Where are all the veggies!

If there’s one minor gripe I hear from visitors to Spain is that they’ve gotten ‘meated out’, as the majority of offerings on any given menu tend to be on the living-and-breathing side, at least until recently. It’s actually a fair observation but it can lead some to erroneously conclude that Spanish people don’t eat vegetables.

To complicate matters, the one salad that is on just about every menu is called, variously, ensalladia rusa, ensalladia gambas or ensalladia something else, which is understandably often the first choice of the vegetable-deficient tourist. Some menus in English will even call it a ‘traditional salad’, so it sounds just the ticket. The good news is that this particular local staple is delicious (particularly if you get it at a higher-end place). The bad news is that the core ingredients are potatoes and mayonnaise, enough to make a weight watcher bolt for the hills, albeit slowly and panting a lot. Plus it usually features prawns or octopus mixed in, so it’s not even vegetarian.

Depending on the time of year and the part of Spain you find yourself in you will encounter what people from other locales would recognise as a salad – maybe a delightful combo of local tomatoes, onions, lettuce and a simple oil dressing – but for some reason it’ll likely be the most expensive thing on the menu. Nine euros for some cut-up toms when you can get a tapa of slow-roasted pork cheek for four-fifty? Inconceivable.

But there’s nothing sinister going on here. Spanish people head for the bar to eat stuff they could but don’t usually bother to cook at home, à la the braised pork cheeks, the garlic prawns, the salted cod, the deep-fried croquettes or the cheese plate. They get their fill of veggies at home any time they want, making light and healthy dishes for the family out of the ridiculously inexpensive and equally absurdly delicious fresh ingredients from the daily market down the calle. The haul pictured below cost nine euros.

Plus, salads from just about every menu are full-sized raciones, not the smaller tapas or pintxos, which helps to explain the pricing discrepancy.

The reality is that you don’t have to look very far for a bar that has good plant-based offerings. Check out this fishy-and-peach salad from Bar Manojo in San Sebastián, one of my favourite ever dishes of any type (if you’ll permit the use of fish in a salad).

Pelique Bar in Jerez has a seasonal vegetable salad big enough for two that’ll blow you away, for nine euros.

Yeah, you have to look around. Check out some menus online before you choose somewhere to eat. Watch the season though – someone’s photo of an artichoke salad on Google Maps can be misleading if you’re here in the middle of summer, and the tomato gazpacho won’t be available in winter.

Better still, just order the pork cheeks. You can always go to the market and buy an apple.