Thirty Centuries of Food Loving Iberians
Food through the ages on the Iberian Peninsula
Spain’s culture is deeply influenced by the hundreds of years during which there was of peaceful co-habitation between Moors, Jews and Christians. There are hundreds of examples of the effect that these cultures had on one another. As a small for-instance, my mother-in-law unexplainably lights votive candles on Friday evening. The Moors had a huge impact on how food is in Spain even today as did obviously the treasure trove of food stuffs that came back with Christopher Columbus after his encounter with South America. However, from the very beginning of recorded history, the Iberian Peninsula was of interest because of the food it could produce.
The Phoenicians and the Greeks traded with the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula hundreds of years before Christ
The Phoenicians were a trading people. They were organized in a decentralized way with settlements as far as in Tunisia, but their main base was where Lebanon is today. They traded with the Iberians, the Greeks, the Egyptians and the Etruscans. Olive oil was one of the principle reasons they traded with the Iberian Peninsula. There is evidence of Phoenicians’ trade in olive oil all along the coast of Spain and the coast of the Balearic Islands. Still today, amphorae that would have contained oil and perhaps wine, are often found along the coast of Spain. These containers are often more than 3,000 years old. My father-in-law, who is generous to a fault, found many amphorae during his years as a fisherman and gave them away as presents!
Around 700 BC, the Greeks supplanted the Phoenicians. The Greeks became dominant in part because of their more centralized approach to government. Their approach to colonizing was to organize independent cities into alliances that made it possible to keep a minimum peace needed for the trade business to prosper. Through agreements as well as some good old fashion piracy, olive oil, wheat, marble and precious metals continued to flow with the Greeks from the Peninsula.
The Greeks however, were no match for the forefathers of Hannibal the Great. Around 400 BC, the Cartesians used their superior navy to block off the Greek trading routes and took over as the dominant power of the Mediterranean. The Cartesians continued to extract riches from the Iberian Peninsula but they didn’t bring much in terms of technology transfers to improve productivity in the mines, quarries and farms. As you might expect Hannibal’s attention was mostly taken by wars not crop yields.
The Romans fought long and hard to win the Iberian Peninsula from Hannibal the Great
Two hundred years before Christ, the Romans wrested control of the Iberian Peninsula from Hannibal the Great. The spat began when Hannibal’s father, Hannibal Barka staged a fight with the Romans on the Iberian Peninsula. Both the Cartesians and Romans had Iberian allies. This war lasted several decades. Hannibal Barka’s side, ended up with strategic losses which did not sit well with Hannibal Barka’s son, the first Great One. Hannibal the Great decided to avenge his father.
Rather than attacking the Romans directly on their soil, Hannibal the Great shipped his mercenary army (including assorted elephants) to the Iberian Peninsula. From the Iberian Mediterranean coast, Hannibal and company raped and pillaged their way to the Alps and then eventually to Roman territory where they made quick work of the Romans. After a number of losses, the Romans decided that the only way to beat Hannibal’s mercenary army was to starve them at their economic base, food and money being then as now, core to winning wars. Conquering warriors didn’t have the “Heart’s and Mind’s” strategic plank that is so in vogue today.
It was then that the General Publius Scipion, know as The African, was dispatched to; Cartaghe in Tunisia, the economic hub of Hannibal the Great’s empire. The Battle for Zamma (just outside of Cartaghe) occurred in 202 BC. The Romans destroyed Cartaghe and with it the economic means Hannibal needed to feed and pay his army. As a result Hannibal was forced to retreat from Roman territory and the Romans were free to invade the Iberian Peninsula.
Winning control of the Iberian Peninsula proved to be more work than expected for the Romans. Civilization at the time was organized around city states and there were many cities that fiercely resisted Roman advances. After a long siege, the residents of Numancia (near Soria today), preferred to kill themselves rather than surrender to the Romans (the tradition continues in the name of the modest but rather hard to beat local Numancia soccer team). However, over the course of about 100 years, all of the Iberian Peninsula but the very North was brought under the control of Romans. And then began the post invasion reconstruction project.
The Iberian Peninsula was such a fertile and rich colony that the Romans built massive infrastructure
The Romans recognized a good conquest when they saw it – a quality of any world dominating power. The Romans expanded quarries and mines for Iberian marble, gold, silver, iron and copper. They brought new techniques to farming olive trees, wheat and grapes. They also brought new techniques to fishing. My father in law fished for more than 40 years on the Mediterranean with basket traps (nasae) that he wove by hand from reeds using the same technique that the Romans used centuries before. He is one of the last people who know how to make them. The Romans also implanted techniques for drying of fish and fruit as well as salting fish to make their equivalent of fish sauce called Garum.
