bars you get more than one of each thing on the same plate? Or is it just that Adria and Achatz are too far out their with their use of foams, congealing agents, superheating, supercooling, etc.?

In any case, we return to the question, what exactly makes tapas tapas?

Posted by sherishiqua on November 13 at 4:19 p.m.

Like anything with food, someone will argue its is something different, but basically Tapas is hors d'oeuvres, or bar food to be eaten with sherry or apertifs. It can be small little appetizers, or can be eaten as a meal, kind of sort of like dim sum. There are things which are more authentic spanish tapas, but I would think anything that compliments whatever is being imbibed could fit into the definintion of tapas. As far as books, I can see the cover, but can not remember the title. The chef is spanish and the restaurant is in DC, I think....