Spanish Cuisine and Markets, 1910
From Home Life in Spain by Samuel Levy Bensusan, 1910.
From: 1910 C.E. To: 1910 C.E.
Location: Spain
Note: This article has been excerpted from a larger work in the public domain and shared here due to its historical value. It may contain outdated ideas and language that do not reflect TOTA’s opinions and beliefs.
From Home Life in Spain by Samuel Levy Bensusan, 1910.
When you speak to the average Englishman of Spanish cooks and cookery, he draws himself up as if suddenly suspicious of danger, sniffs the air as though to assure himself that garlic is not going to spring upon him unawares, and regards you with some measure of mistrust for all future time. His suspicions are unfounded; his prejudices would be removed or at least modified by residence in Spain.
The first impression that comes to the Englishman who has a few opportunities for enjoying Spanish hospitality is one of simplicity. The Spaniard is neither a gourmand nor a gourmet; he eats comparatively little, and likes that little not only to be simple but to be associated as intimately as possible with the district in which he has been brought up. Every part of Spain has its special dish, the only one that seems likely to attain to national importance being the puchero, which, of old time, found its popularity limited by the boundary of the Castiles.
Owing to the intensely regional spirit that can never be disregarded when Spanish life—political, social, or domestic—has to be considered, questions relating to domestic cookery sometimes acquire an immense importance. If a Castilian should marry a lady from Valencia, or a Sevillana should entrust her destinies to the custody of a Galician, the couple are faced with a crisis of the first magnitude. To what extent must the arroz valenciano of the first-named bride yield pride of place to the puchero of her lord? How far will the Galician be prepared to go in surrendering his national pote to the gazpacho beloved of the lady of his choice? Compromise, the chief factor in statecraft, is also of first importance in the realms of domesticity, and doubtless under the influence of love and in a spirit of toleration, the happy couples will decide to allow each national dish to share the place of honour in turn.
At the same time no lady of the Castilian's family will eat puchero of the wife's making without a certain feeling of pity and contempt for one to whom the true secrets are withheld, nor will this Sevillana learn readily to make a pote that can reach her husband's heart as readily as it can reach a less sentimental part of his anatomy. On the other hand, the fair Valencian will prefer the arroz of her native land as long as she lives, and the Sevillana will find in gazpacho and chocolate all that she requires to sustain her interest in the table.
After all, religious difficulties between married couples only come to the fore once a week, or when the Church celebrates a fiesta, but where food is concerned, divergences of opinion and taste can hardly be avoided at least twice a day, and it may well be that the existence of dishes that are strictly regional in their popularity do much to define the boundaries of Spain's provinces and hinder the movements towards national unity that might add so much to the country's prosperity. Carlyle in his "Sartor Resartus" has dwelt upon the importance of clothes. There is room for a philosopher equally gifted to discuss the influence of food upon national life and character, and nowhere will he find more ample material for reflection than in Spain.
Marketing in Spain has its own special characteristics, of which the search for bargains and the persistent effort to obtain something for less than the price demanded are most noticeable. So pronounced is this disposition to buy cheaply that it is difficult to arrive at the truth about the price paid for a certain article from any person of ordinary moral standing. Wives, whose devotion to their husbands could hardly be greater than it is, will lie to them cheerfully and with circumstance when it comes to telling the story of the morning's marketing. Every woman likes to persuade her friends that she can beat the tradesman down below the profit mark.
The housewife relies to no small extent upon street vendors, and though she is a fairly regular patron of the established market, she seldom remains faithful to any one dealer. She knows that only by constant change can she hope to secure bargains or even honest service, for the Spanish tradesman will not make much effort to keep an old customer, though he will make an effort to placate a new one. Fully aware of this, the careful housewife constantly changes her favours.
The Spanish market can compare with any in the South of Europe without fearing to be reckoned inferior in point of colour, variety, and cleanliness. It opens at a very early hour. Buyers and sellers often meet for the preliminary skirmish that precedes business as early as five o'clock in the morning. Ladies of small means go unattended to the market and bargain with an eloquence worthy of a popular politician. The buyer calls heaven to witness that she can pay no more, the seller affirming with equal emphasis that she can accept no less. Ladies of the upper middle class are attended by a servant, generally one who has grown old in the study of market conditions and can assist her mistress with a freedom of expression not permitted to a lady in knocking the last ha'penny off the price. Ladies of high position are seldom seen in the market: they are content to send their servant.
Before the morning is well advanced the path between the stalls is blocked by a mass of cheerful women who seem quite sure that they will reach their destination sooner or later, and manage under all circumstances to keep a smiling face. The attitude of the shopkeepers varies in accordance with the day's prosperity. If they have done well, they are inclined to be a little truculent, a little intolerant of any suggestion that they should abate their demand, while on the other hand, if business is not brisk they are prepared to deal on a basis that would seem to leave no margin of profit.
At the same time it is worth noting that the price of certain necessaries of life—bread and meat for example—is regulated by the district authorities, so that very little bargaining is possible here. On the other hand, fish, vegetables, fruit, poultry are subject to violent fluctuations and prices vary hourly.
The aspect of a Spanish market on a fine summer's day is perfectly delightful. The close observer of Spanish life will hardly have failed to notice that it is never far removed from the Church, and many ladies are in the habit of taking their beads as well as their market basket, and combining the service of their bodily wants with some attention, however brief, to their spiritual needs. It may be remarked too that the interior of a church, cold and cool and comparatively silent, comes as a great relief after the glare and bustle of the market-place, although the conditions, not altogether pleasing, are more than atoned for by the splendour of the colouring, the fragrance of flowers and fruit, the jovial spirit of buyers and sellers.