The Romans implemented the first ever centralized administration to the Iberian Peninsula. They built all manner of infrastructure. This infrastructure included highways and aqueducts that are used today. In the famous university town of Salamanca there is a wonderful road sign besides a seventies cement bridge that reads, “Heavy Trucks Please Use the Roman Bridge”. In Segovia, the beautiful aqueduct that graces the skyline and that is still used today to bring water to the city was built by the Romans.
Merida, one of the world’s first purpose built retirement communities
They also built in the south western town of Merida that must have been one of the first ever purpose built retirement villages. Roman real state developers were cut from different cloth than they are today: the local Roman theatre is still in use today. It was in the warm climes of Merida, that hard working soldiers and officers of the Roman army could look forward to spending their retired years. Maximus, the hero of the film “Gladiator” had a farm in Merida. Having the retired army far away in Iberia was also convenient to the Emperor who did not need to worry about the risk of a coup by bored and dangerously experienced soldiers. If you go into basement of Merida’s Roman archeology museum, you can walk next to Roman homes and see the mosaics that graced their walls and floors and imagine them eating meals in these gracious rooms.
The Romans were typical colonists in that after they arrived, they adopted the local elite and over time they allowed more of the “colonized” to become citizens. They were eclectic in that they adopted local customs where they were more productive than their own. They also promoted learning and culture. In the third century, Greek philosophers went on the equivalent of book tours with Roman sponsorship. I wonder how the per diems were then.
In the third century, the Romans were still polytheist but they were quite tolerant of other religions by the standards of the time. Some of the oldest records of Jewish communities in the world appear in the third century under Roman reign on the Iberian Peninsula. The Romans and many of the inhabitants of the Peninsula eventually converted to Christianity in the 4th century.
The Romans lost control and then began the Visigoth Dark Ages
The quick decline of the Roman Empire occurred in the fifth century and led to the dark ages on the Iberian Peninsula. The Visigoths occupied the Roman holdings and set up a reign of terror throughout the centre and the south of the peninsula. The Visigoths were Christians and were firm believers in religious and political intolerance which they practiced against the Romans and the Jews. That war lasted for almost three hundred years. It was not a glorious time. Needless to say no one cared much about food then.
Finally in 711, the Bishop of Opas and the Duque of Wamba negotiated with the Arab governor of what is now Morocco, to help overthrow King Rodrigo who would be the last Visigoth King on the Iberian Peninsula. It is worth noting that the then seat of Arab power in Damascus did not mandate the invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. It was the local governor, Count Don Julián, from across the straight of Gibraltar in the city of Ceuta who initiated the invasion with local Arab support. The gossip has it that Don Julián organized the invasion because Kind Rodrigo had seduced and then abandoned Don Julián’s beautiful daughter. It would seem that the world over, all politics are local politics.
The Liberating Moors named their conquest al-Andalus
The inhabitants of Roman Spain (the North and East had not been conquered by the Visigoths) were liberated by the invading Arabs, who named their new conquest al-Andalus. Moorish rule was quite impressive. For three hundred years there was law, order, religious tolerance and tax-money at work in public ventures. Good food was one of the happy results of this reign.
The Moors built on the infrastructure left by the Romans
Once the al-Andalus territory was secured in late 8th century, the Moors brought tremendous improvements to their colony. The Roman baths had not been much used for three hundred years under the Visigoths. At a time when no one in Christian Europe washed ever, the Moors got busy making it possible for people bath daily. They added underground sewers and brought techniques for plumbing private houses. I wonder if there were worries about plumbers coming in from neighboring states undercutting local prices. They built on the Roman transportation infrastructure by adding paved roads and public street lighting. There was apparently minimal conflict on who should get the reconstruction contracts.
It is because of the Moors that we can read Plato and Aristotle today
The Moors went beyond building the pipes and roads to make life more pleasant; they created important schools of philosophy and medicine. It was in al-Andalus at the height of Moorish civilization in the 10th Century, that they set up the school where the great Greek classics of Plato and Aristotle were translated from Greek to Arab. These copies of classic texts became the only copies in the world after the great libraries of Constantinople (Istanbul today) were sacked in 1204 by the Christian Crusaders from Europe. To the Arabs we owe a debt of gratitude not only for the Greek classics, but also for their food as we will see later, their mathematics (including the ever popular number zero) astronomy and their beautiful language. About 17% of the words in the Spanish language today are words taken from Arabic.
