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Spanish cuisine

Culinary traditions of Spain

  • 21 min read
  • 4 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Wheat

Olive oil (of which Spain is the world's largest producer) is extensively 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 and pinchos are snacks and appetizers commonly served in bars and cafes.

History

Antiquity

Authors such as Strabo wrote about the aboriginal people of Spain using nuts and acorns as staple foods. The extension of vineyards along the Mediterranean seemed to be due to the colonization of Greeks and Phoenicians, who also introduced the production of olive oil. Spain became the largest producer of olive oil in the world. The growing of crops of the so-called tríada mediterránea (the "Mediterranean triad": wheat, grapes, 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 included the consumption of fermented milk products.

It is believed rice was introduced in the 6th century by the Byzantines. After the Muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century, rice cultivation was expanded by the Arabs. New irrigation techniques were brought from the Indian subcontinent led to the cultivation of crops such as sugar cane, watermelon, lemon and oranges. Other ingredients believed to have been 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 that were probably popularized during the Al-Andalus period: rice and saffron.

The 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, were some of the many legacies of Moorish cuisine. Although Muslim religion did not allow alcoholic drinks, the consumption of wine was widespread as the Qur'anic precepts never got to overrule the preexisting traditions. There are many accounts of the "drinking chats" of Abd al-Rahman II, Abd al-Rahman III and Almanzor.

Observing kashrut regulations, the Jews and Conversos drained meat of blood and did not eat pork products. Potajes were an important part of Jewish cuisine in the Middle Ages, most notably adafina (a local name for a Cholent dish) along with other Jewish culinary legacies in Spain. Almodrote was a Sephardic recipe in origin.

Early cookbooks in Spain include Llibre de Sent Soví (1324) and Ruperto de Nola's Llibre de Coch (1520), both written in the Catalan language. Among the earliest cooking books in pre-modern Iberia are the Fiḍālat al-Jiwān fī Ṭayyibāt al-Ṭaʿām wa-l-Alwān by Murcia-born Ibn Razīn al-Tujībī and the anonymous Kitāb al-Ṭabikh fī al-Maghrib wa al-Andalus fī ʽAṣr al-Muwaḥḥidīn, li-muʽallif majhūl, written in Arabic.

Modern era

The arrival of Europeans in the Americas in 1492 initiated the advent of new culinary elements, such as tomatoes, potatoes, maize, bell peppers, spicy peppers, paprika, vanilla and cocoa. Spain was where chocolate was first mixed with sugar to temper its natural bitterness. Other ingredients traveled to the Americas, such as rice, grapes, olives, and many types of cereals.

Influenced by Arabic harisa, grain-based soups such as farinetes (along the Mediterranean coast) and, similarly, gachas (in the Central Plateau) were customary in Early Modern Spain.

Foreign visitors noted with disdain the Spaniards' use of olive oil and lard for cooking rather than their preferred butter. The latter was barely available and, according to the 17th-century account of Madame d'Aulnoy, on the rare occasions that it was, would come "from afar, preserved in pig's tripes and full of worms". Butter was only produced locally in places such as Galicia, Asturias and Soria, or was imported, preserved in potassium nitrate, (the so-called "Flanders' butter").

By the 18th century, many American ingredients, such as peppers and tomatoes, had been fully incorporated into Spanish cuisine. Contemporary foreign visitors, such as French ambassador Jean-François de Bourgoing, judged negatively this change happening in Spain by the late part of the century: "Spanish cooking, which they have inherited, is not generally pleasing to foreigners. Spaniards like strong condiments such as pepper, tomato sauce, hot peppers and saffron, which color or infect nearly all their dishes."

Spain was the bridge for the Columbian exchange between the rest of Europe and the New World. Many traditional Spanish dishes such as tortilla de patata (an omelette made with potatoes), would not be possible without the Columbian exchange. Gazpacho, salmorejo, and pan con tomate are made with tomatoes, which traveled from the New World to the Old World.

For most of the 19th century, the aristocracy consumed a set of dishes that was largely an imitation of French cuisine. That was the available cuisine at the time, together with the degeneration of regional cuisines. One positive foreign take on the Spanish dishes—opposing the largely negative views of other foreign commentators—was that of Richard Ford, who was fond of Spanish specialties such as sherry and ham.

Modern Spanish cuisine was gestated in the late-19th to early-20th century, with gastronomes and writers such as Mariano Pardo de Figueroa (Dr. Thebussem), José Castro y Serrano, Ángel Muro, Emilia Pardo Bazán, and Dionisio Pérez, some of whom put effort into developing the idea of a "national cuisine" recognisable by Spaniards as their own.

Keen on participating in the Spanish nation-building process, Dr. Thebussem, in an autochthonous example of culinary nationalism, proposed to the King's Chef that the olla podrida (a rustic stew typically made of meat, legumes and other vegetables) should be served at official banquets as a national dish. This could be considered an important step in the process of straying away from the French cooking paradigm, which was dominant in the 19th century in Europe. Olla podrida had been previously ridiculed in foreign (most notably French) satires.

Although the new foodscape built in opposition to the French centralist culinary model accounted for the awareness of the distinctive regional singularities, subsequent food writers in the country would continue to cope with the tension between the Spanish peripheral and centralist foodscapes.

The influential cooking book 1080 recetas de cocina by Simone Ortega (first published in 1972) became a hit in Spain, remaining as of 2019 the third best-selling book ever in the history of the country after Don Quixote and the Bible. This was not a book exclusively of Spanish traditional recipes, but also included French recipes, bringing an exotic penchant to Spanish homes.

Televised cooking shows started in the country in 1984 with Con las manos en la masa.

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