Sign for Copacabana “Spanish Restaurant,” Pike Place Market, Seattle, 2014.This bothers me. As I am
Sign for Copacabana “Spanish Restaurant,” Pike Place Market, Seattle, 2014.This bothers me. As I am quite familiar with (and fond of) the food of both Spain and Andean Latin America, I find it perverse to call Andean cuisine Spanish. While there are a few more-or-less common dishes (rice and beans or flan for desert), mostly the ingredients and cooking styles are as different as those between, say, Scandinavian and Italian cuisines. Much of Latin American cookery is derived from use of indigenous ingredients, in the Andes that includes quinoa and a bewildering array of potatoes as well as cui and llama, and cooking techniques long predating the Spanish conquest. Or does the restaurant focus on Mediterranean ingredients and serve gazpacho and paella, dishes as exotic in the Andes as they are in the US? If so, why does “Copacabana Spanish Restaurant” use the name of the most sacred Christian shrine in the Andes and an image of the llama for its advertising? And the photos on the banner seem to show Margaritas and fajitas, gringo versions of Mexican food and drink, adding yet another cuisine to the chaotic, dare one say, bastardized mix. -- source link
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