From the 8th to the 15th Century al-Andalus was often a tolerant and multicultural place
The Moorish kingdoms were remarkable for many reasons but religious tolerance must be one of the most important. During their reign, Moorish cities were also home to Jews and Christians. The Arabs’ schools of Medicine were the hubs for European scholars of all faiths. The Arab school in Toledo was the place from which the medical knowledge and techniques of the time were then communicated to the rest of Europe. Some of the most important medieval Jewish philosophers wrote in al-Andalusia during the Arab reign.
Even smaller towns had schools of various disciplines. For example, Almeria, a small Mediterranean coastal town, had not one but many schools of philosophy and medicine. It also had a number of schools of jurisprudence, each of a different interpretation of muslim law.
The al-Andalus Sovereigns built the most important palaces of the time
Abd-el-Rahman III and Al Hakem II were the most important sovereigns of the al-Andalus period and they built monuments like no others in Europe at the time. The Medina Azahara in Cordoba was built in the 11th century, and the Al-hambra in Granada was built in the 15th century. It was not until the completion of the Escorial in Spain at end of 16th century under Felipe II and completion of Versailles in the 17th century under Louis XVI, that Christian Europe built more impressive palaces than those of Abd-el-Rahman III and Al Hakem II hundreds of years before. Like the Blue Mosque in Istanbul (early 17th century), these Moorish palaces were constructed in just a few years, whereas the cathedrals of Europe at the time required 200 to 300 years to be completed (and sometimes they never got finished; Sic Transit Gloria Mundi).
My husband and I had our first date in the Al-hambra in Granada in 1984 and so I will always be grateful to the Arabs for his architectural vision.
The Moors brought food from around the world to al-Andalus
In addition to being accomplished colonists, the Moors were unstoppable traders. To al-Andalus they brought trading networks with Egypt, India, China and Northern Africa as well as within the heart of Africa. Here are some of the delicacies that the Moors brought to the Iberian Peninsula.
It’s well known that the Moors were avid users of seasonings both for taste and to preserve food. They brought to al-Andalus herbs such basil, saffron, coriander, jasmine and mint and spices such as ginger, aniseed, tamarind and cinnamon.
The Moors traded with the Persians and who in turn traded with India and China. From Persia, the Moors bought eggplant, sugar and rice. They brought honey dew melon from Egypt, watermelon from Africa, and figs from the Turks in Constantinople. From Iran and Iraq they brought citrus, peaches, apricots, carob and quinces as well as almonds, pine nuts, sesame and pistachios. They also brought dates from Iraq and coffee from Yemen. I imagine children in Iran spending long afternoons sitting under tall pine trees as my children did in Madrid, using a small hammer to split open the hard pine nut shell (it’s as hard as a closed pistachio) and eating the delicious centre.
For Moorish nobility, gastronomic knowledge was on par with the fine arts of poetry, astronomy and music
Food meant a lot to the Moorish civilization. In the 10th century, there lived in Baghdad, then the heart of Islam, a bibliographer named Ibn al-Nadim. He developed a list of all books in existence at the time, remember this is a thousand years ago. That list contained no less than 13 cook books. It is known through other sources that more than these 13 cook books existed at the time. With the exception of China, there is no other civilization that could boast of so much attention paid to cooking in pre-modern times. Of the 13 books listed in the Baghdadi bibliography, there is one that has made it to our times. It is called A Treaty on Cooking. It was written by Ibn Sayyar al Warraq in the 10th century and is illuminated with poems and suggestions about diet and the noble way of life.
A second book about Moorish cooking from the al-Andalus period has survived to our times. It was written in the 13th century and was copied in the 16th century. Its author and copyist are unknown and it is entitled Hispano-Magrebi Cooking in the Almohade Period. The manuscript was translated from Arab to Spanish in the 1960’s by a Spanish academic named Ambrosio Huici. There are a number of recipes which refer to Seville and Cordoba, important cities of the an-Andalus empire. Huici notes in this translation that 50 food related Arab words that are used in the 13th century cooking text are now part of current Spanish vocabulary.
As I read this 13th century cook book, it is incredible to me how similar many, of the recipes are to what my in-laws cook today. With the exception of fresh coriander, which is no longer used to the same extent as it appears to have been in the 13th century, some of the recipes are so similar it is uncanny. Here are a couple of recipes to give you an idea of what I mean.
