Who's on Tapas?

The American diet is not marked by a heap of dirty dishes. Yes, this is the nation that thought up the automatic dishwasher and liquid soap, but it also gave birth to the paper plate, the cartoon-emblazoned Dixie cup, the disposable four-compartment TV dinner tray. Meals, from the bread and salad right through to the cream gravy are supposed to go on one single plate. And if dessert gets its own china, oh, the luxury.

To even begin to approach a topic like tapas, not to mention its attendant deluge of "small plate" eateries pouring into Manhattan, takes a little mental jujitsu at the outset. The plates are indeed small, their typical six-inch span entirely dwarfed by the American dinner plate, and they are not segregated into the dozen little arbitrary nation-states of yams or cranberry sauce that American holidays seem to induce. The idea here is very simple: one dish, one plate.

Now, that's not to say that it's one person, one plate, far from it. Most of the fun of eating this way, the silver lining to the pot scrubber's maelstrom, is that it is hyper-democratic, with each person getting to select two or three such morsels, usually on completely opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of flavor and texture. Add more people, and that's more candidates being elected to the table, all to be torn to bits and devoured.

It sounds very Chinese. Maybe something about it shines through in the dim sum New Yorkers have been in love with for generations. The concept is very similar, but the derivation is completely different. Tapas wasn't developed over tea. Instead it began atop a wine glass somewhere in the dark recesses of a smoke-filled bar in the south of Spain-the kind of place where the eight ceiling fans only seem to make it hotter and the flies are the only regulars of any note.

Flies love sherry, or vino de Jerez, but somehow imbibers would just as well the two stay separated. So, a long time ago, a piece of stale bread was set on top of a glass, and lo, it worked. The problem was, a stale piece of bread is about as appetizing as, well, bar peanuts. But if you top it with some local ham and cheese, maybe some olives, or a small stuffed pepper... well, that's how tapas was born.

Of course, being the Iberian Peninsula and all, no one bar, let alone town, was going to be bested by those other guys up the road. Soon a huge range of dishes arose, each tailored to the regional tastes and, more importantly, what was available. Every manner of paella, rice simmered with saffron and meats or shellfish in a shallow dish, sprang up, as did tortillas, omelets made by sauteing ingredients like potatoes in a small skillet, pouring in whipped eggs to cover, baking the entire thing, and slicing it like pie. Other common favorites include tiny red piquillo peppers stuffed with bacalao, salt cod, simmered in cream, or any manner of clams or mussels simmered in the local sauce, or simply the local jamon, dried cured ham, and a hefty wedge of cheese.

The way that such simple bar grub has captured the metropolitan imagination is fascinating to watch, with the scattered old guard of Spanish bars looking on as a host of newcomers blend in accents of Italian and Japanese, creating an odd fusion that is somehow right at home in Gotham. Others have seen fit to resurrect even more obscure traditions, like crudo, slices of raw fish that differ from sashimi only in their variety and accompaniment. Either way, the market is just humming green, and, mountain of soiled plates or no, tapas seems to have won over the American audience.