why Spain eats dinner so late: it's in the wrong time zone?

I never even thought about why sunsets are so late there...until a recent trip when I went from Portugal to Spain and had to switch my watch -- and I was going north, not east. Suddenly I had an extra hour of daylight in the evenings.

But the fact that's down to Franco getting in sync with his Nazi friends. Yeah, I had no idea.

it's tapas, and they are basically appetizers of all kinds. Not all of them are low carb -- many are bread-based. some are just a bite, and some are larger.

If you go to Spain, and sit at the bar at 5 or 6 or 7 pm, you can make meal out of a selection of tapas, or just get one or two with a drink as a little bite.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapas

Tapas bars will typically have a whole array of them at the bar on display, and you can point and choose, and/or order off the menu. Some are cold, some are hot.

it is my favorite way to eat -- you can try a bit of everything. American places tend to ruin it by giving you huge portions so you don't have room for more than one or two unless you share with a table full of people. Boo.  In Spain, you generally have the option of ordering a larger portion, but you can also get a wee little bit, and make a tasty, economical meal trying 6 different appetizers without stuffing yourself or wasting anything.   And you can get one at a time and stop when it's enough. Love it.  Perfect for a solo traveler or couples who like different things.  But most American tapas places don't do the concept right, IMO. I am usually disappointed. 

by the way, stupid pet peeve:

Britains and Australians tend to pronounce the first "a" in tapas the way we English speakers pronounce the "a" in "Spanish" or "apple" -- or at least, Gordon Ramsay and every Brit and Australian I've met says it that way. That's not the way the Spanish say it-- they say it more like the "a" in "taco" forvo.com/word/tapas/ And so do I. (And so do most Americans I know, actually.)

Now, I couldn't give less of a crap how the Brits and Aussies say "tapas". They can say it any way they like as far as I'm concerned. But here's the thing -- at least a dozen times, various Brits and Aussies have sneered at MY pronunciation of the word!

To note, though I do not speak fluent Spanish, I do speak some, my grandfather was from Spain, I studied Spanish for four years, I have been to Spain many times, and native Spaniards tell me I do pretty well with the accent.

But nooooo. According to Brits and Aussies, apparently, I'm an American, and therefore untraveled, uneducated, and uncosmopolitan by default, so MY pronunciation must be off. They don't just correct me -- they laugh at how embarrassing it is for me to mispronounce the word that way..

Once, this happened in Madrid when I met up with a bunch of Brit colleagues (an international arbitration). The waiter overheard and said I had it right, so that shut them up, at least. Seriously, this has happened repeatedly. Grrr! If you are going to sneer at someone, you'd better at least be damn sure they're wrong. Better yet, shut the fuck up.

It doesn't quite ruin my enjoyment of tapas, but it does annoy me.

Go for tapas!

I could go for some nice jamon, a few garlic shrimp, a boquerone or ten, some patatas bravas, maybe a wedge of tortilla and some olives, a bit of cabrales and manchego...

I need another trip to Spain.

ETA:

I don't​ think I've ever come back from a trip anywhere and not missed some kind of food.  I live in New York, so I can actually get a pretty amazing variety, but it's never quite the same, and there is always something you can't get.

I have this uncomfortable image of tapas with arms, legs, and faces, dancing and singing in a big conga line as they leap into Vince's mouth...

Actually, in my dream I paid someone in a very greasy stand $121.53 for a very small bowl that contained 1/2 a sausage, a turnip, some leafy thing, and a piece of fried zucchini. They called it tapas which is what I wanted.

Also, in the dream, I hadn't eaten in well over a year, and I was able to fly, and most incredibly, my wife seemed okay with the fact that I spent that amount of money on that amount of food.