Sunday, July 28, 2013

Spain: Eating Times

One of the biggest cultural differences I’ve grown accustomed to is the late times for taking meals during the day. Eating and drinking are huge parts of Spanish culture and the way the day is designed around these two things reflects the casual and relaxed nature of people. It also reflects Spaniards affinity for food as there seem to be approximately five meals in a day..

Lunch time starts around 2:00pm, though I’ve sat down for lunch close to 4pm. Lunch here happens to be the largest meal of the day and can easily take two hours. Depending how early I’ve gotten up in the morning, sometimes waiting for lunch can be excruciating though it’s always well worth it once you start eating. Lunch is extremely relaxed and casual, often times segueing seamlessly into caña time and then back into dinner.

Dinner usually starts around 9pm and it’s not unusual for people to start at 11pm. Literally, 11pm at night. I mean, if I saw someone eating dinner at 11pm in the US, I'd tell the story to other friends about how I saw someone eating dinner at 11pm. Here it's quite the opposite, in fact, the other day I was out with a friend at 730pm and we saw a large family eating dinner. We both looked to see if they were tourists and when we both realized they were Spanish, we simultaneously turned to each other and said, "What are they doing!?!?".

Though dinner is usually quite light on the stomach, it’s still absurd and a little shocking to me how late we sit down to eat sometimes. However, when all the meals start late, it’s also typical to not be so hungry until later on in the evening, and a light meal is perfect before sleep. If you need something between lunch and dinner, you can have a “merienda”, which is basically a snack, or small meal, depending how hungry you are. 

It’s often one of the little notorious facts people know about Spain, “Oh, they eat dinner really late there, right?”, and it couldn’t be more true. Although I’ve gotten used to it, I can’t help but still being occasionally surprised at the lateness of eating. I even initially thought it was exaggerated but it becomes obvious immediately that the reputation of late eating is well earned.   

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