Spain: A Literary Companion
Extract
"The perception of Spanish food as unpalatable to civilized
taste was an important element in the mythological baggage of the
romantic travellers of the nineteenth century. Food, like bullfighting
and flamenco, was what separated Spain from the rest of Europe, made
it primitive and different. The cuisine was for tough constitutions,
and the tasting of it carried a necessary element of risk. The food
of Spain was one of the reasons it was never part of the Grand Adventure.
Dumas crossed the frontier and left behind him a France where 'hotels
welcomed travellers at any hour, providing sumptuous profusion for
two or three francs a head.' Once in Spain sustenance proved
harder to come by. On the first day, the best a local innkeeper could
provide for Dumas and his companions was 'five thimble-sized
cups of a thick black liquid, five glasses of clear water and a little
basket containing small sticks of break, pink and white'. Dumas
considered the quality of Spanish chocolate superb, but thought there
was not enough of it. He had to wait till he reached Victoria before
he could try out his first full Spanish meal. It was an experience
he was never to repeat, so disastrous an effect the food – a puchero -
have on his digestion. Nevertheless…if the
art of good cooking lies in improvisation. The capacity to make,
as Ford
put it in Gatherings, 'something out of nothing',
there has always been good cooks in Spain. Gautier may have been
disgusted
by the taste of gazpacho, but he was impressed by the quantity
of food available to him when he crossed the frontier from France
into
the Basque country staying the night in the village of Astirraga.
Instead of the expected 'omelettes adorned with hairs dating
from Merovingian days, mixed with feathers and claws, gammons of
rancid bacon with all the bristles on them, equally suitable for
making soup and for cleaning shoes….' He was treated
to a veritable banquet."
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