Snacking is a mainstay in street food and the bar and restaurant
culture in various countries, making these little meals an opportunity to make
cultural connections between people. Although a snack is sometimes a personal
treat, in the case of a tradition like tapas, it’s often a ritualistic sharing
of a few calories to bind trust and camaraderie among friends and family.
During my travels, snacking becomes critical to the success of
my days. Out of professional (and personal) curiosity, I have an inherent
desire to hunt for snacks and other foods throughout my host country,
particularly since meal times on the road tend to be haphazard compared to my
regimented schedule back home. I oftentimes find myself waning between meals,
only to discover that dinner doesn’t start until 9 P.M.
Snacking through Latin America
Spain’s fertile landscape
provides countless natural resources that all score high on the ethnic snacking
scale. Consider the venerable mini sandwich known as the bocadillo, literally translated as
“something small for the mouth," a small, snack-sized sandwich generally
made with barra de pan (like a
baguette). They are filled with everything from fruit marmalades to cheeses and
thin-sliced meats, or even a small omelet. Various merchants, from high-end
retailers to small, local markets and grocers, have little stands where the
sandwiches are available. They are not nearly as large as our American sub
sandwich, but rather intended as a true “tide me over" until dinner or the
next impending meal.
Close cousins to bocadillos
are Spanish pinchos or pintxos, originating in Spain’s Basque
region and similar to tapas. These are generally small pieces of bread with
olive spread, dry-cured meats, cheese, fish or roasted vegetables, presented on
platters in a marketplace or bar. They are almost always served skewered with a
toothpick so that the ingredients stay together. Pinxtos are considered more akin to finger foods than tapas, which tend to lean more toward
knives and forks.
Snacking on tapas
has already begun to take hold in the United States. These small, two- to
four-bite plates are intended to be combined to create a larger, sharable meal,
while single servings make a quick, flavorful snack. They are categorized as
hot or cold, with types differing due to key ingredient influences in different
regions. Spain’s
coast is known for seafood tapas
(like gambas al ajillo, garlic
shrimp with pepper, chiles and/or paprika) and central regions for jamón ibérico (dry-cured ham, served
simply on bread or by itself). Other areas might show some signs of French
influence, such as the Basque region, where pinxtos,
like bites of various cheeses, might be more common, or perhaps gildas, pickled, mild, green chiles
skewered with anchovies.
My maternal heritage is deeply rooted in Chile, and—like Spain—Chilean culture has a
propensity for snacking and socializing. In Chile, breakfast might be something
light at home. Then, shared snacking enters the picture with something called las onces (“the elevens," referring
to the time, although this break can sometimes come after lunch, around
traditional “tea time"). Before and/or after lunch, there is a little
time, usually a half hour, when areas like the town square fill with people
seeking a little pastry and coffee, some freshly roasted nuts, fresh-picked
berries, and small sandwiches.
Seasonality often plays a role in snack offerings, especially in
Chile.
Winter brings warm items, such as empanadas
and roasted nuts (chestnuts, peanuts and almonds), to street-food snacking.
Summer brings little bags of red murtilla berries
(sometimes called Chilean guava), a tart-sweet, indigenous, high-antioxidant
berry eaten fresh and often made into jam.
Empanadas de pino are often made with ground beef (seasoned
with various mixes of cumin, oregano, garlic, paprika, salt and pepper),
onions, raisins, black olives and hard-boiled eggs, all wrapped within slightly
sweet dough and baked. The German immigration to Chile weighs in with the completo (“completed one"), which
looks a bit like a Chicago-style hot dog, but often made with pickled
vegetables (sauerkraut is common), chopped tomatoes, avocado and mayonnaise.
Let’s not forget the small bites and snacks of Mexico, which display various flavor influences
from Spain,
including the prolific use of corn and pork. Some notables are tacos al pastor, with rich flavors of dried and
roasted chiles, slow-roasted pork, and corn. Sopes
have a creamier version of a thick taco shell, hand-formed into a little pie
shape and grilled, often served topped with roasted meats and cotija cheese,
and perhaps some salsa. Crunchy, salty chicharones
are pieces of pork skin that fry up completely devoid of moisture so the fat
layers and solids in the skin puff up like crisped rice and deliver an amazing
crunch, as well as rich, meaty—and sometimes spicy—flavor.
The streets of Asia
Asia is another snacking Mecca—from
some of the very curious street foods of Vietnam, where juicy beetles are
skewered and fried into crisp delicacies, to the sweet, salty Japanese
combination of dried fish and toasted almonds.
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