A Taste of Spain 2010

I was just wandering along Princes Street when I saw the Taste of Spain festival. The intentions are quite clear, to give the public a better view of Spain and to entice you to visit their country. I was quite impressed by the amount of effort they had put in with people walking around on stilts and a stage for live music.
There was also a guy (although quite obviously British) who was doing football tricks and skills and this was thoroughly impressive.
There was also a big bowl of paella, yes an obvious choice, but I’m a sucker for a freebie and although I had already had lunch, it tasted pretty good.
Unfortunately the weather on the Saturday the day was quite wet and dull which meant that many of the performances were not watched by as many as they deserved.

I think that in this country we’ve a lot to learn from our Iberian comrades. Apart from well organised, effective but dull football, they’ve a few more tricks up their sleeves. Eating dinner at midnight, six-​hour long lunch breaks, and brutally torturing animals in the name of family entertainment are just some of the culturally rich activities we miss out on over here, so it’s good to see a festival that celebrates the passion of those from The Med.
Whilst many in the UK do actually think of Spain in terms of the narrow minded misinformation above, it’s good that this event did it’s best to showcase a country where regional differences in culture, politics and lifestyle are perhaps the most pronounced in all of Europe. I’m not sure how well it promoted the fact that they all come together to form a united Spain though, as for me the event only reaffirmed that fact that it’s possibly the most divided country on the continent. It’s certainly the only one where a significant proportion of the population would actively refuse to celebrate winning The World Cup, Israel and Northern Ireland excluded.
Making the showpiece a giant bowl of paella was possibly the laziest and most cliched stunt they could have pulled, but the event did indeed serve it’s purpose, as it highlighted the fact that there’s a lot more to Spain than package holidays, straw donkeys and housewife hunting mustachioed waiters.

What is going to become an annual event, the Taste of Spain mini festival on the mound is put on by the Spanish Ministry of Tourism and is designed to give an attractive portrayal of Spain. Split into 8 different provinces, with a stand for each, and one more for
and one for Spain as a whole, the event aims to promote the different cultures that combine as a whole to form the Spanish identity. And to a certain extent it succeeds; each stand undoubtedly has its own flavour and style, offering wine tasting, sherry, local foods and delicacies. Some have an extra attraction, in the form of the Lanzarote stall a virtual golf simulator.
The highlight of the event is the huge paella dish sitting proudly in the middle of the square, claiming to be able to feed more than 1000 people. However the queue for this was huge, and kudos to the Scottish announcer for valiantly trying to keep people’s attention whilst many were drifting off into boredom.
There is also a stage, showing flamenco whilst I was there but with different acts performing throughout the day, including Spanish indie-​pop and traditional regional ditties. Unfortunately the event is only on this weekend (24^th-​25^th July) but hopefully when they return next year it will last longer.