If you are arriving too late to organize an evening meal, or you just would like a night off from cooking, this may be the solution. Here at Huerta Montero we would like to offer you the chance to taste some wonderful dishes. All of them are freshly prepared with local ingredients and where possible we use free range and organic products. On offer is a vast selection of tapas, in various portion sizes, plus other favourites such as home made beefburgers, pasta dishes and wonderful homemade soups. If you would like to experience the real taste of this region then why not try an authentic traditional paella cooked before your very eyes by our neighbour Marie Carman. All you need do is to let us know in advance and your chosen meal will be ready for you.
WHAT ARE TAPAS?
There are many different legends which claim to be the beginning of the ‘La Tapa.’ meaning 'The lid' Here are a few
The tapa was born when due to an illness, the Spanish king Alfonso the 10th, the Wise, had to take small bites of food with some wine between meals. Once recovered from the disease, the wise king decreed that no wine was to be served in any of the inns in the land of Castile unless accompanied by something to eat. This was a wise precaution to counteract the adverse effects of alcohol on those people who, through lack of money to buy a nourishing meal drank alcohol on an empty stomach.
Another version of the Tapas history is that farmers and workers needed to take in small amounts of food during their working time so they could hold out until the main meal. The main meal contained so much fat that a siesta was called for to digest it. Tapas were consumed with wine in the winter to warm up the body and in summer, particularly in the south, with “gazpacho” for refreshment
And our favourite Coming back to the wise king, apparently as he was travelling around the Cadiz province he stopped for refreshments in one of the many “Botillerias” and “tabernas” to get out the strong levante wind. The landlord, worried that insects or dirt would get into the wine glass had an idea and promptly covered the lip of the glass with a slice of bread and cheese. The king was so impressed and soon the voice spread throughout the kingdom and all the landlords began to create different tapas hoping that the king would visit them.
TAPAS – EXPLANATION OF SOME DISHES
Tapas are small portions of foods, both hot and cold served in bars, bodegas and tascas to accompany a copa of fino-- dry Spanish sherry--or draught beer. Tapa-hopping is part of the convivial Andalusian way of life. With a few friends you stop in at several bars to have a glass of wine and sample the tapa specialities of each. The superb ham, both serrano (which just means mountain-cured), and the pricey iberico, produced from special Andalusian pigs which grow sweet on acorns, is served raw and very thinly sliced. It makes a marvellous combination with fino sherry and of course, Andalusian olives. They can be the famed Seville olives, sweet meaty manzanillas, gordales the size of small plums, home-cured ones slightly bitter flavoured with herbs and garlic, or olives stuffed with anchovy. A tapa of mixed olives might include fat caper-berries too. It's customary to stand up at the bar and you can enjoy tapas in most bars before the lunch hour (in Spain this is very late--tapas at 1 pm, lunch at 2 pm onwards). Below is a list of some of the of the dishes--hot and cold-- you might find in a tapa bar in southern Spain.
