The Story of the Spanish Table
"In the quality of her pigs and goats Spain bows to no country in the world. The skins of the kids are greatly in demand in this country and in…
Location: Spain
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"The Story of the Table," from Home Life in Spain by Samuel Levy Bensusan, 1910.
In the preceding chapter reference was made at some length to the national dishes of Spain, and now it is time to point out that the Spaniard does not limit himself to any of these unless he be so poor that he can afford no more than one good meal a day. Among the middle and upper classes there is a very marked taste for Spanish cooking that has survived all the assaults of the French chef.
Fairly considered, the one and primal defect of Spain's cooking is founded upon the poor quality of the oil used. If a well-equipped modern refinery could be established in every Spanish city boasting a population of more than ten thousand people, and if it could be demonstrated beyond the doubts of the most conservative standard that oil loses nothing worth keeping of its native quality in changing its hue from green to yellow and sacrificing the impurities which impart such a vile taste and odour, the quality of Spanish cooking would be doubled or trebled, and the bitterest enemies of Spain would no longer be heard to declare that civilization ends at the Pyrenees.
It might be suggested courteously to the ardent reformers and patriots of Catalonia and Vizcaya that the most perfected machinery for propaganda, the one instrument which might strike a blow at the heart of regionalism, which might in a few years unite all Spain in a bond of brotherhood and bring progressive men from all Europe quite cheerfully into their country, is the oil-refinery. This suggestion is offered humbly, but with complete confidence, to the leaders of Spain's progressive movement.
In the quality of her pigs and goats Spain bows to no country in the world. The skins of the kids are greatly in demand in this country and in France. High up in the mountains of Castile, where some of the finest flocks of goats are pastured, one meets the wildest people in Spain. These goatherds, ill-shaven and unshorn, drive their flocks into La Mancha for winter feeding, and up into the Castilian hills (particularly in the neighbourhood of the Sierra de Gredos) shortly before the kids are born.
He whose taste for blood has been nurtured in Plaza de Toros or Arena de Gallos, and whose capacity for climbing seemingly inaccessible hills has been developed to a considerable extent, may enter with security into the highland fastnesses, once the abode of the worst brigands in Spain. Here, in a day, he may see a hundred kids yield their harmless life to the slaughterer who exercises upon them the deadly navaja that his grandfather was wont to dye in the blood of unfortunate travellers.
The flesh of the kids is sent down the mountainside in the cool of the evening to the nearest railway station whence it is taken to Madrid, to the butcher's shop, the carniceria. But the skins are carefully preserved to be packed and sent across the frontier. Although there are fine flocks of goats in the more arid parts of Andalusia, it is in Castile and La Mancha that the goat thrives best, and throughout the wilder parts of Spain goat's milk is far more in evidence than cow's. It is, moreover, quite a common sight in a Spanish city to see a little company of milch goats, some of them decorated with tinkling bells, driven through the streets and milked in front of the houses of their patrons. Spanish doctors hold goat's milk in high esteem and prescribe it very freely for intestinal ailments. It is worth remarking that Spain as a country does not suffer very much from consumption, and scientists tell us that goat's milk is free from the germs that develop tuberculosis in the human being, so it may be that the widespread use of leche de cabra is responsible, in part at least, to this satisfactory condition.
There are many ways of cooking goat's flesh. It may be included in one of the national dishes, the arroz valenciano, for instance. At picnics a kid is frequently roasted whole. In the house the meat is sometimes put on a spit in front of the fire and turned by hand, in fashion tiresomely primitive. But perhaps the most popular way of treating goat's flesh is to give it the leading role in the production of a guiso. The meat is cut into pieces, dipped lightly in flour and put into oil that has already reached a certain high temperature recognized instinctively by the trained Spanish cook. It must be stirred steadily to keep the flour from burning, and in a little while water is added. If the dish is to be an asado only a few potatoes are now introduced and they roast in the oil and water; the water having been added to keep the food from burning.
If, on the other hand, the dish is to be a guiso, the water is put in with a liberal hand, all kinds of vegetables are added, green peas and young artichokes being most highly esteemed in this connexion, and the stew is left to simmer for several hours. Should the oil chance to possess a comparatively friendly quality, the completed dish is delicious, while, if the oil be stronger than meat and vegetables combined, the popularity of the guiso will be limited strictly to the Spanish palate.