This first recipe uses a standard cooking method of Spain today – which is called “in oil” or “al aceite” in which all the ingredients of a stew be it of meat, fish or seafood are combined including seasonings with olive oil. They are then set to cook until the olive oil is clear again after an initial period of being cloudy from the juices of the protein being cooked. In this way, the olive oil is seen as purifying the food it cooks. The recipe below include vinegar in the cooking liquid. It also combines fruit, in this case plums with meat, another Moorish gift to food today. Fresh bread crumbs are used to thicken the sauce as is done in my family’s house today. Imagine, 800 years of test kitchens! Not even Julia Child aspired to that.
Chicken stew to be made with plump chickens (page 175 of the original manuscript)
One takes what one wishes to use from the chickens.One cuts up the chicken and places it in a pot with salt, onion, pepper, dried coriander, cumin, saffron, oil and vinegar.
One puts the pot on the fire, and when the meat is ready, one adds plums that have been macerated in vinegar as well as turnips that have been blanched separately.
When everything is well cooked, one removes that pot from the fire
Then one adds to the sauces, fresh bread crumbs to which one has added some melted butter.
One stirs this well and lets it sit until the flavours meld in the sauce
One serves it, it is very good.
The next recipe uses bread as a thickener and nuts are added as well. The garnish is remarkable in that it sounds a great deal like one would garnish an Italian dish like Straciatella soup with grated egg yolks and hard cheese. Remember this was done 800 years ago!
Lamtuniya – Dry Roasted Chicken with Garlic, Walnut and Almond Sauce - (page 173 of the original manuscript)
This dish is prepared in al-Andalus and in Garb with all types of fowl be they chickens, capons, geese be they lean or fatOne takes what one wishes to from the fowl, one washes and chops the meat. One cooks it part way as in the Tafaya.
Then one removed it from the heat and covers the meat with the sauce as described previously for roasted meat
One turns the meat so that it cooks evenly and is crisp. Others cook the meat by frying it and then submerge the meat in a paste of garlic, almond and walnut after frying it
Then you make leavened bread. When the bread is ready, you break it up into pieces the size of a dinar (Arab coin).
Then one takes the juices from the fowl and mixes it with the fresh bread crumbs in a clean pot. One adds olive oil, pepper, cumin and when the sauce has reached the boiling point one adds a paste made of garlic, walnuts, almonds and grated hard cheese.
One pours the sauce in a clean platter and places the chicken on top.
One garnishes the dish with eggs, peeled almonds, olives, grated hard cheese and cinnamon
One covers the dish with a sheet of isfiriya* that has been made with egg
* My guess is that this is a form of pastry that is placed on top of the chicken as a garnish
If it weren’t for the fact that the sauce is a bit heavy with all the garlic and nuts, one might be forgiven for thinking that this is recipe for a pièce montée from a fancy Nouvelle Cuisine book from the 80’s, complete with crowning pâte feuilletée!
There are 488 recipes for savory and sweet dishes in the book as well as a second part of beverages and preparations used to cure specific illnesses.
Among the recipes for savory food one finds Stuffed Asparagus, Jewish Style Partridge (which is stewed with vinegar and rose water, baked with herbs such as mint and then served garnished with a little sugar and cinnamon) as well as Jewish Style Chicken (in which the chicken liver is used to thicken the sauce – this recipe is cooked in households today and I have included it in the recipe section) and Lamb, Green Vegetable and Garbanzo bean stew that looks an awful lot like a Cocido Madrileño. There are recipes for Rice al-Andalus style that look tremendously like modern day hunter’s paella.
The 13th century book also contains many recipes for sweets including one for little wreaths of fine dough which are stuffed with almond paste made with ground almonds, rosewater and sugar, as well as recipes for hard candies flavored with camphor which are said to be good for refreshing the breath.
There are drinks made with grenadine juice to help cure the sick, as well as many for Juleps of various kinds. Whoever thought the Mint Julep came from so long ago. There is almond candy very similar to the Spanish Turrón as well as fruit flavored jujubes.
Reading the recipes I feel like I am sitting in a twilight zone of the distant past and the present. In so many cases, these recipes have been handed down verbally for 800 years with only minor changes.
The Moorish reign in al-Andalus began its decline in the 11th century
At its height, al-Andalus traded with the most advanced regions of Europe: this included parts of the Low Countries as well as a number of Italian city states including Florence, Sienna, Milan and Venice. Like all good things though, the Moorish time came to an end. Problems started in the 11th century with both internal disputes and renewed Christian self-confidence in the Northern kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula.
