Now here is some interesting information that you may enjoy. Hope so, at least! Cheers.
Bistro
A bistro, sometimes spelled bistrot, is, in its original Parisian incarnation, a small restaurant serving moderately priced simple meals in a modest setting. Bistros are defined mostly by the foods they serve. Slow-cooked foods like braised meats are typical.
Bistros likely developed out of the basement kitchens of Parisian apartments where tenants paid for both room and board. Landlords could supplement their income by opening their kitchen to the paying public. Menus were built around foods that were simple, could be prepared in quantity and would keep over time. Wine and coffee were also served. The limited space for diners in these cramped corners prompted the tradition of adding table service to the footpath. As the idea caught hold, architecture and menus both became more specific.
The word bistro may derive from the Russian быстро (bystro) which means quickly. According to an urban legend, it entered the French language during the Russian occupation of Paris in 1815. Russian cossacks who wanted to be served quickly would shout “bystro.” However, this etymology is not accepted by several French linguists as there is, surprisingly, no occurrence of this word until the end of the 19th century.
Another version is that it is an abbreviation of bistrouille, a French term for brandy mixed with coffee.
Tapas
Tapas is a plural term, so your question should really be ‘what are tapas’. There are a number of myths about what tapas is all about. Here are just a few:
What Tapas is Not:
Tapas is not a particular type of food. Anything can be tapas – paella, croquettes, ham and cheese on toast, truly anything. As long as it is small and served with your drink (either free or at a surcharge), it is tapas. It doesn’t even have to be Spanish – in Granada there are a number of Morrocan bars that offer cous cous, falafel and kebabs as tapas.
Tapas is not a starter. If you start eating tapas, you finish eating tapas, and you don’t stop until you’re full.
Tapas is not a collection of small dishes brought out on a platter and eaten as a main course. The Spanish have a word for this – ‘tabla’.
The Meaning of the Word Tapas:
A ‘tapa’ is a ‘lid’ or ‘cover’. In the early days of tapas, a slice of cheese or ham was given with your drink and placed over your drink. There is some debate over why exactly this was done:
To keep out the flies.
To hide the smell of the bad wine.
To keep the wind from blowing your drink everywhere.
.
A piece of ham will only hide the smell of the wine until you take it off to take a drink, while if there was a strong wind, surely the first thing to go flying would be the tapas!
There is another explanation which differs from the above. It is said that there was once a sick king – which one exactly differs according to who is telling the story – who couldn’t drink alcohol without taking some food with it. He issued a royal decree that insisted that everyone should take food with their drinks. A slight variation of this one is that the benevolent king simply insisted that food should be taken with any drink out of concerns for the health issues associated with drinking on an empty stomach.
Tapas in Spain Today:
So, with all the myths about tapas out of the way, this is what tapas is today. A tapa is invariably a small dish of something edible. It may be a smaller version (normally a quarter version) of something else on the menu or it may be sold exclusively as tapas. The tapas may or may not be free. Unfortunately the days of free tapas are over in much of Spain. If you are invited to “go for tapas”, you’ll be visiting lots of bars and probably only taking a single tapas in each.
Source: About (dot) com
