With Easter coming up soon, many people will be planning to mark it in time-honoured ways. There will be church services, chocolate eggs, hot cross buns and some bank holiday getaways as people across the UK make the most of the four-day weekend.
For those who fancy doing something a little different from the norm, especially when it comes to food and culture, a visit to a Spanish bar in London could be the perfect way to sample a taste of something new.
As a strongly Catholic country, Spain has its own deeply-embedded Easter traditions, many of which are expressed through the nation’s cuisine. The whole of Holy week, starting with Palm Sunday (which falls on April 2nd this year) is marked in Spain as Semana Santa, with lots of parades and, of course, masses.
When it comes to the food, a typical Spanish Easter celebration will involve dishes like lamb and fish, while various Spanish sweets and pastries will be consumed too.
Traditional Easter foods include Sopa de Ajo, a garlic soup made with pepper and chicken; Bacalao al pil-pil , a saucy dish containing cod fillets popular in the Basque region; and torrijas, a type of fried bread.
When it comes to sweets, instead of chocolate eggs and bunnies, there will be a sponge cake called a Mona de Pascua, often with a chocolate figure on top. However, the exact style and form of this cake varies between regions.
Other confectionaries include Bunuelos, a kind of filled sugar-coated dough balls, or borrachuelos, which are pieces of dough soaked in wine or brandy and then coated in sugar. If you like doughnuts, you will love these.
With so many tasty and novel Spanish dishes to try at Easter, you might find this is just the time to come and visit us and taste something very different at an otherwise familiar time of year.