Eventually, the Castilian Alfonso the Wise (a scholar and gourmet himself) took over most of the Iberian Peninsula in the 13th century with the exception of what is Andalusia in the South today. He continued to fund the tradition of scholarship started by the Moors and set up in the Toledo School of Translators. It is at that school and at that time that the Greek classics were translated from their Moorish Arab versions to Latin. From the Toledo School, those texts went to the universities of Oxford, La Sorbonne and Bologna.
However, by 1489, 250 years after the German and French Inquisitions, the Spanish Inquisition started up, which to be honest, should have been expected. The Inquisitors were on the look-out for bad Christians, people who still bathed or who refused to eat pork. Both were serious charges. Unlike the German Inquisitors who burned thousands of witches, the Spanish inquisition did not persecute witches.
In the 1492 century, the last Moorish city, the beautiful Granada, fell.
1492 was a mythical year and marked the beginning of Spain’s rise to world economic supremacy
We all know that in 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue and encountered South America on his way to finding an alternative passage to China, since the Turks had a blockade on the usual passage with was the Bosporus River in Constantinople. It was also the year of some less glorious events. Granada, the last Moorish city fell to Ferdinand and Isabel, the Catholic Kings. Then began a period of deep religious intolerance. Fourteen Ninety-Two was the year that the Jews were expelled from Spain. My husband is very likely of Jewish ancestry. His name is the name of a place. Jewish converts very often took the name of the place they lived in when they converted. Soon afterwards, the Muslims were expelled as well. Shutting down the public baths was one of the first things that the Christians did after the Jews and Arabs were expelled.
What the Christians lacked in personal hygiene, they made up for it with other talents. They referred to South America as “Las Indias” or India because that is what they believed they had found when they landed in South America. The wealth extracted from Las Indias made Spain the world’s dominant economic power in the 16th century. In archeological digs as far as the interior provinces of China, Spanish silver currency, the Duro, has been found. Southern Italy became a Spanish possession around this time. Aristocratic citizens of this part of Italy were entitled to Spanish passports for 400 years until Mussolini took power in the 1930’s.
The discovery of Las Indias changed food forever the world over
The food stuffs that came to Europe from South America are fairly well known and include staples such as Chocolate, Potatoes, Tomatoes, Beans, Avocadoes, Corn and the ever important Tobacco. There were a number of fruit that came from Las Indias including Papaya, Passion Fruit, and Cherimoyas. Chocolate was quickly adopted as a favorite of the Spanish Court, where Spanish Monarchs took to having afternoon Merienda with hot chocolate and cookies served to their courtiers.
The riches plundered from Las Indias paid for school, wars, palaces, convents, medicine, philosophy and great food
In 1516, Charles the First of Spain and the Fifth of the Holy Roman Germanic Empire set up court in Spain. He looked favorably on the schools that had been established 300 years earlier by Alfonso the Wise and continued to fund them with the riches from Spain’s many colonies. He was also man for whom food mattered a great deal, so much so that after a 30 year reign, he retired, handed over the Empire to his hard working son Felipe the Second, and moved to the Monastery of Guadalupe (another purpose built retirement village – I see the beginning of trend here). Charles I/V built the monastery ostensibly to immure himself from the earthly life, but what he was really doing was building an enormous centre for food innovation. The monks of the Guadalupe didn’t need to farm to feed themselves, their keep was paid for by the king, and therefore they had the leisure to spend time concocting some of the best food in the world.
Of course, like all monasteries, hospitality was offered to visiting monarchs who took time out to for spiritual as well as physical replenishment. There were rivalries that were acted out in the kitchens, something like today’s culinary Olympics were the chefs of visiting monarchs dueled it out against the home team. It was all very friendly though…
When after 1808, Napoleon’s troupes commandeered monasteries along their path for officers’ quarters, it is said that they brought back to France recipes for French classics such as consommé and the omelette, from the Monastery of Guadalupe.
After Charles the First of Spain, there were two notable monarchs in regards to culture in Spain.
Felipe II took over from his father Charles I/V in 1546. Felipe II proceeded to set the hands-on CEO standard for all time. He was not much into food and worked from dawn until dusk every day. He set up one of the most effective transnational organizations ever seen. He wrote much of his own correspondence himself, feeling that writing long hand himself was more productive than dictating to scribes as other monarchs did at the time. You can see his point. I imagine myself as a local administrator in one of the many Spanish colonies receiving my operating instructions from the world’s emperor in his own hand writing. I know I would sit up and pay attention. He personally supervised the design and construction of his monumental palace the Escorial that would be finished in 1590. Unlike his father, Felipe II was not much of a gourmet and was not a very tolerant king. However, he was a great patron of the arts. He spent more money as a patron of the arts than did his contemporary Elizabeth the First of England.
