There are two Andalusias, the country-side and the seacoast--and
represented by gazpacho from the country and pescados fritos (fried fish) from
the sea. Gazpacho is a liquid salad from
the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, made of ripe tomatoes, bell peppers,
cucumbers, garlic, and bread moistened with water that is blended with olive
oil, vinegar, and ice water and served cold. It is Andalusia's best known dish
and probably originated as a soup during the time when Spain was part of the
Islamic world in the Middle Ages, a soup the Spanish call an ajo blanco, which
contained garlic, almonds, bread, olive oil, vinegar, and salt. Ajo blanco is
today associated with Málaga and made with fresh grapes. The Marquesa de
Parabere claims, in Historia de la gastronomia, that garlic soup, sopa de ajo,
constitutes one of Spain's two contributions to soup making, the other being
cocida or olla, which migrated to France as pot-au-feu. The most familiar
versions are those from Seville and Córdoba, and the oldest version is probably
from Córdoba and was made of bread, garlic, oil, and water. Gazpacho comes in a
variety of different intraregional versions, some of which contain almonds, and
no tomatoes and peppers (tomatoes and peppers came to gazpacho after Columbus).
Some food writers believe that a dish which has vinegar points to Roman
provenance, whose culinary culture popularized vinegar. This seems a little too
much of a generalization, though.
Gazpacho is traditionally made in a mortar and the bread is ideal when
it is about a week old. The bread and vegetable mixture is pounded to a paste,
and then you begin to add the tomatoes, then the olive oil, and finally the
vinegar, tasting all the time to make sure you've got it right. The tomatoes
should always go through a sieve so there are no seeds in the finished dish.
The emergence of the popularity of gazpacho out of Andalusia into the
rest of Spain is said by Alicia Rios and Lourdes March, authors of Spanish
cookbooks, to be the result of Eugenia de Montijo, the wife of the French
Emperor Napoleon III in the nineteenth century. Gazpacho was unknown, or little
known, in the north of Spain before about 1930. And it is not always liquid, nor
does it always contain tomatoes. According to Juan de la Mata in his Arte de
reposteria published in 1747, the most common gazpacho was known as capon de
galera consisting of a pound of bread crust soaked in water and put in a sauce of
anchovy bones, garlic, and vinegar, sugar, salt and olive oil and letting it
soften. Then one adds "some of the ingredients and vegetables of the Royal Salad
[a salad composed of various fruits and vegetables]." Interestingly, capon de
galera is thought to be an historical predecessor to the Sicilian caponata.
An American cookbook published in 1963 tells us that "gazpacho, the
soup-salad of Spain, has become an American food fashion." The author, Betty
Wason, goes on to tells us that in Mary Randolph's The Virginia Housewife
published in 1824, there is a recipe for gazpacho. The French poet and critic,
Théophile Gautier (1811-72) wrote about gazpacho, too.
There is also gazpacho de antequera, made with homemade mayonnaise
blended with lemon juice and egg whites and pounded garlic and almonds; gazpacho
de Granada is made with pounded garlic, cumin, salt, bell peppers, and tomatoes,
with olive oil added until creamy, then water and bread go on top. Gazpacho de
la serrania de Huelva, from the mountainous country around Huelva, is a puree of
garlic, paprika, onions, tomatoes, and bell peppers with sherry vinegar and
olive oil stirred in until creamy and served with cucumber and croutons.
Salmorejo Córdobés (also translated as rabbit sauce) is made with garlic, bell
peppers, tomatoes, and moistened bread pounded into a paste, with olive oil
stirred in until it has the consistency of a puree. It is served with eggs,
oranges, and toasted bread. Sopa de almendras is an almond soup; gazpacho
caliente uses hot peppers. There are also gazpachos with green beans or pine
nuts.
The origin of the word gazpacho is uncertain, but etymologists believe
it might be derived from the Mozarab word caspa, meaning "residue" or
"fragments," an allusion to the small pieces of bread and vegetables in a
gazpacho soup. On the other hand, it may be a pre-Roman Iberian word modified by
the Arabic. One will hear a lot about Mozarab when speaking of historic
Andalusia. "Mozarab" is a corruption of the Arabic must'arab, "would-be Arab,"
those Hispano- Romans who were allowed to practice their religion on condition
of owing their allegiance to the Arab caliph as opposed to the muwalladun,
Hispano-Romans who converted to Islam.
José Briz, who wrote a book on gazpacho, also suggests that the word
derives from the Hebrew gazaz, meaning to break into pieces, referring to the
bread base. Gazpacho was traditionally eaten by workers in the fields, whether
they were vineyards, olive plantations, citrus groves, wheat fields or cork
farms. Originally gazpacho was nothing but bread, water, and olive oil, all
pounded in a large wooden bowl called a dornillo. It was poor people's
food. |