LARD HAT

I came to Spanish food a little bit late. My first surprise on arriving in Madrid was that no, they don’t eat Mexican food here. I was 21 and suffering from the All-American ailment of total ignorance of everything outside your dismal suburb, and really didn’t know any better. 

In addition, I was a vegetarian at the time. While vegetarianism is an interesting experience, I wouldn’t really recommend it at this point: either way, it was totally impractical for me to integrate into Spanish culture if I wasn’t eating animals. So after a couple of years, I gave up on vegetarianism. Sorry, animals.

Anyway, a lot of Spanish food is not exactly politically correct by American standards, and I have the feeling that many tourists come here and don’t have any idea what things are, so they end up in McDonalds. Bad idea.

Anyway, without further ado, here are my top 25 Spanish foods (in no particular order):

1. Pulpo a la Gallega: That’s Galician-style octopus. Yep, the tentacles. It’s purple on the outside, white on the inside, an delicious all over. In Galicia (in the north of Spain), they serve it with cloudy home-made white wine, sometimes in little ceramic bowls like in the photo.

2. Tortilla de patatas: Otherwise known as Spanish omelette, this one is pretty simple (most Spanish food is pretty simple, actually.) It’s potato and eggs. Sometimes onion. Sometimes a little bit runny on the inside. Great.

3. Paella: I’m not actually a huge fan of paella, but it seems to be pretty popular. Rice and various kinds of seafood (mussels, prawns, squid) are the usual ingredients. The yellow colour comes from saffron.

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These are four of my favorite Spanish proverbs, not because I necessarily agree with the sentiments they contain (well, actually I do) but because they’re so different than the type of proverbs used in the United States. Hint: there’s a lot more vagina in Spanish folklore.

Strange, considering that statistically, the US has almost 7 times the number of (human) vaginas that Spain does. 

So enjoy, you poor puritan bastards! Here they are:

1. Donde tienes la olla, no metas la polla. Figuratively, don’t shit where you eat. Literally, “Don’t stick your dick where you have the cooking-pot.”

2. Encima de puta, pongo la cama. Figuratively used more or less like “adding insult to injury.” Literally, “Apart from being a whore, I have to provide the bed.”

3. Para ser una puta y no cobrar nada, más vale ser una mujer honrada. This one has a nice rhyme to it, and is more pertinent than ever in the midst of our economic crisis. Figuratively, don’t work for free. Literally, “It’s better to be an honest woman than a whore who works for free.”

4. Tira más un pelo de coño que un carro de bueyes. Also known as Tiran mas dos tetas que dos carretas and various other versions. Figuratively it means, basically, that men are known to go to great lengths in order to satisfy/seduce women. Literally, “One pussy hair pulls more weight than an oxcart,” or “Two tits pull more weight than two carriages.”

Statistics regarding Spanish donkey vagina are unavailable as of this writing. Representatives of the Ministry of Donkeys refused to comment when contacted for this article.