The pig occupies a responsible and honourable position in Spain. Perhaps the esteem in which it is held may even have developed the fierce Spanish hatred of Jew and Moor who eye the strange animal askance and have no use for it, alive or dead. Great herds of pigs, for the most part quite black, precede the piping swineherd through the Andalusian wilds, and browse upon the fallen acorns of the Valombrosas of Aragon and Navarre. For a month or two before the time of its departure from the world it has endeavoured to adorn, the pig no longer travels in a herd. Cribbed, cabined, and confined within a sty, he fares sumptuously upon all the waste provender his master can supply, these products including a large number of green figs and prickly pears not quite good enough for men to sell or eat. Unconscious of his impending doom, the pig waxes fat, and it is only with the greatest difficulty that he can travel unaided to his destination and face the debacle associated with All Saints' Day.
It is necessary to explain at once that in all large Spanish cities, pigs can only be killed between November and March, the authorities recognizing that pork and the Spanish spring and summer cannot be associated without grave risk of disease. Even in the villages where no very rigid rule obtains, special licence must be applied and paid for by those who, for their own particular benefit, would kill a pig at any time of the year, and in town and village alike, the carcass of the corpulent dead is carefully examined before it may be offered to a pig-loving public.
Two or three days before the advent of Todos los Santos, every housewife has given her order to the butcher who is in temporary receipt of her patronage, and the sorrow of remembering the departed whose day is to be celebrated in every Spanish churchyard, is brightened by the thought that thousands of pigs are being sacrificed; though one would not suggest for a moment that any Spaniard regards them as an offering to the souls of the departed. On the day before Todos los Santos every Spanish city is one big squeal, as thousands of the animals despised by the heretic Jew and infidel Moor pass lamenting out of life, and throughout the day the now silent carcasses hang stiffly and solemnly outside the butcher's shop, while an unsympathetic public saunters by thinking of joys to come.
For one like the writer, who is a member of the ancient community which Spain expelled from her borders, there is little temptation to dwell at length upon the many ways of cooking a food that makes no personal appeal to him, but in this place duty must override prejudice. At the same time the writer feels his own shortcomings acutely, and is well aware that he can do no justice to the various virtues latent in an animal he has never learned to regard with enthusiasm or even admiration. Accordingly he has asked Mr. Charles Rudy whose knowledge of so many aspects of Spanish life is superior to his own, and whose "Companions in the Sierra" deals so delightfully with the intimate and personal side of travel in Spain's by-ways, to do justice to a subject which he himself cannot approach with judgment or first-hand knowledge.
Thus, and in parliamentary language, "El Senor Rudy tiene la palabra" (has the word).
"On receipt of the noble carcass of the hog, brought to his shop from the matadero in a huge, two-wheeled cart drawn by a tandem of five mules led by an ass, the butcher allows his new acquisition to hang a day at his door, head downward, with a small pail attached to the snout to receive the drippings of blood. At night an expert carver comes, and in less than half an hour, hams, steaks, chops, feet, and sundry other parts of the animal's anatomy lie on the counter ready for the morning's sale. The hams are, however, laid aside to be cured, when, cut in thin slices, they will be eaten raw, and washed down by copas of vino tinto (red wine), or else they will be cooked in sugared water and sherry.
The result is jamon en dulce, rightly or wrongly considered one of Spain's delicacies. The epidermis of the dead pig, with sundry gristly parts of the animal's body, are boiled and fried into a pate, and sold under the name of chicharrones. As for bacon, it is unknown in Spain, where the hog is cut up in such fashion as to leave the lean part (of the bacon) to be sold with the ribs, and the fatty part as tocino or lard. The latter; one of the ingredients of the puchero is either eaten fresh or else anejo, when, as it is not preserved as the French sale in salt, it acquires a rancid taste not wholly agreeable to all palates, Spanish though they be.
"In the cities during the slaughtering season (matanza), the Spaniard's one delight (or at least one of his delights) is to indulge in magro, by which name the lean parts, such as chops and steaks, are known. Roast pork is not eaten, and this neglect of a good thing is one of the drawbacks to residence in Spain. But the steaks and chops make up for this loss. As often as not the housewife lets the meat (chuleta or filete) steep a few days in a preparation of water, salt, vinegar, garlic, and oregano; a spice that has given its name to one of the States of the Union. Perhaps the baptiser was a pork-loving conquistador of yore, and thus the State in question may hold itself lucky not to have been christened by some word even more expressive of the explorer's Spanish tastes.
