Tom's Proletarian Kitchen

  Almendras y Aceitunas Ingredients 1 cup Manzanilla olives 1 cup Gordal ("Spanish Queen") olives 1 cup Sevillano olives 1½ cups Marcona almonds 6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil Zest of 1 orange, lemon, and lime ½ tsp smoked paprika (optional) Flaky sea salt Instructions Toast almonds in dry skillet ~3 min until golden. Toss warm almonds with olives in bowl. Drizzle with oil, sprinkle zest, paprika, salt. Let sit 10 min – flavors are better when shared. Pa amb Tomàquet Ingredients 1 rustic baguette, sliced 2 ripe tomatoes, halved 1 garlic clove 2-3 tbsp olive oil 1 tsp lime juice Salt Optional: Manchego, Iberico ham Instructions Grill oiled bread until golden (~2 min/side). Rub warm bread with garlic. Grate tomato into pulp, mix with lime and salt. Smear tomato on bread, drizzle more oil. Stack Manchego and Iberico, if desired Paella de Resistencia Ingredients 1¼ cups Bomba rice 5 cups seafood broth* 1 onion, grated ½ teaspoon smoked paprika (optional, for depth) 2 tomatoes, gr...

  Spanish food is globally revered—but its soul isn’t in glossy paella photos or trendy tapas bars. It’s in the calloused hands of Valencian fishermen who stretched rice and snails into a feast, and Catalan workers who turned stale bread into a breakfast of quiet defiance, and Andalusian day laborers who survived on olives and almonds under the scorching sun. The irony? Dishes born from survival now star on Food Network, their origins scrubbed cleaner than a Michelin plate.  These dishes didn’t just emerge from poverty; they were shaped by regions that spent centuries resisting—first the Moors, then Madrid noblemen, then Franco’s boot. These flavors are celebrated worldwide, even as we forget where they came from. The Mediterranean beauty belies its role as a lifeline, and that beautiful climate drawing tourists to Barcelona once meant an unforgiving day for those working the fields. This week, I cooked three dishes that carry this history: Andalusia’s olive-and-almond tapa , ...