Every country has its traditions related to drinking. The English have warm ale and chants, Germans have wheat beer and sausage, Americans have natty light and beer pong, and the Spaniards have Canas and tapas. A Cana is a small glass of beer, about 8-10 ounces according to my expert reckoning, and a tapa is a small serving of food which is served gratis (without charge) with every drink.

Tapas are a great tradition. I make this statement without reservation, even as I leak more gas than Saudi Arabia from all the salty, greasy fried food I have been eating and the excessive amount of beer being thrown down my gullet. The tapa is not usually a gourmet dish, although in Madrid I did have some excellent sea food tapas. Usually the food is along the lines of some sort of potatoe fries concoction drenched in a ranchy type sauce or small sandwichees with proscuitto and mayonnaise.

My first experience with tapas was in Granada, a small mountain city. I believe that most Americans would have a similar response as my brother and I when we entered our first tapas bar, utter shock. “You mean this is totally free?” I asked disbelievingly, staring at the little dish of cheesy noodles and pretzels sitting in front of me. “Es Gratis?” I reiterated.
“Si,” the bartender simply retorted, already moving on to the next customer. Now this was a foreign culture. Not only had he given me a dish for free but he hadn’t even charged me for the beer yet. I would return to this particular tapas bar several times in the trip, not because the tapas were especially good but because I liked the way the bartender would yell “chico!” at me and slap my beer down on the counter for me to pick up at my leisure.

This was a refreshing experience after living in the states where nothing is free except water at restaurants and Wifi. In our culture deals are communicated through upgrades. It’s always a better deal to buy the extra large instead of the medium or get two instead of one. Morgan Spurlock famously criticized this “super size” culture in his muckraking documentary on McDonalds. Corporations are acting irresponsibly when they tempt already unhealthy people to eat and drink to excess with tantalizing deals. But while it might not be a good idea to get the supersized double Bigmack or the Xtreme Gulp slurpy it is usually a good idea to have a little food while you’re drinking.

There are many benefits to the tapas culture which I feel are worthy of enumeration. Firstly, serving food with alcohol makes people get drunk less quickly. This means less fouling out, less bad decisions, and more fun. Secondly, people eating and drinking for longer periods of time is good for both the patrons and the operators of the drinking establishments. People become more socialized, enjoy their nights out more, and have fewer hangover, and bars get more money from their patrons. Spanish drinking nights are also extended because of the types of drinks Spaniards guzzle. Popular drinks include tinto verano, which is red wine mixed with seltzer, and, drinks which mix fanta or lemonade with beer. These minimally alcoholic drinks allow Spaniards to eat, drink, and tapas hop well into the wee hours of the morning. My brother and I found out about the protracted Spanish nightlife schedule the hard way when we showed up at a dance club at 1am ready to party. I’ve never been told by a club manager to come back later. Even when a club is totally dead the manager will say something hopefully optimistic like, “ there’s plenty of room to dance.” But this night we were told to come back at 2 at the earliest. I’m pretty sure there was no one at the club.

Lastly, and most importantly, the tapas culture ties drinking to other activites besides, well, drinking. In Spain drinking, eating, and conversing form a triumvirate of activities which are inseperable from each other. Drinking is a gastronomic and social phenomenon in Spain. When I step into a tapas bar I notice all sorts of people. There are young people, old people, business people, students, even kids. Because drinking is tied to other activities it is less demonized than in the states. Drinking is a normal and accepted form of consumption. This is a marked difference from the states where many young adults put on an uncompromisingly sober face to their parents and then get as fucked up as possible in basements, garages, and pool houses when the adults backs are turned. This is simply another symptom of our supremely capitalist mentality which values products and end goals over processes and experience. (I totally ripped of this last comment from Herbert Marceuse’s One-Dimensional Man.)