Spanish cuisine consists of the cooking traditions and practices from Spain. Olive oil (of which Spain is the world's largest producer) is heavily used in Spanish cuisine. It forms the base of many vegetable sauces (known in Spanish as sofritos). Herbs most commonly used include parsley, oregano, rosemary and thyme. The use of garlic has been noted as common in Spanish cooking. The most used meats in Spanish cuisine include chicken, pork, lamb and veal. Fish and seafood are also consumed on a regular basis. Tapas are snacks and appetizers commonly served with drinks in bars and cafes. History Antiquity Authors like Strabo wrote about aboriginal people of Spain using nuts and acorns as staple food. The extension of the vines along the Mediterranean seems to be due to the colonization of the Greeks and the Phoenicians who introduced the cultivation of olive oil. Spain is the largest producer of olive oil in the world. The growing of crops of the so-called tríada mediterránea (the "Mediterranean triad": wheat, grapevines, and olives) underpinned the staple meal products for the inhabitants of the south of the Iberian Peninsula during the Roman Era (bread, wine and oil). Middle Ages The Visigoths’ limited but lasting contributions to Spanish cuisine include the spread of consumption of fermented milk and the preference for avoiding the mixing of water and wine. Rice was possibly introduced for the first time by Byzantines in the Iberian Peninsula by the 6th century, while, following the Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century, Arabs expanded rice cultivation, bringing new irrigation techniques originally from the Indian subcontinent that also allowed for the cultivation of crops such as sugar cane, watermelon, lemon and oranges. Other ingredients introduced in the Iberian Peninsula during the Hispano-Muslim period include sorghum, spinach, eggplant, peach, apricot and saffron. The most famous Spanish dish, paella, uses two ingredients introduced by the Moors, rice and saffron. Moors also developed the basis for the art of pastry-making and introduced escabeche, a food preservation technique relying on vinegar. Dishes like ajo blanco, alboronía, alajú, hallulla, albóndigas, mojama, arrope, are some of the many legacies of Moorish cuisine. Although Muslim religion does not allow alcoholic drinks, the consumption of wine was widespread as the Qur'anic precepts never got to overrule the preexisting traditions in this regard. There are many accounts of the "drinking chats" of Abd al-Rahman II, Abd al-Rahman