The national cookery of Spain is for the most part Oriental; and the ruling principle of its preparation is stewing; for, from a scarcity of fuel, roasting is almost unknown; their notion of which is putting meat into a pan, setting it in hot ashes, and then covering the lid with burning embers. The pot, or olla, has accordingly become a synonyme for the dinner of Spaniards, just as beefsteaks or frogs are vulgarly supposed to constitute the whole bill of fare of two other mighty nations. Wherever meats are bad and thin, the sauce is very important; it is based in Spain on oil, garlic, saffron, and red peppers. In hot countries, where beasts are lean, oil supplies the place of fat, as garlic does the want of flavour, while a stimulating condiment excites or curries up the coats of a languid stomach. It has been said of our heretical countrymen that we have but one form of sauce—melted butter—and a hundred different forms of religion, whereas in orthodox Spain there is but one of each, and, as with religion, so to change this sauce would be little short of heresy. As to colour, it carries that rich burnt umber, raw sienna tint, which Murillo imitated so well; and no wonder, since he made his particular brown from baked olla bones, whence it was extracted, as is done to this day by those Spanish painters who indulge in meat. This brown negro de hueso colour is the livery of tawny Spain, where all is brown from the Sierra Morena to duskier man. Of such hue is his cloak, his terra-cotta house, his wife, his ox, his ass, and everything that is his. This sauce has not only the same colour, but the same flavour everywhere; hence the difficulty of making out the material of which any dish is composed. Not Mrs. Glass herself could tell, by taste at least, whether the ingredients of the cauldron be hare or cat, cow or calf, the aforesaid ox or ass. It puzzles even the acumen of a Frenchman; for it is still the great boast of the town of Olvera that they served up some donkeys as rations to a Buonapartist detachment. All this is very Oriental. Isaac could not distinguish tame kid from wild venison, so perplexing was the disguise of the savoury sauce; and yet his senses of smell and touch were keen, and his suspicions of unfair cooking were awakened. A prudent diner, therefore, except when forced to become his own cook, will never look too closely into the things of the kitchen if he wishes to live a quiet life; for quien las cosas mucho apura, no vive vida segura.
All who ride or run through the Peninsula, will read thirst in the arid plains, and hunger in the soil-denuded hills, where those who ask for bread will receive stones. The knife and fork question has troubled every warrior in Spain, from Henri IV. down to Wellington; “subsistence is the great difficulty always found” is the text of a third of the Duke’s wonderful despatches. This scarcity of food is implied in the very name of Spain, Σπανια, which means poverty and destitution, as well as in the term Bisoños, wanters, which long has been a synonyme for Spanish soldiers, who are always, as the Duke described them, “hors de combat,” “always wanting in every thing at the critical moment.” Hunger and thirst have ever been, and are, the best defenders of the Peninsula against the invader. On sierra and steppe these gaunt sentinels keep watch and ward, and, on the scarecrow principle, protect this paradise, as they do the infernal regions of Virgil—
“Malesuada fames et turpis egestas
Horribiles visu.”
A riding tour through Spain has already been likened to serving a campaign; and it was a saying of the Grand Condé, “If you want to know what want is, carry on a war in Spain.” Yet, notwithstanding the thousands of miles which we have ridden, never have we yet felt that dire necessity, which has been kept at a respectable distance by a constant unremitting attention to the proverb, A man forewarned is forearmed. Hombre prevenido nunca fu vencido, there is nothing like precaution and provision. “If you mean to dine,” writes the all-providing Duke to Lord Hill from Moraleja, “you had better bring your things, as I shall have nothing with me;”—the ancient Bursal fashion holds good on Spanish roads:—
“Regula Bursalis est omni tempere talis,
Prandia fer tecum, si vis comedere mecum.”
EATING ON THE ROAD.
A man who is prepared, is never beaten or starved; therefore, as the valorous Dalgetty has it, a prudent man will always victual himself in Spain with vivers for three days at least, and his cook, like Sancho Panza, should have nothing else in his head, but thoughts how to convey the most eatables into his ambulant larder.
He must set forth from every tolerable-sized town with an ample supply of tea, sugar, coffee, brandy, good oil, wine, salt, to say nothing of solids. The having something ready gives him leisure to forage and make ulterior preparations. Those who have a corps de réserve to fall back upon—say a cold turkey and a ham—can always convert any spot in the desert into an oasis; at the same time the connection between body and soul may be kept up by trusting to venta luck, of which more anon; it offers, however, but a miserable existence to persons of judgment. And even when this precaution of provision be not required, there are never wanting in Spain the poor and hungry, to whom the taste of meat is almost unknown, and to whom these crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table are indeed a feast; the relish and gratitude with which these fragments are devoured do as much good to the heart of the donor as to the stomach of the donees, for the best medicines of the poor are to be found in the cellars, kitchens, and hampers of the rich. All servants should be careful of their traps and stores, which are liable to be pilfered and plundered in ventas, where the élite of society is not always assembled: the luggage should be well corded, for the devil is always a gleaning, ata al saco, ya espiga el diablo.
Formerly all travellers of rank carried a silver olla with a key, the guardacena, the save supper. This ingenious contrivance has furnished matter for many a pleasantry in picaresque tales and farces. Madame Daunoy gives us the history of what befel the good Archbishop of Burgos and his orthodox olla.