TAPAS. A Story of Spanish Food Invention

In 1919 the first olla exprés patent was awarded to José Alix Martínez entitled, “A pan for all kinds of stews that shall be called olla exprés”.

The designers Dieter Rams and Gabriel Lluelles devised this citrus squeezer in 1970 for the Braun company. It is elegant, stylish and minimalist and is still one of the most efficient machine of its type on the market. The German company commissioned the design from a Spanish designer, since Spain is so well known for its oranges.

A small wineskin. Traditionally made of goatskin or leather and made internally waterproof using pitch, wineskins have spouts and screw caps made from bone, and are ideal for serving wine. They are sewn around the edges except for the neck.

This is a wine pitcher (a porrón, in Spanish). It’s made from glass, with a long slender neck and a broad belly, and has one spout for drinking from, and another, larger, opening for filling with wine and admitting air, which also serves as a handle. The porrón is traditionally used to share wine among company in a hygienic way, without the vessel coming into contact the mouths of drinkers.

This voluminous vessel (a botijo, in Spanish), is made of porous clay. It has a handle and two openings: a wide one for filling and a spout for drinking. The principle is simple: the water inside filters through the porous clay and evaporates on contact with the hot, dry exterior during the Mediterranean summer, thus lowering the temperature of the contents. The cooling occurs as the water evaporates, extracting the heat from the jug.

Rafael Marquina, born in 1921 and regarded as one of the pioneers of industrial design, became world famous through his anti-drip olive oil dispensers, which he created in 1961. The olive oil and vinegar cruets have a spout from which the liquid emerges and a conical transparent glass opening, which collects drips of liquid and guides them back into the flask.

RS#2 is a table football dining table, a spectacular reinterpretation of a classic element of Spanish culture. If you install a sheet of thick, strong glass on the top, as chef José Andrés has done for his restaurant Jaleo, it becomes a unique dining table.

Double-lever corkscrew with a polished chrome finish. Practical and effective, performing its duties in seconds with minimum effort. Designed in 1932.

As though it were an extension of the human body, these tongs work like the thumb and index finger as they pick up food. The timeless Ricard tongs have become an icon of modern gastronomy design.

According to the architect Oscar Tusquets, the anchovy-stuffed olive is ‘the best Spanish invention of all time’. It is a typical Spanish product. And its creation is born out of acomplex process: you must harvest the olive, cure it, stone it, insert a piece of anchovy and close it up again with the leftover olive flesh. A textile mill owner and founder of the Serpis company from Alcoy invented an olive stoning machine that simplified the job and paved the way for large-scale industrialization.

Spain was the first country to import cocoa from the Americas to make chocolate, and from where it spread to the rest of Europe. Cocoa became popular in the 17th century and it was drunk hot and sweet. It was only as industrialization began to bite in the early 19th century that cocoa began to be produced in solid form.

In Spain, to accompany hot chocolate it is customary to enjoy sweet bread, biscuits or churros. The churro is typical of Spain, even though it can be found in other countries. It is a deep-fried doughy confection extruded from a star-shaped nozzle, giving it a characteristic striated shape, which creates an extra-crunchy texture after frying.

The paellera, or simply paella (from the Latin patella, cooking vessel) is a special skillet for cooking the famous dish made from rice simmered with a variety of ingredients.

It originated in the Albufera district of Valencia, but has become a typically Spanish dish known all over the world. The diameter of a paellera is usually very large in proportion to its depth, which helps optimize cooking. Paelleras have a handle at either side to make them easier to lift.

The popular Spanish confectionary Chupa Chups were invented in 1958 by the businessman Enric Bernat so that children could enjoy candy without getting sticky. About twelve million Chupa Chupsare sold worldwide every day. A Chupa Chups lollypop forms part of the permanent collection of the MoMA in New York. Since 2006 the brand has belonged to the Italian group Perfetti Van Melle.

The logo is the work of Salvador Dalí.