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In some parts of Spain, ordering a drink in a bar or restaurant always includes a small accompanying nibble of food. Be it some almonds, a few patatas bravas, or an almost endless variety of seafood, a drink absolutely requires a small "cover" of food to complete it.

In Spanish "la tapa", related to the verb "tapar", means a lid or cover, with overtones of something blocked out. Two stories of its origin hold this to be a literal blocking out. The first story goes that when King Alfonso XII was offered a glass of sherry in Cadiz, the waiter covered the wine glass with a slice of cured ham to keep out the windborne sand. In the second, bar owners were said to offer bread or a flat plate to place on top of a drink to protect it from fruit flies; at some point it became custom to include a little something with the cover. (Having had to do something similar myself, this sounds very feasible.) A third story has innkeepers from Castilla-La Mancha offering "queso manchego", a very strong cheese, to "cover" the taste of bad wine!

In the north of Spain, these small nibbles are called "pinchos" or "pintxos", because many of them are served with a toothpick ("pincho") to hold them together. The differently-sized toothpicks also serve as a way to tally the cost of what the customer has eaten.

The custom of tapas is another global example of how the light meal of the day has evolved into a social grazing with family and friends on a wide variety of dishes. in Spain, the hot climate has shifted traditional mealtimes so that supper becomes a very late meal served after 9 pm. To fill the very long gap after an afternoon lunch, an after-work meal has come into existence, where to go bar hopping becomes literally "ir de tapas" with friends. It is very common for a single establishment to have a dozen or so different types of ready-to-eat tapas waiting on glass-covered warming trays.

Late weekend mornings are another popular time to go tapas-ing ("tapear"), albeit with considerably less emphasis on the wine! making it the approximate equivalent of North American brunch. Patata bravas have even made it into standard North American breakfast cuisine, as the diced variant of home fries.

However, it is only in Great Britain and North America that tapas have become an entire cuisine in and of themselves.

Tapas dishes may be cold or hot. Many are vegetarian, others rely heavily on a wide range of seafood. A few tapas dishes, such as pincho moruno, are made from pork or chicken. Common flavourings are paprika, garlic, cumin, and occasionally saffron. Olives, often several different kinds of olives, are a particularly common ingredient; and several of the non-olive tapas will have been made with olive oil. Many dishes are served with salsa brava, a spicy tomato sauce: sauce-based tapas will usually include some breads with which to eat them. A few tapas, such as some varieties of salsa or stuffed mussels, can be very hot!

Tapas may be baked, boiled, or lightly or deeply fried. Cheeses and the classic allioli, a strongly flavoured mixture of olive oil and garlic, are served uncooked. A few, such as chorizo al vino, are cooked in wine.

An authentic Andalusian-Spanish restaurant will have two different sizes of tapas: the traditional small plates of food, or a larger portion of either half a dish (media racion) or an entire dish (racion), which are commonly shared among diners.

What better way to spend time with friends?

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