"Emerging from its bath, the cleansed flesh of the unclean animal is thrown into the frying-pan moistened with oil. When it escapes therefrom, it is(with all due apologies to those who despise it)a dish royal, with an aroma of ajo about it which I, garlic-loving citizen of the world, cannot praise too highly. But if a more perfected cuisine be desired by the housekeeper anxious to make a passing impression upon her lord and master's heart, let her cut the meat up into tajas and include it in an arroz valenciano, rich in pimientos morrones, almejas or shell-fish, and a yard of sausage (for thus can they be bought in Spain) cut up into small pieces. Then verily will the lord and master, the amo as it were, chuparse los dedos, by which is meant that, after having eaten his full, he will place in his mouth, turn about, the ten digital appendages of his hands, and withdraw them carefully, lovingly, with the remembrance of an opipero meal twinkling in the bead-like black of his eyes.
"There are many kinds of sausages in Spain. But it might perhaps be better for all concerned if I were to omit the life-history of those that are clandestinely made. There is the chorizo (those of Logrono on the Ebro can be recommended) which is eaten throughout the year for it is cured or smoked; there is the red salchicha reeking in pepper (pimenton), and the white which is harmless. These are no thicker than a child's finger, and long; yards long. The morcilla, corresponding to the French boudin (whence our word pudding), is made of pig's blood and rice; it also can be purchased with or without pepper. In days gone by superfluous dogs used to be removed by means of a poisoned morcilla; they could thus pass away on top of a fragrant supper, and not curse mankind too violently for having sent them on the longest of long journeys on an empty stomach.
Though this custom has, thanks to civilization, been abolished, allusion to it remains in the lenguaje del pueblo (popular language) in the form of a gentle instrument of torture. A friend has turned his hand against you and yours, and thereby most naturally ceases to be your friend. You reward him by devoutly hoping that 'he may be given a morcilla' (que le den morcilla), the verb 'to eat' being politely eliminated.
"Raw ham is national. It is sustaining, and of a pleasant odour and colour. Its taste is fragrant. On long tramps across hills, plains, and through dirty hamlets(picturesque only from a distance)I have lived on Spanish ham, bread, and wine, relying upon no other manjares (viands). You can be sure of your ham, for artificial curing is unknown (alabado sea Dios!), and my only advice to tramps in Spain is that they eat no meat but goat's flesh, and otherwise rely on ham. Thus, and with the bota of wine slung across the shoulder, they will be able to fare far and in peace with man, beast, and climate.
"If, in the city, the pig season is of short duration and is followed by a dearth long and terrible to bear, the more agonizing considering that no provision has been made to meet it, in the country it is not so. Every farmer or husbandman, even the poorest, annually kills his fattened hog. But he does not gobble the lean parts as might a glutton, or sell them as would the miser. Hams, codos (elbows), and codillos (knuckles) are dried and smoked, the tocino is packed away religiously, and as for the remainder of the animal, part is turned into rich, home-made chorizos or salchichas, and part is slightly fried in its own lard, to which red pepper and garlic have been added, and then stowed away in earthen jars and pots in the cueva or cellar.
There they slumber during the summer months when nature frizzles away to desert-like aridity, and even the ham in the kitchen melts with grief to a skeleton of its former robustness. On grand occasions the good housewife, armed with candil (oil lamp), knife, and frying-pan, will pay a mysterious visit to the cellar, to one of her pots which, as she full well knows, are each worth more than una onza de oro (an ounce of gold). Then up she will come again(slowly as befits a careful matron, and with a faint glamour of anticipated pleasure twinkling in her eyes)and soon the delightful aroma of fried pork drives away the more objectionable odours of a Spanish hut, and involuntarily the honoured guest smacks his lips and praises San Anton for his blessings, not least among them being the good woman's larder, a small fraction of which is now sizzling merrily under his very nose in the frying-pan.
"He dicho" (I have had my say).
My good friend having come to my aid, it is possible for one of the Chosen People to continue this narrative. Yet another of the delightful national dishes of Spain is made by frying slices of potatoes in oil until they are quite soft. Eggs are beaten up and poured into the frying-pan, to- gether with vegetable, meat, or fish, all in small pieces and according to the district in which the tortilla is made. Near the coast fish will be added, inland, at certain seasons of the year, tomatoes are used, or wild asparagus will be requisitioned, while some cooks add little pieces of the noble animal concerning which Mr. Rudy has just discoursed so eloquently. When eggs, green vegetables, and potatoes have met their common end in Spanish oil, the mixture is treated like an omelette, carefully turned and skilfully browned.