There are few places where the colour of the country is more vividly represented than in the market. In the first place there is the cloudless blue sky looking down upon walls intensely white; if the market be at a seaport there will be a glimpse of water that seems studded with jewels, an expanse in which every wavelet wears its glittering tiara of the sun's own diamonds. Contrasting with these vivid blues and whites we have the scarlet pimientos that are ripe and the bright green pimiento that has yet to ripen; the red cabbage lending some of its tint to the cauliflowers by its side; the tender green of the lettuces that have been newly watered and seem to retain their freshness.
Of the flowers detailed description would be impossible—the beauty of colour, form, and perfume is literally intoxicating, and sometimes when pressure from the crowd keeps sensitive people in the immediate neighbourhood of the flower stalls, they complain of headache and faintness, the spikenard—nardo—being held responsible for this malaise.
The flower-girls in the market seem to call aloud for a gifted and sympathetic artist. They are often girls of rare beauty—the beauty that blooms so suddenly and fades almost as quickly as it came. Miserably ill-clad, bare-headed and bare-footed, and dependent for the rest upon rags worn with some approach to nicety, they have their regular patrons for the rich carnations that women love to wear in their hair.
The prices vary according to the season; they may fetch as much as a real or as little as a halfpenny, and on the sale of a few handfuls of these the Spanish flower-girl lives and seems to live happily. Simple fare, fresh air in abundance and sunshine are the secrets of her content, and it is a rare pleasure to be one of her patrons, for her gracious movements and pretty smile make ample atonement to the stranger for paying twice or thrice the market value of a boutonniere. To her countrymen, and specially to those whose sordid pleasure it is to speak rudely or coarsely to defenceless women, the florera has a sharp tongue and a ready wit.
“What will you have? In La Verdura All the day long she keeps a stall: Sells you a rose for your peseta, Given with a look and—well, that's all."
One part of the market is given up to live poultry. The unfortunate chickens, tied up by the leg in bunches and slung across the back of mule or donkey, or carried carelessly in the hand, have been brought to the market and sold there to the storekeeper. They have now to face the closing hours of their existence, and these hours are painful. Spanish women are not acutely conscious of animal suffering or greatly concerned with it. They will not hesitate to pick up chicken or duck and dig their fingers into it to see if it is fat enough to be worth bargaining about. If they are not satisfied the unfortunate bird is thrown aside quite carelessly to await the attentions of another purchaser.
If they are satisfied the still unfortunate bird must submit to have its defects pointed out by the buyer and its merits emphasized by the seller until the bargain is struck. Then the pollero cuts the bird's throat over a big pail or butt standing in the corner of the shop and hands the still struggling body to his assistants—generally women or girls—who proceed at once to pluck the still living fowl. Such cruelty revolts a visitor but leaves the Spanish housewife quite unmoved.
The fruit stalls with their golden oranges from Valencia, bananas from the Canary Islands, asparagus and strawberries from Aranjuez, big rough-skinned melons from Castile, peaches from Aragon—second to no peaches in the world—apricots from Toledo, green figs from Andalusia—all these delicious things are to be found in the market of a great city. They are sold at prices that would make an English buyer envious, and would lead an English fruit-grower to retire at once from business. In a country where a splendid peach weighing half a pound may be bought for twopence and the finest sugar melon costs no more than a shilling, fruit is to be found on every table, and in connexion with the sale of melons a curious custom prevails in Spain.
When a purchaser has chosen his fruit he is entitled to request the salesman to cut a small square out of the selected melon in order that he may ascertain whether the quality is equal to the appearance. If the melon should be found to belie its promise, the purchaser pays three halfpence and returns it to the seller, by whom it is sold at a reduced price to some one not so particular.
It must not be supposed that the stranger who knows nothing of proper prices and has not learnt to bargain very volubly and to realize that every man's hand is against him is going to fare well. Unless you are voluble and can speak with your hands and your eyes as well as with your tongue, and add to your every offer an emphatic no vale mas (it's worth no more), you will certainly retire hurt, and even the people round you will be greatly amused and pleased to get the better of you; they will even use your misfortunes as a lever by which to secure better bargains for themselves.
To take advantage of a stranger is fair play, and one of the writer's earliest experiences was a very useful one. Going early one morning to the market of Valencia, I was delighted to find on one of the stalls of the fruit sellers a quantity of delicious green figs. I inquired the price in my best colloquial Spanish and was told that a real would buy ten. Determined not to be robbed, I refused to pay more than a penny for six, and after much bargaining received fifteen for my real. Later in the day I waxed vainglorious over my capacity to carry out a bargain, much to the amusement of my hostess who, after listening patiently to all I had to say, summoned her housekeeper and asked the morning's price of figs in the market. They were twenty-five a penny!
Although food in Spain is very cheap, so cheap in fact that the margin of profit seems to be quite obscure, it would cost still less than it does but for the consumos—the tax corresponding to the French octroi. This impost—a source of considerable revenue to the authorities—is of course extremely unpopular, and every peseta gathered by the administration may be said to have a heavy curse attached to it. The effect of the tax is only felt seriously by the unfortunate poor whose earnings are ridiculously small.
Many an agricultural labourer in Spain, a hard-worker and diligent, can make no more than twenty-five shillings a month, fifteen pounds a year, with perhaps an extra pound or even two for the harvest, whether it be of corn or wine or oil. On such a one the consumo presses heavily, but in spite of that he looks upon life with a cheerful countenance and does not grumble any more than the Englishman who earns twice as much or even more.
Bensusa, Samuel Levy. Home Life in Spain. MacMillan, 1910.
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