When Pardo Bazán published the first gastronomy book, Old Spanish Cuisinethe year was 1913. In 1917, he would release a second volume with the name Modern Spanish Cuisine. He published both copies in a collection called The woman's library, which she herself created in order to try to modernize the women of that time, contributing to their cultural and intellectual liberation. Carmen de Burgos from Almeria would also do something similar, in 1918, with her book The Modern Kitchen and later, with his Do you want to eat well? (1943).
“In this question of cooking, as in all those that concern women, people tend to make mistakes,” writes Pardo Bazán, in Old Spanish Cuisine—without remembering the superiority of chefs over female cooks, it is implied that cooking is essentially a feminine thing.” In that same prologue, the author confesses that the reason for this second volume was to preserve the taste memory, the recipes learned in her childhood, to try to capture the Galician culinary tradition in particular and the rest of the regions of Spain, in general.
Old Spanish CuisineIt still survives in bookstores in two formats: as a facsimile and in a more careful edition published by Umbría and Solana in 2021. In both cases, the original text remains a cooking manual, a teaching book for those who want to delve into the world of cooking or those who simply aspire not to forget their roots.
“The most feminine thing about this book is the recommendation with which I am going to end the prologue. In the recipes that follow, ladies will find many where onion and garlic come into play. If you want to work with your own delicate hands to make a stew, make sure that the cook handles the onion and garlic. It is her job, and there is nothing dishonorable about handling those bulbs with their penetrating aroma; “But it would be very cruel for ladies to keep, between a ruby ring and the open sleeve of a blouse, a traitorous and dishonored chive.” This is how the Countess of Pardo Bazán signed the end of the prologue.
Shadow work
Many of the cooks lived in the shadows of the noble kitchens or in front of the stoves of anonymous inns. Cutting onions, crushing garlic, sautéing tradition over very low heat. And, in all that profession, far from applause, newspaper reviews and photographs, there were those who dedicated time to transmit what they had learned and even those who decided to write it down, so as not to forget it. This is how two of the books were born that, even today, continue to be top sellers in bookstores throughout Spain: Culinary encyclopedia. The complete kitchen (first edition of the year 33) by María Mestayer de Echagüe (Marquise of Parabere) and the 1080 Cooking Recipes, by Simone Ortegafrom the year 1972.
In order not to forget where we come from and to reclaim the name of the cooks, women who, without further pretension, “gave food”, the Guisanderas Club in 1998. Las Guisanderas have always been the guardians of our authentic cuisine and hence the need to unite, share the recipe book and leave their mark in three books. Latest, 25 years of the Guisanderas of Asturiasedited by Delallama, we find an emotional manifesto of those who, today, fight so that the cuisine of roots and products that so characterizes Asturias remains alive, but also so that we do not forget who were the ones who have maintained that legacy: women. But what is the difference between a cook and a cook? “A woman who cooks is considered a guisandera, but who cooks altruistically. In the towns it was cooked at banquets, weddings, baptisms and communions, when there was no catering, and the dishes came from a private house or a place, usually a barn, where each event took place.” This definition is found inside the book, a simple copy, without a pretty illustration or photograph, but full of identity and truth. Among its pages you can feel the Asturian soul in its 74 recipes such as stuffed onions, fish stew, pitu caleya or cabbage stuffed with meat, to name a few examples.
And from Asturias to the Basque Country. In 1912, Nicolasa Pradera opened her restaurant on Aldámar Street in San Sebastián. Nobody knew her about that one and, possibly, they didn't even question who could be in her kitchen. But over the years she became a reference. Her fame was such that, in 1933, she published her recipe book Nicolasa's kitchen and, in a short time, it ended up being the best-selling and, therefore, most consulted in the Basque Country. In 2010, the Txertoa publishing house, within its Sokoa collection, recovered the original book, maintaining a simple style, without illustrations or photos, but with all the substance and wisdom of this “artist and priestess of the kitchen,” as Gregorio called her. Marañón in the prologue of said book. 400 recipes to spend hours in the kitchen: frog legs in their different preparations, goose liver and its sauce, crab puree or hake pie, for example.
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