Pasta — Pasta

In Spain, pasta is not a staple food as it is in Italy but it has been a major part of the Spanish culinary landscape since the Middle Ages. Back then, the Kingdom of Aragon, which included modern Catalonia, annexed Sardinia, Sicily and Naples and pasta was brought from the Italian ports to Barcelona. An influx of Italian watchmakers to the city in the nineteenth century cemented the region’s love affair with canelones and fideos. The word canelones is pretty easy to decipher and canalones are used in similar ways to cannelloni. Fideos — short, thin strands of pasta — are cooked in a similar way to paella. Spanish fideos can be bought at Spanish grocers but you can substitute with macaroni or spaghetti broken up by hand.