Bernadette, tapas is a Spanish word for small snacks served with your drink. Hence a tapas bar. An urban myth surrounds the origin of the word; tapas means cover or lid in Spanish. Myth has it that in old Andalucia, barmen used to cover your glass of Amontillado or Manzanilla with a small slice of bread, to prevent the flies getting into your sherry or drips of blood from the ever hanging cured gigots of wild boar, which every barman had hooked to their ceiling. The barman sometimes used to put bits of sausage(chorizo) or ham on the slices of bread and then olines or portions of sardines - customers used to eat these morsels. Hence tapas was born! If you believe that, you'd believe anything!Incidentally, have you recently been into the once excellent La Siesta in Bond Street W5? I ask 'cos I haven't been there for some time now and was wondering if the food was still as good as it used to be. I fancy a few tapas and a mixed paella.
Gerry Tan ● 4488d