No Spain, No Gain

With such simple and beautiful ingredients, it’s easy to “eat with your eyes” on this food tour of Spain.

Photography by Sarah Pflug

Spain is famous for a lot of wonderful things – beautiful beaches, mind-bending architecture and graceful flamenco dancing, to name a few – but its cuisine has been slower to claim its rightful spot on the global food stage. Over the past few years, partly thanks to some of Toronto’s own fantastic Spanish restaurants, paella, croquetas, patatas bravas and countless other enticing dishes have found their way into our hearts (and stomachs) and now we wonder how we ever lived without them.

While the cuisine varies significantly from region to region (and that’s part of the fun), one common element that unites all Spanish cooking is an emphasis on simple, flavourful ingredients. And that’s a culinary ethos that we can definitely get on board with. Photographer Sarah Pflug takes us on a mouthwatering visual tour of Spain that proves why this country’s cuisine should be the focus of your next trip to Europe.

A vendor carves jamón ibérico at the jamóneria inside the beautiful, 20th-century Mercado San Miguel in Madrid.

Pulpo Gallego is prepared fresh by Catalonian locals at a small outdoor festival in Barcelona’s Vila de Gràcia neighbourhood.

Churros, fried sticks of dough, are a popular breakfast treat in Spain. They’re typically served with warm, thick hot chocolate for dipping.

The exterior of Chocolatería San Ginés in Madrid, one of Spain’s most famous spots for churros con chocolaté.