There are few things a Spaniard likes better than his tortilla. He will cut a loaf in half, remove a part of the crumb and insert a tortilla in its place, and armed with this safeguard against hunger, will go cheerfully on a long journey on foot or mule or in the tren botjo. If the wide world holds a happier or more contented man my travels through a small part of it have not revealed him, and those of my friends who know Spain and have journeyed more extensively than I in parts remote, are in similar plight.
As soon as your digestive apparatus is tuned to Spanish dishes you will doubtless enjoy garlic soup (sopas de ajo).
This is made by frying nuts of garlic in oil with a liberal sprinkling of red pepper. When the garlic is golden brown it is withdrawn from the pot to which water is added. Eggs are then beaten up and introduced, and bread in slices completes a dish that is highly flavoured and very satisfying to those who live in a hot climate where a little nourishment goes a long way.
Spanish cheese is almost uniformly bad. It is not largely in demand in the towns, where cheap imitations of French and Swiss cheese command such sale as exists, but in the country the farmer's wife makes her own cheeses and even goes so far as to preserve some in the oil of her country, thus ensuring them against the attack of the passing traveller who hails from another land. Catalonia makes a third-class Roquefort, and is perhaps responsible for a large part of the queso de bola, an imitation Dutch cheese of deeper colour and poorer quality than the real thing.
In remote parts of the north, the mantequilla, which seems to be made of butter and sugar, and is sold in grease-proof papers, is eaten with bread. The town of its origin would appear to be Reinosa in the Province of Santander, on the main line from Madrid, and every traveller to this city sends mantequillas to his friends. Doubtless those for which the Spanish post office has no urgent personal use reach their destination. Many Spanish cities have some dainty that is always associated with them. Some have been mentioned already, others include the turon of Valencia, a very delicious Spanish form of nougat, while Alcala de Henares is famous for its candied almonds, and Guadalajara for its honey.
Among very popular Spanish dishes that may be successfully encountered in the houses of the upper middle class are meat-balls (almondrigas) served with a sauce of bread and garlic, and lamb or mutton roasted in oil to which water has been added at the psychological moment.
Of the beef eaten in Spain the less said the better. Few will forget the shock following the demand for a beef-steak in any of Spain's best restaurants. With all due ceremony the waiter will place before him an unhappy and unwholesome slice of meat, browned throughout, which bids eternal defiance to the best set of teeth and the finest digestion that ever crossed the Pyrenees. Beef does not enjoy much popularity in Spain, though the blackened flesh of bulls that have died in the Plaza de Toros commands a heavy sale at a very small price among the lower classes, who believe that they will gather from it some of the bull's strength and perhaps (who knows) a little of the matador's skill. It is fair to say that this repulsive food is not eaten right away; if it were, the consequences in hot summer weather might be fatal. It is kept over night in salt and water with a weight on the top of it to extract the blood, and is then stewed with wine (estofado).
In its supply of fish Spain is extremely fortunate, for both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean bring the produce of their teeming waters to coast, town, and village. Sardines and anchovies (boquerones) are eaten fresh and are very popular with all classes; the cod reaches fine size and excellent quality; fresh it is called merluza, and dried bacalao; the tunny-fish is also eaten fresh, often fried like a steak and far more palatable than any other steak one gets in Spain; excellent salmon and trout come from the north, and among other sea dainties are bream, lobsters, and oysters. Bream is very much in demand on Christmas Eve.
The Spanish fisherman tempts Poseidon in the strangest vessels imaginable, most of which on our English coasts would be condemned as unseaworthy. But Providence is kind to him; his supplies are obtained within easy distance of the shore and are sold at prices well within reach of a slender purse. Even the cuttle-fish is not despised, and shrimps, cray-fish, and prawns are very plentiful. Outside Madrid fish is not readily obtained in the interior of Spain, the facilities for transport and the supreme indifference of railway authorities to such trifling questions as punctuality being too much for the powers of endurance of the average fish corpse under a Spanish sun.
Tea and coffee do not thrive in Spain, and the attempt to establish tea-houses has never succeeded. Chocolate is the national beverage, and is taken in small cups like those that serve the Moors for their coffee. The making of chocolate in Spanish fashion is quite a fine art. The chocolate as the Spanish housewife buys it is already mixed with flour and sugar, and an allowance of one ounce per cup is deemed requisite. The cake is cut and then enough water is added to make a thick paste. It is boiled slowly over a charcoal fire in a heavy iron pot that is seldom washed, but is carefully kept covered up. The morning chocolate is taken with churros or bunuelos which can be bought from street vendors in the early hours of the day. They are made of a paste of egg and flour fried very rapidly in boiling oil. In small villages the keeper of the local taberna prepares them for everybody, and at the feria they are made throughout the day and night and eaten as soon as they are taken out of the oil.
