Spanish people don’t take the food part of lunch lightly; far from it.As a Spaniard in love with food in general, and lunch in particular.
西班牙人對于午餐的食物部分可絲毫不含糊，甚至可以說是十分上心。西班牙人普遍愛美食，其中又極其看重午餐。
Lunch, for example, doesn’t end when people can’t eat another bite. That’s when the sobremesa starts. There is no equivalent word in English, though the concept is simple: sobremesa is the time you spend at the table after you’ve finished eating.
以午餐為例，它并非結束于"吃"這個動作，吃完只是意味著西班牙語中"sobremesa"的開始。西語中"sobremesa"一詞在英語中沒有對應的單詞，但它的意思其實很簡單，它指的是飯罷餐畢仍在桌前停留的輕松閑聊時光。
Of course, the all-day lunch is not an everyday occurrence. The long sobremesa is a fixture on occasions such as birthdays and anniversaries and Sundays with the family. But even during the week, many people still take the time to have a big lunch, and when it’s finished nobody is in too much of a hurry to leave. While it’s not unheard of to have a sobremesa after dinner, it’s more of an afternoon event. They say that having a big lunch instead of a big dinner is healthier, but that’s probably just a happy coincidence. Lunch is just more fun.
這種花上大半天的午餐并不是日日都能有的。耗時較長的"餐后閑聊時光"基本上是生日、紀念日、與家人共度周末等場合里的必有部分。但是在周日期間，大家還是能抽時間去享受一頓豐盛的午餐，飯罷餐后也不會急著離開。一般來說，晚餐的"餐后閑聊時光"聞所未聞。"餐后閑聊時光"大多發生在下午。大家普遍認為一頓豐盛的午餐益于健康而晚餐不宜太過豐盛。但或許這只是一個美妙的巧合。比起晚餐，午餐總是更樂趣十足。
You could look at lunch in Spain as just an excuse for a sobremesa. As excuses go, it’s a pretty good one. The food is almost always superb, which is, when you think about it, a nice bonus.
在西班牙，你可以把吃飯當做是想要享受"餐后閑聊時光"時的借口。若有借口，就盡情去享受吧!何況西班牙的食物也是超美味的，不妨把美食當作額外的驚喜。
