Gibraltarian cuisine

United Kingdom portal Gibraltarian cuisine is the result of a long relationship between the people of Spanish Andalusia and those of Great Britain, as well as the many foreigners who have made Gibraltar their home over the past three centuries.

A popular local pasta dish of Italian origin consisting of penne in a tomato sauce with beef or occasionally pork, mushrooms and carrots (among other vegetables depending on family tradition) and topped with grated "queso bola".

A baked pasta dish very similar to the Spanish fideos al horno, Maltese imqarrun or Greek pastitsio which consists of macaroni, bolognese sauce, and various other ingredients including egg and bacon that vary according to family tradition.

This is a baked pancake-like dish, similar to the Italian farinata, also known in Genoa as fainâ and in Uruguay and Argentina as fainá, and in the Nice region of France as Socca.

The Sephardi Jews from the Barbary Coast may have reintroduced this dish into Gibraltar, where it was maintained after the recipe was lost or fell out of favor in Spain.

Another widely suggested theory is that the origin of calentita is in Genoese migrations to Gibraltar and Iberia which started before the Anglo-Dutch action of 1704, although its name makes this unlikely.

It is widely believed in Gibraltar that name may have come from street vendors who would shout "Calentita" to sell their freshly cooked wares, a word which was transferred from the temperature to the foodstuff.

Unlike calentita, the ingredients are first simmered in a saucepan for over an hour, stirring constantly,[5] to form a paste which is then left to set.

Its main ingredients can include lard, margarine, sugar, self-raising flour, blanched almonds, raisins, sultanas, pine nuts, candied peel, eggs, aniseed and anisette among others.