A more curious custom still, and one that is not quite so offensive as it sounds, is to eat the morning chocolate with a mixture made of breadcrumbs, garlic, and spice fried in oil. A spoonful of the composition is taken and dipped in the chocolate! To the hardy Spaniard this does not act as an emetic, although it may be remarked that he often supplements the curious mixture with a small glass of aguardiente, a precaution to which the most rigid total abstainer could hardly take exception under the circumstances.
In the conduct of her household we have seen that the Spanish lady is very suspicious of those who serve her. Her baker, her butcher, her grocer are all changed, either upon the slightest pretext or without any. And this curious suspicion is almost an Oriental characteristic that is perhaps developed to the fullest extent in a country where the confessional plays such an important part. As a rule the Spaniard suspects his neighbours, suspects those he serves and those who serve him, and may be said to receive a foreigner with less suspicion than he receives anyone else.
Now and again in a Spanish household one meets the housewife who places complete confidence in one of her servants; the class of confidence that is kept as a rule for the confessor. In this case the favourite domestic acts as the medium through which everybody else in and out of the household is suspected. The attitude towards his neighbours of the average Spaniard who lives in a big city is that of the English agricultural labourer and his woman-kind towards the foreigner; that is to say, the man who comes from another village perhaps only a mile or two away. This suspicion is one of the traits of the Spanish character which is mentioned with regret, for Spaniards as a race are so eminently lovable, so simple and courteous and kindly to strangers that it seems a thousand pities to have to record this one undeniable blemish.
A strong suspicion of everybody animates the Spanish housewife and leads her to deal with all tradespeople as she dealt with the traders of the market. The Englishwoman is fairly constant to her dressmaker; her Spanish sister never is. As soon as two or three dresses have been purchased, the Spanish lady goes elsewhere for fear lest she should be ill-served or kept waiting in favour of some new client In the lower middle classes the care of the pence is carefully studied; in the towns living is literally from hand to mouth; nobody would buy half a pound of anything if two ounces will satisfy immediate needs. Even coal is bought in the cities by the arroba (a measure of some thirty pounds)and for reasons best known to the Spanish mind, tradesmen offer no inducements to their customers to purchase in greater quantities, reductions on large orders being unknown.
As there is no credit there is necessarily no discount for cash. Even the store system is practically unknown in Spain, and it is likely if any enterprising firm were to set up a big store on the English or American model, patronage would be conspicuous by its absence. The business would be regarded as a swindle on a gigantic scale, and even if it were possible to dispel this idea, there would be the ever-present objection to the noise and the methodical habits of the modern store-keeper. To make matters worse, bargaining would be unknown; every woman would know what her neighbour paid for goods, and the delightful fiction of marvellous bargains would pass from the list of the Spanish woman's enjoyments.
While it would not be correct to describe Spanish clubs as the historian described the snakes of Iceland, it must be admitted that club-life does not flourish. The aristocracy in Castile and Andalusia has its clubs; if they were in this country the most of them would be closed by the police, for gambling is their sole raison d'etre. For the middle classes there are no clubs, but there are regional cafes in which the man from an outlying province, driven to earn a living in a city, may meet his brother exiles and water the national dish with tears.
This of course is mere poetic licence on the writer's part: they do nothing of the kind, being well content to wash it down with the best available wine or cider, if they be Galicians or Asturians while they speak with profound contempt of the barbarous city in which their lives are set, and look hopefully to the time when they will shake the dust of the accursed place from off their alpargatas (sandals) and return to their native land. This expression is used advisedly. To the Valencians the Sevillians and the Galicians forced to earn a living in Madrid; Valencia, Seville, and Galicia are the native land, Castile is a country of exile, and the same remark, mutatis mutandis, applies to strangers in every big city of Spain.
The comparative absence of clubs helps to keep the Spaniard devoted to his home. He is a good husband and father. Should business permit, he is not ashamed to go to market with his wife and carry her parcels for her; he takes her to the theatre as often as he can, and will accompany her when she pays calls, the late hour of receiving guests in Spain enabling him to do this when the day's work is over. On Sunday he will take his wife and children to picnics in the country, or, if his means permit, they will all go together to the bull-fight, where he will have the pleasure of seeing his little nine-year-old daughter clapping her hands with joy at sights that would make many a healthy Englishman ill.
Bensusan, Samuel Levy. Home Life in Spain. MacMillan, 1910.
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