Spanish cuisine

Spanish cooking is split by sea and mountains: rice and fish on the coast, pork, beans and olive oil by the litre inland.

Spanish cooking has almost no sauces in the French sense. Flavour is built on sofrito instead — onion, garlic and tomato cooked down in olive oil until they stop being vegetables and become a base.

The second thing you notice is the respect for rice. Paella is never stirred, unlike risotto: Spanish rice is meant to drink the stock and stay as separate grains rather than collapse into a cream.