Cultural Gaffes When in Spain?

After reading these interesting opinions over at another travel website ...
From Slow Traveler\'s Forum "Doggie Bags in Rome"

...made me think what are the cultural dos and don'ts when a person is visiting Spain? The only one I know of is eating in the streets. Is this true? Are there others I should know of?

Does Spain have the concept of a doggy bag?

Thanks
Bill

In general, I think the answer is NO. But, just yesterday, my ladyfriend and I were eating lunch at a Chinese restaurant (more-or-less near the Puerta de Toledo in Madrid) and since we had so much food leftover my ladyfriend suggested that I take the rest home. This surprised me but not as much as SHE was surprised when *I* ate all the rest there at the table. Hehehee.. Good food - cheap prices.

And now for the Spaniards....?

Saludos, MadridMan (Woof! Woof!)

Well, I can't answer as a Spaniard, but after years of eating with them, I can say that doggie bags are not common at all. That doesn't mean I've never seen food taken home, but it was rare. Some Spaniards I know who have been to the U.S. get a kick out of the idea of doggie bags. The idea of cultural slip-ups is an interesting one and I use it sometimes as a conversation topic for my students. There are a lot of cultural codes that we barely know even exist until someone breaks them, usually by mistake. I know I've made dozens of mistakes over the years...but that's a part of learning about a new culture.

I know that the English are very polite comapred to Spaniards, as my boyfriends Mum is always highly amused by the amount of times I say "please" and "thankyou".

In all my visits to Spain and dining with Spanish families, I never noticed one of them taking home a "doggie bag". One time in France however, the family I dined with did indeed ask for a doggie bag.....but it really was the doggie bag. The Chef sent us home with a bone for the dog

Murdy

I like to hear about the ones you did while in Spain.

Bill

Recently, while in Barcelona, I had lentils for dinner as a starter before the main meal. When telling my signifant other this detail she nearly laughed herself silly! I didn't get it at first until she told me that lentils are a LUNCHTIME dish because of its weight - or something like that. HUH??? REALLY? She told me that the waitress probably gave me a strange look when I ordered them but I didn't recall that she did. We, in the USA, often had lentils at dinnertime.

Are lentils really so strange to order for the nighttime meal in Spain?

Saludos, MadridMan

I understand your significant other, but I think she's being a bit exaggerated. It's true that lentils are not, say, among the top 50 starters for a Spanish dinner, probably due to the way they are usually prepared in Spain (with plenty of lard, ham, chorizo,... i.e. heavy dish), but it's not so weird as to cause strange looks from the waitress. To give you an idea, I probably had lentils for dinner less than 3-4 times in the last five years, but I actually did.

Quite true! It's not normal to order lentils for dinner, as well as cocido or fabada.
It's quite odd...the waitress probably thought "oh, poor boy, he must be starving!"
BTW, in the Mediterranean coast the food tends to be lighter, it may be a climate-related thing, so in Barcelona your "heavy" dinner it's even more strange than elsewhere in Spain.

Bill from NYC writes: Short answer: Yes! But they don't call it that (doggy bag).

Twice, in separate years, a Cousin invited us to lunch the day we arrived in Madrid. Most recent was at the Giralda restaurant on c/Maldonado. We were 'beat' from our TransAtlantic flight and we just couldn't handle the filetes de ternera he had ordered for us. So he asked to take them with us. They put them in a styrofoam and covered them for us. The other time, a few years earlier, was similar but at a different restaurant.

I must mention that my (wife's) cousin, a Music Producer / Publicist is very well known in those places. They might do things for him that they wouldn't do for a run-of-the-mill customer.
BTW
Eddie is from NYC also: I was born in uptown Manhattan, graduated H.S. in the Bronx and attended NYU (College of Engineering) on University Heights, way back when ...

I've had to deduce what a doggy bag is by your commentaries. Asking for a doggy bag could be embarrassed, specially in a non tourist place. Anyway, just try it.

Asking for a doggy bag in Spain is somethin plainly unbelievable. They may give you one and don't be that surprised because you are a tourist, but in most restaurants it will even be considered something not polite

This is one of the things that shocked me most when I went to USA.

If I dare to do this with my friends in Madrid, they will consider me crazy hahahaha.

Fernando

yes doggy bags are only in tourist food eateries and you are a tourist..he hehe!!!
In fact you are supposed to serve yourself enough and eat it all or it is offensive to the server:host.as they think you did not like the food.

good mornings and good byes are a norm when entering a place for the first time: or afternoon or evening as the time suits.

I got some family in Valencia (not rich people, but maybe wealthier than most people). They usually asked for what we left after eating in a restaurant. It usually was for the dog they had.

Last year they come to Madrid and we had lunch together. There were too much food (specially raw meat that we didn't put on the hot stone). My sister took it with her. I'm used to this kind of things, and restaurants in Madrid city center are used to that too.

About lentils: people here are very tradicional sometimes. Lentils (cooked like most people do) are too hard for dinner. But I'm "a little bit" weird because I can eat them for breakfast. Maybe it's because my breakfast is in the evening (I work at night), I eat something at work, and when I arrive home (in the morning) I take something lighter

Regarding Bill's comment about eating in the streets...when I was in college in Madrid I used to take granola bars or cereal with me and walk down the street to class eating. This was near Nuevos Ministerios, where there are a lot of business people. I would get the weirdest looks. At first I thought it might be that I was very obviously dressed like an American, but then after about a week I realized it was just me eating! After that I learned to get up earlier and eat a proper breakfast.