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| Marbella Andalucia - Photo: Pixabay |
Andalucía is one of the most beautiful regions of Spain and a popular tourist destination. The mesmerizing coastline of Costa Tropical is a haven for beach lovers while the mountainous landscape with architectural delights, historical monuments, and luscious vegetations can cure any eyesore. Just like the varied landscape, the cuisine of Costa Tropical is pleasantly different.
Probably one of the standout examples of Andalucian cuisine can be seen at the highly popular tapas bars, where you can get a sample of hot food and tasty morsels. These are tasty local snacks that can be eaten hot or cold depending on how you want to have it. Tapas bars can offer as many as 40 different cuisines and some of them are traditional local fare that is extremely popular in Spain.
Meal times are late in Andalucía; 2-3pm for the ‘comida,’ or midday meal, which for the Spanish is the main meal of the day, then 9-10pm for the ‘cena,’ evening meal.
The cuisine of Andalucia is characterized by several different types of dishes like fried fish or pescado frito, gazpacho, the jamon of Trevélez, and the wines of Jerez, Rueda & Somontano. The hot favorite in fried food in Costa Tropical is Puntillitas, which is a fried and battered baby squid. Frying is an important aspect of Andalucian cuisine and the main ingredient is olive oil, which is produced in the different provinces of Cordoba, Granada, Seville, and Jaen. Most of the fried food here is scoured in flour a la andaluza, which means that the flour doesn’t have any egg or any other ingredients mixed in it. Most of the flour is fried in huge quantities of burning hot olive oil.
The fish is a favorite in Spain and so is the shellfish. The consumption is rather high and spread over five coastal regions. Different types of fishes are popular in different places like the white shrimp is a popular cuisine and is found in and around the Bay of Cádiz; murex, prawns, baby squid, cuttlefish, and anchovies. Another popular cuisine is the bocas de la Isla, which is popular in and around San Fernando and contains a local variety of crab, which can regenerate certain parts of its body like the flounder, claws, and smelts.
Desserts are an integral part of every cuisine in Andalucia and one of the favorites is Pestiños de Miel, which is more of a honey-coated sweetened fritter. Most of the desserts here are influenced by the medieval cuisine and some of the other varieties of desserts include amarguillos (It is a type of almond macaroons) that is popular in Medina Sidonia, alfajores, polvorones (almond cookies) popular in Estepa, wine doughnuts, lard bread, and torrijas.
What is a nice meal without a mature wine? The wines of Costa Tropical are quite famous. The wines of Jerez are world famous and have been praised by the great writer and poet William Shakespeare. Some of the other wins produced and consumed in this region include the white wine of Cádiz, Manzanilla of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Condado wines in Huelva, Paxarete (a type of sherry), Montilla-Moriles, la tintilla wines of Rota and Málaga Wines.
