These days it’s not enough to visit a foreign country just to see the sights. Travelers want experiences, and high on the list are hands-on cooking classes.
Cindy and Fred Jacobson of Yorba Linda recently returned from a trip through Spain and loved the chickpeas and spinach dish featured here so much, they recreated it at home and brought it to a potluck (where, luckily, I was in attendance.)
“We found the class on Trip Advisor,” said Cindy. “It was called ‘Tapas and Sherry, an Andalusian Gourmet Experience,’ given by Linsey Drake, a caterer and chef who lives up in the hills between Seville and Malaga. They grow their own olives and make their own olive oil. You get the whole rustic Andalusian experience at her house.”
Drake’s business name is La Rosilla, Cindy told me.
“She’s actually from Birmingham, England. She and her husband moved there 25 years ago and raised their kids in Spain. During the class we also made meatballs and stuffed peppers, and we tasted four different kinds of sherry. We baked cookies called galletas de pueblo made with olive oil and lemon.”
Variations of the chickpeas and spinach dish are very popular in Seville, where it’s served in all the tapas bars, Cindy noted.
“Spinach came from Persia, and when the Arabs took over, they brought spinach to Spain, and it became the most important Spanish vegetable,” she said. “Chickpeas were brought to Spain by the Phoenicians and continue to be very popular in Sephardic Jewish and Moorish dishes. You can eat this dish as a big stew, as a meal, but it’s very popular as a tapa.”
“Tapas refers to a style of serving small portions of food between or before meals. The word comes from the Spanish word “tapar,” meaning “to cover.”
Originally, tapas were served so patrons could cover their drinks to keep the flies away. The custom began in Andalusia, influenced by the Moors. As the story goes, in the 13th century King Alfonso X of Castile had to consume…
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