The atlas · 7 regional kitchens

Spanish cooking

Also España, Cocina española

A country of strong regions more than a single kitchen — Atlantic seafood in the north, roasts and pulses on the high plateau, rice on the east coast and cold soups and frying in the south — held together by olive oil, pork and the habit of eating out in company.

Its kitchens, side by side

Galicianrich and sweetSpain's great seafood coast — octopus, mussels, scallops and barnacles — with a green, rainy inland of pork, turnip tops, soft cows' milk cheeses and pies baked to share.Pulpo a la gallega · Empanada gallega · Caldo gallego
Asturianrich and saltyA kitchen of rain and mountains: big white beans stewed with smoked sausage, milk and blue cheese, fish from the Cantabrian Sea, and cider poured from a height.Fabada asturiana · Cachopo · Fabes con almejas
Basquerich and sweetA coastal and mountain cooking built on salt cod, peppers and olive oil — and on sauces made from nothing but the fish and the pan.Bacalao al pil-pil · Marmitako · Gilda · cooked here 1 time
Castilian and Madridrich and saltyThe kitchen of the high, dry meseta: suckling pig and lamb roasted in wood-fired ovens, chickpeas and garlic soups for hard winters, and a capital that eats out, late and standing up.Cocido madrileño · Patatas bravas · Churros con chocolate
Catalanrich and sweetA Mediterranean kitchen of sauces — a slow sofregit to begin, a pounded picada to finish — with bread rubbed with tomato, vegetables charred in the embers, and sea and mountain on the same plate.Crema catalana · Pa amb tomàquet · Escalivada
Valencianrich and sweetRice country: rice cooked dry in wide pans, soupy in pots and baked in the oven, beside the oranges, almonds, tiger nuts and turrón of Spain's orchard coast.Paella valenciana · Fideuà · Arròs negre
Andalusianrich and sourThe hot south: cold soups pounded from bread, oil and garlic, fish fried crisp in olive oil, sherry from Jerez, and a little something to eat with every drink.Gazpacho · Salmorejo · Pescaíto frito

How its regions came to cook differently

The Romans planted olives, vines and wheat across Hispania, and oil and wine have been the base of the cooking ever since. For much of the Middle Ages the south and east were al-Andalus, and the centuries of Muslim rule are usually credited with bringing rice, saffron, sugar cane, citrus, aubergines and almonds into common use — along with the taste for pounding things in a mortar.

After 1492, Spain's empire in the Americas — built on conquest — sent back tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, beans and chocolate. Over the following centuries they changed the cooking completely: peppers dried and ground into pimentón, tomatoes into the sofrito and the red gazpacho, potatoes into the tortilla.

Mountains, climate and old kingdoms kept the regions apart, and several have their own languages as well as their own kitchens. Most Spaniards would name their cooking by its region first — Galician, Basque, Catalan, Andalusian — and the country's dishes are argued over town by town.

What ties it together

Olive oil: The cooking fat nearly everywhere, from frying in the south to finishing boiled octopus in the north — and in the north-west, often butter or lard as well.
The sofrito: Onion, garlic, pepper and tomato cooked slowly in oil — the start of rice, stews and sauces from Catalonia to Andalucía.
Pork and the matanza: The winter pig-killing that filled the larder: hams, chorizo, morcilla and lard, cured in the dry air and cooked into every region's pot.
Rice and legumes: Chickpeas, lentils and white beans stewed with meat in the centre and north; rice cooked in wide pans in the east — the everyday food of a country that was long poor.
Late, standing, sharing: Lunch as the long meal, dinner late, and small plates at the bar — a tapa, a pincho, a ración — eaten standing, in company, with a drink.