Spain Explained

What is a Pintxo? (EP 37)

A pintxo is a small bite of food, two or three mouthfuls, eaten standing at a bar in the Basque Country with a drink in your hand and someone to talk to. It started a hun

What is Iberia? (EP 36)

Iberia is everywhere in Spain: the airline, the ham, the lynx, the wolf, the peninsula itself. So what is it? Iberia is the piece of land in the far southwest of Europe t

What is Bote? (EP 35)

In certain parts of Spain, a group of friends settles up before the night starts. Everyone puts the same amount of cash into one pile, usually ten euros a head. One perso

What is Catalunya? (EP 34)

Spain Explained is taking on all seventeen of Spain's regions, one episode at a time, starting with Catalunya, the region people hear about most and get explained the lea

What is Tertulia? (EP 33)

A tertulia has no members, no minutes and no closing time, and historically it has been powerful enough to pressure kings to ratify constitutions. The word in its traditi

What is a Comunidad Autónoma? (EP 32)

Spain's constitution, the one the country still runs on, never names a single one of its 17 comunidades autónomas. Not Cataluña, not Andalucía, none of them. These are ba

What is Rioja? (EP 31)

Sell a bottle of Gran Reserva Rioja before its fifth birthday and the region will fine you. Rioja is a wine denomination in northern Spain, strung along the Ebro across s

What is Ensaimada? (EP 30)

Not every pastry has its own aviation policy. The ensaimada is a coiled Mallorcan spiral, its pork lard dough stretched nearly transparent, baked and buried under powdere

What is Fútbol? (EP 29)

Spain won the 2026 World Cup while conceding just one goal across the entire tournament, a first for any champion, with a squad that included (for the first time ever) ze

What is La Tomatina? (EP 28)

On the last Wednesday of August, in a small town in Valencia, 20,000 people have a gigantic food fight of somewhere around 150 tonnes of overripe tomatoes. That is La Tom

What is Pulpo? (EP 27)

The town most associated with octopus in all of Spain sits 90 kilometers from the nearest coastline, with no port and no boats, yet every August it serves around 33 tons

What is a Caña? (EP 26)

Drinking beer is one of Spain's national pastimes. A caña, the smallish draft beer in Spain, is its protagonist…but beware of regional differences. In Madrid, a caña is 2

What is Menú del Día? (EP 25)

Four million people sit down across Spain every weekday for the menú del día. A fixed price, a first course, a second, bread, wine, dessert. The menú del día is such a Sp

What is an Asador? (EP 24)

A restaurant in Segovia has spent nearly a century proving the tenderness of its roast suckling pig by carving it with the edge of a plate instead of a knife. That gestur

What is Vale? (EP 23)

This episode is devoted to a single, four-letter word that you'll hear a LOT in Spain: vale. What does it mean, when is it used, and why is the answer … just about all th

What is Tinto de Verano? (EP 22)

Forget sangria...tinto de verano is Spain's true summer drink. In this episode, we break down tinto de verano: what it actually is, the correct ratio of ice and the mixer

What is Chorizo? (EP 21)

Chorizo shows up everywhere in Spain: sliced on a cutting board, tucked into a bocadillo, cooking down in a pot of lentils, skewered at a bar. It belongs to no single mea

What is Manchego? (EP 20)

Manchego is Spain's most exported cheese ... and its most copied. Nearly 60 percent of all Spanish DOP cheese sold abroad carries that name, which makes the imitation mar

What is a Puente? (EP 19)

In Spain, when a public holiday falls on a Thursday or Tuesday, taking the working day in between as leave turns it into a four-day weekend. The country plans around this

What is San Fermín? (EP 18)

  Six fighting bulls. 849 meters. Under three minutes. Every morning for nine days straight, Pamplona does this during the fiesta of San Fermín. That's the part everyon