Pancakes in a paella pan
How a Spaniard and an American blend food cultures
If you’ve spent any time browsing social media platforms related to the food world in the past decade or so, you’ve most likely heard of WIEIAD, or What I Eat in a Day, posts. These posts, whether they come in the form of a blog or a TikTok, start with breakfast and follow the person’s (supposed) meals throughout a given day. It’s basically culinary voyeurism, and I admit that it’s something that I found fascinating at some point in time. As I’ve grown older, I’ve become less interested in seeing influencers post 3,589 different versions of oatmeal, but judging from the number of hashtags on Instagram listed under #wieiad (34.1K as of publishing), the trend isn’t going away anytime soon.
Food diary posts may seem innocent enough, but in reality they can be problematic. For one, what you see on social media frequently isn’t the truth: there’s nothing stopping influencers from lying about their meals and snacks. Even if the meals depicted are accurate, it’s at most one day in the life of another person, so hardly representative of a true lifestyle. And unfortunately, WIEIAD posts can turn into another way to open up the channels for comparison, which can leave the viewer feeling inadequate for not living up to whatever standard the influencer is selling.
With that being said, as someone enthusiastic about the culinary scene, I do enjoy learning about how people navigate foods in other cultures. This doesn’t mean that I want to see a play-by-play of someone’s meals in minute detail, but getting a peek into the life of someone adapting to a new cuisine does pique my interest. At the same time, I occasionally wonder what travel bloggers or transplants to a new country really eat: sure, you have to adjust your meals to where you live, but are you really going to overhaul your entire diet and never eat those familiar comfort foods and snacks from your home country ever again?
Our own situation is rather unique: I’m pretty sure not many Madrileño households are making pancakes in a paella pan (although it’s quite efficient, so maybe they should start!). Since I write about my life here as one half of a Spanish + American household, I thought it could be interesting to share how we eat and how our own eating patterns have changed over the years since merging our food backgrounds into one.
Let’s start with breakfast. As I’ve mentioned before, breakfast in Spain is not The Most Important Meal of the Day as billed in the US. Weekday breakfasts are pretty simple for us and culturally neutral: some yogurt with granola, fruit, or maybe a toast (sometimes with tomato à la Spain, sometimes peanut butter à la United States). Occasionally we’ll pick up a croissant at Panem (so European!) or a vegan doughnut at Bite Me (team USA!). If we go all out for a weekend breakfast, it generally skews American: cinnamon almond French toast drenched in maple syrup, chocolate chip pancakes, eggs benedict with bacon and homemade hollandaise, scrambled eggs sprinkled with Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel Seasoning that I stash in my suitcase on my trips back from the US. Think US brunch fare, minus the bottomless mimosas.
Lunches are another fusion meal but are heavily influenced by US culture in that they’re usually lighter. A typical lunch for us is some type of puréed soup (gazpacho in the summer, sopa de legumbres in the winter) along with a small “main dish” of some sort. Sometimes it’s something very American, but with a twist: picture a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, and mayo, but on a crunchy, freshly-baked baguette. Or sometimes it’s something that I never would have eaten in the US at lunch, like a zucchini and leek omelette.
If we don’t have a purée, we often opt for a salad. The dressing is decidedly Spanish, though: nine times out of ten I whip up a simple vinaigrette of olive oil, Dijon, and red wine vinegar or if I’m super lazy it’s just a drizzle of the oil and a few shakes of the vinegar (plus salt and pepper, of course). Our usual side salad components are Batavia lettuce (or another kind called lechuga roble), cucumbers, red onion or cebolleta (kind of like a spring onion, but with a bigger bulb), and plump, juicy tomatoes.
Vegetable bowls are another favorite lunch (and sometimes dinner): combine a few types of roasted vegetables, some raw veggies for crunch, a protein (either animal protein or a plant-based option like chickpeas), top with a quick homemade sauce to bring it all together, and you have an easy, filling, vegetable-packed meal. Add a grain to bulk it up more if you want. Eat your heart out, Sweet Greens (or in Madrid’s case, Honest Greens, which is a similar concept).
Winter lunches are my favorite and are studded with soups of all sorts. There’s the above-mentioned purée (zucchini, butternut squash, carrot, Vichyssoise, give them all to me!) but there are also brothy and chunky soups. Chicken stock with chickpeas and fideos, fabada, lentils… I could write a whole article just about my love for soup.
Dinner is typically our main meal of the day, just like in the US (except eaten around 10pm instead of 6pm). Sometimes soups and salads make it into the rotation, but our the main course is usually heartier compared to lunch: a whole baked fish, chicken breasts roasted in our cast iron skillet, very occasionally a steak. Some sort of roasted vegetable is usually our accompaniment—broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, zucchini, eggplant, plantain, sweet potato, regular potato, the list goes on. At times it’ll be a more elaborate preparation, but frequently veggies are roasted with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkled with salt and pepper.
Dinners are also where we get more experimental. A lot of experiments are related to Asian-inspired cuisine, like yakisoba, black bean stir fry, or Kenji’s version of General Tso’s chicken. Homemade pasta and pizza make appearances, as do David’s experiments with rice dishes (not typically paella, though—that’s usually reserved for a weekend lunch).
Meals with David’s family are when we usually eat more traditional Spanish meals: tortilla, empanada, octopus, rabbit, migas. More classic Spanish cuisine also pops up on the holidays, like cochinillo (suckling pig) for New Year’s Eve.
