My wife and I absolutely love Gran Canaria with its year-round warm climate, friendly people and its abundance of great food, especially the locally caught fish.
Anyone who regularly looks at Grandads Cookbook will know that I have a passion for Spanish food, especially fish and calamari and not forgetting the tapas.
Like many Mediterranean countries, fish is caught overnight and appears on fish counters the following day. This is unlike northern Europe like the UK where the fish may have been caught 10 or so days previously and kept on ice until reaching port.
It makes such a difference when you eat really fresh fish, the texture and flavour are so superior.
Tapas
Like all of Spain, tapas is widely available in Gran Canaria. Most restaurants in the tourist hotspots have a tapas menu but for the real deal look for the tapas bars where the locals are eating.
In there, you will find authentic local tapas dishes not just the standard tourist offering. Don’t be afraid to try something different like gambas, the local prawns and the croquetas are to die for. Jamoń (ham), atun (tuna) and pollo (chicken) in a bechemel sauce are fantastic.
Family
The Spanish style of cooking with chorizo, peppers and pimento ticks all the boxes for me, but most of all they enjoy eating with family and friends all sitting around the table with an array of food to share.
Spanish Eating Customs: Meals
A normal day’s breakfast- or desayuno- typically consists merely of a cup of coffee, although it’s also commonplace to accompany your steaming café con leche with a croissant or other pastry. While an American traditional breakfast has pancakes, bacon, and eggs, the Spanish “traditional” breakfast consists of the vastly popular churros, served sprinkled with sugar or dunked in hot chocolate.
Spaniards eat their lunch, or comida, between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon. Serving as the day’s main meal, it is traditionally quite a bit larger than the dinner meal, or cena. A typical lunch will have several courses. The first course is the lighter part of the meal, usually consisting of a salad or soup, while the second course is normally your typical fish or meat dish. A dessert can be a simple piece of fruit, a typical Spanish flan, or a sweet pastry or cake.
While there are of course many people who eat full meals, the Spanish dinner (cena) is traditionally much smaller than the midday comida. It often consists of something lighter like a salad, a sandwich, or a selection of tapas. Spaniards eat late for this final meal of the day- even more so on weekends and during the summer- sitting down to eat anytime from 9:00 until 11:00 in the evening.
