Any remarks on Spanish salads would be incomplete without some account of gazpacho, that vegetable soup, or floating salad, which during the summer forms the food of the bulk of the people in the torrid portions of Spain. This dish is of Arabic origin, as its name, “soaked bread,” implies. This most ancient Oriental Roman and Moorish refection is composed of onions, garlic, cucumbers, chilis, all chopped up very small and mixed with crumbs of bread, and then put into a bowl of oil, vinegar, and fresh water. Reapers and agricultural labourers could never stand the sun’s fire without this cooling acetous diet. This was the οξυκρατος of the Greeks, the posca, potable food, meat and drink, potus et esca, which formed part of the rations of the Roman soldiers, and which Adrian (a Spaniard) delighted to share with them, and into which Boaz at meal-time invited Ruth to dip her morsel. Dr. Buchanan found some Syrian Christians who still called it ail, ail, Hil, Hila, for which our Saviour was supposed to have called on the Cross, when those who understood that dialect gave it him from the vessel which was full of it for the guard. In Andalucia, during the summer, a bowl of gazpacho is commonly ready in every house of an evening, and is partaken of by every person who comes in. It is not easily digested by strangers, who do not require it quite so much as the natives, whose souls are more parched and dried up, and who perspire less. The components, oil, vinegar, and bread, are all that is given out to the lower class of labourers by farmers who profess to feed them; two cow’s horns, the most primitive form of bottle and cup, are constantly seen suspended on each side of their carts, and contain this provision, with which they compound their migas: this consists of crumbs of bread fried in oil, with pepper and garlic; nor can a stronger proof be given of the common poverty of their fare than the common expression, “buenas migas hay,” there are good crumbs, being equivalent to capital eating. In very cold weather the mess is warmed, and then is called gazpacho caliente. Oh! dura messorum ilia—oh! the iron mess digesting stomachs of ploughmen.
WATER.
CHAPTER XII.
Drinks of Spain—Water—Irrigation—Fountains—Spanish Thirstiness—The Alcarraza—Water Carriers—Ablutions—Spanish Chocolate—Agraz—Beer Lemonade.
IN dipping into Spanish liquids we shall not mix wine with water, but keep them separate, as most Spaniards do; the latter is entitled to rank first, by those who prefer the opinion of Pindar, who held water to be the best of things, to that of Anacreon, who was not member of any temperance society. The profound regard for water of a Spaniard is quite Oriental; at the same time, as his blood is partly Gothic and partly Arab, his allegiance is equally mixed and divided; thus, if he adores the juice of flints like a Moslem, he venerates the juice of the grape like a German.
Water is the blood of the earth, and the purificator of the body in tropical regions and in creeds which, being regulated by latitudes, enforce frequent ablution; loud are the praises of Arab writers of wells and water-brooks, and great is their fountain and pool worship, the dipping in which, if their miraculous cases are to be credited, effects more and greater cures than those worked by hydropathists at Grafenberg; a Spaniard’s idea of a paradise on earth, of a “garden,” is a well-watered district; irrigation is fertility and wealth, and therefore, as in the East, wells, brooks, and water-courses have been a constant source of bickering; nay the very word rivality has been derived from these quarrel and law-suit engendering rivers, as the name given to the well for which the men of Gerah and Isaac differed, was called esek from the contention.
FOUNTAINS.
The flow of waters cannot be mistaken; the most dreary sterility edges the most luxuriant plenty, the most hopeless barrenness borders on the richest vegetation; the line of demarcation is perceived from afar, dividing the tawny desert from the verdurous garden. The Moors who came from the East were fully sensible of the value of this element; they collected the best springs with the greatest care, they dammed up narrow gorges into reservoirs, they constructed pools and underground cisterns, stemmed valleys with aqueducts that poured in rivers, and in a word exercised a magic influence over this element, which they guided and wielded at their will; their system of irrigation was far too perfect to be improved by Spaniard, or even destroyed. In those favoured districts where their artificial contrivances remain, Flora still smiles and Ceres rejoices with Pomona; wherever the ravages of war or the neglect of man have ruined them, the garden has relapsed into the desert, and plains once overflowing with corn, gladness, and population, have shrunk into sad and silent deserts.
THIRST.
The fountains of Spain, especially in the hotter and more Moorish districts, are numerous; they cannot fail to strike and please the stranger, whether they be situated in the public walk, garden, market-place, or private dwelling. Their mode of supply is simple: a river which flows down from the hills is diverted at a certain height from its source, and is carried in an artificial canal, which retains the original elevation, into a reservoir placed above the town which is to be served; as the waters rise to their level, the force, body, and altitude of some of the columns thrown up are very great. In our cold country, where, except at Charing Cross, the stream is conveyed underground and unseen, all this gush of waters, of dropping diamonds in the bright sun, which cools the air and gladdens the sight and ear, is unknown. Again there is a waste of the “article,” which would shock a Chelsea Waterworks Director, and induce the rate-collector to refer to the fines as per Act of Parliament. The fondest wish of those Spaniards who wear long-tailed coats, is to imitate those gentry; they are ashamed of the patriarchal uncivilised system of their ancestors—much prefer the economical lead pipe to all this extravagant and gratuitous splashing—they love a turncock better than the most Oriental Rebecca who comes down to draw water. The fountains in Spain as in the East are the meeting and greeting places of womankind; here they flock, old and young, infants and grandmothers. It is a sight to drive a water-colour painter crazy, such is the colour, costume, and groupings, such is the clatter of tongues and crockery; such is the life and action; now trip along a bevy of damsel Hebes with upright forms and chamois step light yet true; more graceful than opera-dancers, they come laughing and carolling along, poising on their heads pitchers modelled after the antique, and after everything which a Sèvres jug is not. It would seem that to draw water is a difficult operation, so long are they lingering near the sweet fountain’s rim. It indeed is their al fresco rout, their tertulia; here for awhile the hand of woman labour ceases, and the urn stands still; here more than even after church mass, do the young discuss their dress and lovers, the middle-aged and mothers descant on babies and housekeeping; all talk, and generally at once; but gossip refresheth the daughters of Eve, whether in gilded boudoir or near mossy fountain, whose water, if a dash of scandal be added, becomes sweeter than eau sucrée.