Despite all his talent and dedication, Felipe II was subject like all mortals to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. It was him who sent the Spanish Armada to fight the English in 1588. And it was him who said that he had sent his navy “to fight the English, not the storms.” He lost most of his navy during this battle, but undeterred rebuilt it quickly again. He died shortly after the completion of the Escorial, having worked all his adult life. His father by contrast, spent many happy years of contemplative life, tasting the efforts of the chef/monks of the Guadalupe monastery.
After Felipe II died in 1596, Spain waited more than 160 years for another great monarch.
Felipe III succeeded his father and Felipe IV his. Velázquez became the painter of the Spanish court’s decadence during Felipe IV’s reign from 1625 to 1660. Then began the disastrous reign of Charles the second. He was king for forty years despite the fact that he was mentally retarded and was unable to have children. When he died childless in 1700, the 30 year Succession War broke out. Succession planning was key then as now. Finally the line of the Bourbon kings started and in 1760 Charles the Third also known as The Great started his near thirty year reign. Succession planning got better over time. Charles the Third had earned his operational stripes as king of Naples before taking on the Spanish Empire.
Charles The Great sponsored the explorations of North America
Charles the Great reformed most Spanish institutions including government services, the army and the navy. An enlightened king, he founded the Royal Botanical gardens in Madrid. He was the patron of Father Celestino Mutis of Colombia, who explored the Amazon forests and one of the greatest botanists of all time. Charles helped the Americans win the revolution. His General Gálvez won the battle against the British for Pensacola in the United States, home of a large American naval base today, hence the town Galveston. Charles sponsored the Spanish sailors Juan de Fuca and Quadra to chart the North American West Pacific and the South Pacific. California was colonized under Charles III as well with Father Juniper founding many of the California missions such as San Diego and San Francisco.
Spain was at war for most of the 19th Century
The nineteenth century was a period of civil wars in Spain. Is started out badly. If you want to picture the cause of the wars, look at Goya’s masterpiece painting “The Family of Charles IV”. It is in the Prado Museum in Madrid. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/goya/hd_goya.htm. Check the faces as seen by the liberal painter’s eyes, and you will understand why those self satisfied monarchs were no match for Napoleon. Nor were they up to implementing the reforms that the already backwards country needed so badly. Either during or as result of the War of Independence (1808-1814), Spain lost most of its empire, and worse, because of the internal political struggles, it also lost some of its smartest people (many went to live in London or Paris). If we count that war, Spain had in total four civil wars in the nineteenth century, which ended with a rather shaming defeat against the Americans in 1898, (and the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines). And so the Imperial glory was gone!
In terms of food, the 19th century was not a complete bust. The first restaurants were established in Madrid at that time. Lardy, the revered Madrid home of Cocido Madrileño was established then and still serves cocido today. It was also at that time that French wine producers from Bordeaux fleeing their phyloxera infested vines, headed to Rioja and implanted in that region the classic French wine making methods. It was from that time that Rioja became the standard bearer of Spanish wine throughout the world.
The wars in Spain in the Twentieth Century meant that Spain did not have the means to develop a deep food culture
The Twentieth century started far more promisingly. The idea of reform was embraced by the middle classes; the country did not participate in the butchery of World War I; industrialization, education and health made impressive advances. Politics however, were another matter. Unable or unwilling to start reforms, the unstable monarchy of King Alfonso XIII had to resort to a mild dictatorship (1923-1930). It failed, and a democratic republic arrived among widespread (and some say excessive hopes). Many of the Republic reforms were impressive but they also created opposition and fears that Socialism was about to be implanted in Spain. Both a sector of the Army and the conservatives revolted in July 1936. Hitler and Mussolini soon helped them. The elected government’s forces managed to resist until March 1939.
It was then when the leader of the rebel camp, Franco, became dictator of Spain until his death in November 1975. Until then, while post-war Europe enjoyed the freedom brought by the Allies GIs, Spaniards had to wait until 1977, when a grand-son of Alfonso XIII, King Juan Carlos the First, appointed by Franco as Alfonso’s successor, brought democracy back.
However, despite all the changes seen by Spain since the 16th century, the standard for Spanish food however, particularly for meat and poultry was set by the Moors in the Middle Ages. The following recipes, many of which are from my family, attest to this fact.