Spanish Festivals & Customs

Bullfighting in Spain

Bullfighting is the most traditional of Spanish Fiestas. The Spanish people consider them art forms which are intimately linked with their country’s history, art and culture.
Bullfighting can be traced back to ancient days. They were popular spectacles in ancient Rome, but it was in the Iberian Peninsula that these contests were fully developed by the Moors from North Africa who overran Andalucia in AD 711. Bullfighting developed into a ritualistic occasion observed in connection with feast days, on which the conquering Moors, mounted on highly trained horses, confronted and killed the bulls.
Today bullfighting is big business in Spain with the top matadores earning comparable salaries to the nation's top soccer stars and rock idols.

Flamenco Dancing

Flamenco is the traditional song and dance of the Gypsies (flamencos) of Andalusia.
Its history can be traced over several centuries from Gypsy, Moorish, Andalucian, and other roots. Its evolution is a source of great debate with no accepted explanation of how flamenco resulted from the cultural influences of such diverse regions as North Africa, Southern Europe and the Near and Far East.
Flamenco has never been more popular in Spain and abroad than it is today with a new generation of new flamenco performers in the post-Franco era who have broadened flamenco's appeal to an international audience.

Spanish Festivals

Spain is the land of fiestas. In every single city, town and village there is a festival of some kind which gets all the townsfolk out on the streets partying with their neighbours.
The biggest festivals of international fame are the bullrunning of Pamplona, the fireworks of Las Fallas in Valencia, the mock battles of Moros y Cristianos in Alcoy, Semana Santa in all of Andalucia and the massive Feria de Abril in Seville.

Spain: Land of Wines and Great Cuisine

“Life is a journey of discovery and Spain has given me some of the greatest discoveries in my professional life. The idea that there is a young generation of men and women heading major wineries and that they are committed to making great wines is just huge”
Influences from the Mediterranean cultures of Phoenicia, Carthage, Greece, and Rome established a tradition of grape growing and wine production that flourished until the 8th Century Moorish conquest.Spain has the largest wine-growing area in the world. In spite of this, the country is the third largest producer of wine in the world, the largest being Italy and France.Spain exports a third of its production, particularly to the USA, the UK and Germany and is capturing the attention of many wine enthusiasts.

Spanish cooking has popular roots. It is the people’s cuisine. Most of it is down-to-earth, uncomplicated food, based on the ingredients available locally or the crops grown regionally. Mountains run through Spain in several directions, acting as natural barriers to communication and making transportation difficult until the last half of the 20th century. This is one of the reasons why cooking differs so much from region to region.
Many dishes are prepared today using the same cooking methods and ingredients as they were two or three hundred years ago. Other dishes sprung up from European and American influences and were adapted to the Spanish taste. One thing is for sure, food in Spain is fresh, abundant and full of taste and the Spanish love their food dearly.

Ingredients & Typical Food

The two basic ingredients of all Spanish food are olive oil and garlic. However, because Spain has very distinct geographical regions, settled by different ethnic and cultural groups, and because the weather is so different from province to province, the regional cuisines are very different. Many times the only common ingredients are olive oil and garlic!

Here is a list of typical ingredients and foods:

Olive oil: Spanish recipes either call for olive oil or lard, mainly olive oil. Extra virgin olive oil is worth the added expense. Spain is a leading producer of olive oil and olives are grown all over the south of Spain.

Ham: or as the Spanish say, jamón is a very prized food. Spaniards take their ham very seriously and will pay a high price for top-quality ham. There is even a denomination of origin for certain types of ham!

Fish and Seafood: Because Spain is surrounded on three sides by water, fresh seafood is always plentiful in the markets and is eaten daily.

As you can see ... SPAIN is everything under the sun!!!