Spanish Dim Sum

I’ve just spent a week in Barcelona, partly attending the IABC EuroComm Conference 2008 where I chaired a panel discussion on social media and partly for a holiday. I’ll be blogging about the conference and the issues that came out of the panel discussion separately. But being a foodie, my first post about the trip has to be about the food we had there!

They call it tapas, the tid-bits of food that the Spanish serve in the early evening before the main meal. It’s very civilised compared to the UK where you generally gobble a packet of crisps and some peanuts with your pint at the pub. The Spanish lay out fried potatoes, spicy morsels of chorizo, sliced octopus, fried calamari and cuttlefish, fried aubergines - the list goes on. Over a long drink and great conversation, it’s just the best way to unwind after a hard day’s sightseeing or shopping. But I have to say, it makes me think of dim sum, the Chinese tid-bits that you generally have for Sunday lunch - in Australia, they call it “yum chah”, I think. My contention is that the Spanish got the idea from the Asia-Pacific region via the likes of Marco Polo, Vasco de Gama etc.

And it’s not just tapas. In Barcelona, there’s a speciality dish which is stir-fried seafood vermicelli - which looks and tastes exactly like the Chinese “chow mai fan” that you get in Malaysia. We would eat it with chilli sauce but they serve it with a daub of garlic butter - equally yummy!

We also came across a fried springroll thing but instead of veg and pork, it is stuffed with chorizo and onions.

And we were struck by the word for butter “mantega”, which is the same word for butter used in Malay. Staying with linguistics, the Spanish word “nona” means woman - I wonder if it is related to the Malaysian word “nonya” which refers to a Straits Chinese woman?

I’m pretty sure these are not merely fanciful connections on my part. Malacca and the Straits of Malacca were critical in the spice trade between West and East during the 1400s so I’m sure words, food and ideas travelled with the sailing ships between the Spanish ports and Malaya. In particular, I was struck by the Arabic influence in Spanish due to the many centuries of Moorish occupation and of course, Arabic continues to be a strong influence in Malay language and culture.

What do you think? If you have any other examples of linguistic or culinary connections between East and West, please do share your thoughts!

Photo: thanks to Gbworx from flickr.com (CCL)