We aren’t máquinas1; we also eat meals out and order in from time to time. Our take out meals probably skew the most American of all, as pizza, burgers, and pulled pork (yes, it exists here!) all top our delivery list. We also order sushi and Thai food, and I’m still on the hunt for an Indian restaurant whose delivery fare is up to par (they exist, just not in our area of the city). If you’ve been reading here for a while, you’ll know that our dine-in restaurant list is rather eclectic. I’ve written about eating at trendy spots like Brutalista and Nakeima, but I’m just as happy with eating a falafel wrap at Falafeleria (the best falafel place in Madrid, hands down) or fried cod at the historical Casa Labra. And with my love for soup, fall and winter brings trips to Ramen Kagura for tonkotsu and La Bola for cocido madrileño.
Along the same lines, while we eat a lot of whole, fresh foods, we’re not immune to the processed food industry and I am 100% a dessert fan. We eat potato chips like the next person (they just sometimes happen to be jamón flavored here), and I’m a sucker for Oreos. Boxes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch are frequently tucked in my return luggage alongside the Trader Joe’s spices mentioned above. We do try to reach for made-from-scratch treats whenever possible, though. Nothing’s better than stopping by a local pastry shop, and we bake at home, too. Since I have issues with milk protein, eating dessert out can be tricky for me, and it’s often safer (and tastier) to make my own sweets. Sometimes that means a warm, gooey American-style chocolate chip cookie, or sometimes it’s a dairy-free adaptation of a Spanish classic, like the time David made me arroz con leche (de avena)2.
I asked David how his eating patterns have changed since we’ve been together and he quipped, “I eat a lot more broccoli now!” He also mentioned eating less red meat in the day-to-day, having a side of bread only occasionally instead of at every meal, and experimenting with milk substitutes. “Usually I can’t even tell the difference,” he commented (although he does add cheese here and there to his portion for dishes that call for it).
As for me, I actually eat more red meat than I did before, even though we usually only eat steak out at restaurants. I attribute this to a lifetime of insisting that my steak be cooked into a piece of leather and then dousing it in A.1. steak sauce instead of opting for medium-rare and learning to appreciate the taste of the meat itself. Although seemingly paradoxical, I also eat significantly more fresh fruit and vegetables, and a much larger variety at that. Before moving here, figs came in the form of jam, doughnut peaches weren’t on my radar, and I had never seen white asparagus in my life. Such are the perils of growing up in Small Town, USA. As said small town was landlocked, my consumption of fresh fish and seafood has also skyrocketed since moving to Spain. Similarly, while my dad has always been a fan of tinned fish, I’m just now learning to appreciate things like tuna ventresca packed in olive oil (canned sardines me cuestan todavía3). Naturally, there are also tons of dishes that I now eat on the regular that I once only ordered at tapas restaurants in Chicago, like pimientos de padrón, jamón ibérico, and the famous tortilla de patata (insider info: there’s a newsletter on tortilla coming soon!).
Of course, I have to recognize the huge amount of privilege that goes into our day-to-day food life. First off, we have easy access to fresh food within walking distance of our house. There are no less than three fruit and vegetable shops within a three minute walk from our house, I can think of four bread shops in the same distance, and we have several supermarkets in the area. We also have easy access to both pescaderías4 and butcher shops for fresh meats. Perhaps even more importantly, we have the time to prepare a lot of meals at home, and both the skill set and desire to do so. There are only two of us, and we’re both adventurous eaters, so aside from my dairy issues we don’t have many restrictions to take into consideration.
One of the greatest things in life is the opportunity to explore, to learn new things, and to incorporate those experiences into your worldview. I think it’s accurate to say that my time living in Madrid has come with a lot of changes, food-based and otherwise. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve lost my old culinary views entirely. I may eat olives now, but you’ll never get me to stop eating peanut butter.
Quick notes:
If you feel like chatting about cookbooks, the current Sunday Sobremesa is pinned to the top of the newsletter’s homepage (or you can check it out here). A new topic is coming this Sunday, so be sure to stop back by!
Come como Kiki will be taking a short break in August. I’m still trying to figure out the exact dates and what it will look like, but I’ll be sure to let you know ahead of time.
In addition to reading here, you can also follow me over on Instagram and Twitter. During my August break, I’ll still try to be active on those channels so you can follow along in my summer snack adventures (spoiler: there will be lots of iced coffee).
Any questions or comments about cooking in Madrid, or how David and I manage to meld our respective food backgrounds and preferences? Have you ever had to adapt your way of eating due to a move or travel? Team JIF or Team Skippy (or for my Spanish friends, Team Nutella or Team Nocilla)? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!
See you Friday!
Ki
Máquinas: Machines, in this case I mean it in the sense of being rigid.
Arroz con leche (de avena): Rice with milk (oat-based), which is basically rice pudding.
Me cuestan todavía: When something te cuesta it means that it’s difficult for you. Todavía means “still” in this phrase. So I’m making reference to the fact that I’m still not used to eating canned sardines.
Pescaderías: Fish shops
Such beautiful food, Kiki!
Pimientos de Padron and roast veggie bowls are two of my favourite things to eat. I have to admit that I'm swimming in jealousy at all the delicious food you get to eat in Madrid; British food - no offence to any of my fellow brits - just doesn't compare to European food!
Apologies if this has been mentioned previously (I'm a new reader to your work) - have you found yourself cooking more since moving to Madrid because you have access to fresher fruits and vegetables? What is something you miss most about American food / food lifestyle there, I can imagine it's quite different!