14 Spanish Foods The Rest Of The World Doesn't Understand

A terrifying jawless fish boiled in its own blood? Sounds delicious.

1. Calçots.

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One of the most popular meals in Catalonia. Just a skinny onion that's cooked over hot coal and usually served with a romesco sauce, which is made with garlic, tomato, bread, almonds, red peppers, rosemary, olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. And, yes, you have to try to eat it whole.

2. Escalivada.

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Roasted vegetables (aubergine, red pepper, onion and tomato) that can both be a main dish or a side. It's served drenched in olive oil, so it's not that easy to eat.

3. Cachopo.

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You know, just a couple of beef steaks with some ham and cheese between them. Oh, and you also coat the whole thing with bread crumbs and a beaten egg. Then you fry the whole thing and add some fries and some red pepper to ease digestion.

4. Morcilla.

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Some of them are made with onion, some of them are made with rice and some even have pine nuts. But guess what's always on them? Pig's blood. Coagulated blood, to be precise. You have to mix it with lard and other ingredients and put the whole thing inside the pig's intestines. Yup.

5. Sándwich vegetal.

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Your regular veggie sandwich. But in Spain it'll have tuna, eggs, and maybe even ham and cheese. But at least it has vegetables on it somewhere.

6. Migas con chorizo.

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The main ingredient of this dish is... bread. And yet it's one of the most popular dishes in Spain. The bread has to be left out so it gets solid and then it's stir-fried with other ingredients such as chorizo, eggs, grapes or tangerine. There are places where this is considered breakfast food. Really.

7. Pipas.

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This is THE snack. Salted sunflower seeds. You crack them with your teeth and then either throw away, or spit out, the skins. Seriously addictive.

8. Lamprea cocinada en su sangre.

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You take a terrifying monster from the sea (seriously, look it up) and you boil it in its own blood. It probably started out as a ritual for invoking some sort of demon, but it's now a typical dish in Galicia.

9. Manitas de cerdo.

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There's a Spanish saying that goes something like "there's nothing to be wasted on a pig". So, obviously, the hands (or, well, legs, but the dish is literally called 'pig's little hands') would be included.

10. Pa amb tomaquet.

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What do you get when you rub tomato on a piece of bread? Spain's most popular breakfast. Take that, croissants.

11. Berberechos.

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What could be more appetising than a tin can full of of oily molluscs? You'll find these bad boys in every kitchen in Spain.

12. Porras.

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Just a huge-ass churro. That's literally all it is.

13. Cortezas.

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Fried pig fat. It's a snack. It's delicious. It is not healthy at all.

14. Pimientos de padrón.

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Salted fried green peppers. Not so weird, right? Well, some of them are spicy as hell and some are not. And there's no way to know which are which. They're both tasty. It's just that some of them will make you want to die afterwards.