Mixing language and local culture at Malaca Instituto

 Can you tapear?

Learning a language is far more than learning the vocabulary and the grammar and then putting it together into sentences. If you really want to communicate with peoples of a different culture you have to get to know them, their way of life and their cultural values so that your words, phrases and grammar really make sense in their cultural context.

One of the great cultural traditions of southern Spain that all our students at Malaca Instituto enjoy finding out about and practising is going on a tapas bar crawl or , if you prefer in Spanish "ir de tapas" or as a verb "tapear".

I thought that you might be interested to know something of the origins of this word and the actual tradition itself, so I asked a couple of our teachers and here are the results of the conversation.

Tapas are small dishes of food and the idea is that you have a glass of wine or beer and a tapa. In Malaga it is very common for a group of friends to get together for an evening and go from one bar to another trying out a variety of tapas in different bars and savouring the variety of flavours and different foods that are available.

The variety of dishes available is enormous. Being on the Mediterranean coast, Malaga is famous for its seafood so you often find tapas of fish or shell fish, for example boquerones (fresh anchovies that are either deep fried whole or filleted or served in vinegar), gambas (large prawns - grilled or fried or in a spicy sauce), pulpo (octopus - often served sliced with chilli sauce) etc.

All the ingredients of the famous Mediterranean diet are commonly found in tapas - olive oil, olives, pulses of all kinds (chick peas, lentils, beans etc)- habas con jamon (beans with cured ham) are found everywhere -as well as the produce of the sea.

Cheese (queso manchego especially), cured ham (jamon serrano), sausages and salamis of all kinds (generically known as embutidos which include: chorizo, salchicha, salamis etc)- what better foods to pick at (picar) with that glass of rioja.

The origin of the word tapas.

So we now know what tapas is, but where does the word come from. Experts tell me that the word originated in Andalucia (the southern region of Spain in which Malaga is situated)and comes from the word tapadera - meaning something used to cover an object, a saucepan lid for example.

In past centuries, when many of the roads in Andalucia were still beaten earth tracks, the roadside taverns invented the tradition of serving a beer or glass of wine with a slice of bread to cover it to prevent the dust from the road spoiling the drink. The slice of bread would then be weighted down by a piece of cheese, an olive, a slice of chorizo or whatever and, there you are, a tapa!

At Malaca Instituto we not only teach our students about such things but we also arrange tapas bar visits as part of our cultural activities programme. So when our students meet local Spaniards and want to "ir de tapas" with them they understand the tradition, how it works and at least some of the typical dishes. This is just one of the ways to learn about local customs and by doing so have a far greater chance of becoming immersed and integrated into the local culture.

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