Fundamentals

Fundamentals · Spanish cookbooks

Emilia Pardo Bazán, La cocina española antigua (1913)

Pardo Bazán argued that Spanish food is national heritage, "uno de los documentos etnográficos importantes", and that the base of the Spanish table must stay Spanish.

Emilia Pardo Bazán (1851–1921), novelist and critic, published the book in Madrid with Renacimiento as part of her own series, the Biblioteca de la Mujer (BNE copy: VIII + 412 pages). A companion volume, La cocina española moderna, followed in 1917. Scholars read it as an early attempt to define a Spanish national cuisine against French dominance.

Facts and quotations come from the cited sources and from the book's own text (BNE scan); page numbers are the book's own, with the prologue in roman numerals. The six themes, their order and the grouping of concepts under them are the agent's own placement; "own wording" marks a definition that no source sets, and "example own placement" marks a passage the agent chose to illustrate a scholar's reading.

Key ideas

Structure. A prologue and nine sections grouped by dish type (caldos, sopas, potajes, migas, tortillas, fritos and more), with more than 500 recipes; one press source counts 583. Her own voice runs through the book in comments and learned asides.
The prologue's argument. Cooking is not only women's business. Some national dishes are as historic as "una medalla, un arma ó un sepulcro", and while cooking French, Italian or Chinese style is fine, the base of the Spanish table "tiene que reincidir en lo español". She mocks a French "Olla a la española" and claims Salsa Roberto for Spain.
Regional variety. She stresses how regional cooking fits each region's climate and customs, from Lenten caldos de pote and escudillas to gazpacho and Granada sweets, and asked for recipes from across Spain and the Americas.
Recipe sources. Named women who sent recipes, friends and her mother; cookbooks including Muro's El Practicón and Picadillo's La cocina práctica, which she had prefaced in 1905; and literature, from Iriarte to a contribution by Galdós.
Gender politics. The Biblioteca de la Mujer, founded in 1892, stalled at its ninth volume for lack of interest in feminism, so she turned to domestic economy. One reading sees the book as a "sweet revenge" on the Real Academia, which had rejected her three times and whose dictionary she repeatedly corrects.
Key dishes. Burete, the olla, a family of fritos she defines into subtypes, and a 17-bird "Guisado particular" she calls barbaric and simplifies.
Legacy. Studied by Lara Anderson (2013), Rebecca Ingram (2009, 2022) and María Paz Moreno; reprinted by Hércules with her moderna and Picadillo's book.

Body of knowledge

Book

La cocina española antigua

Pardo Bazán · Madrid, Renacimiento, [1913?] · BNE copy VIII + 412 pp.

A cookbook of old Spanish recipes that Pardo Bazán collected for her own use, printed with a prologue that argues for a Spanish national cuisine. It is a volume of her Biblioteca de la Mujer, and its key dishes are burete, the olla, a family of fritos she defines into subtypes, and a 17-bird "Guisado particular" she calls barbaric and simplifies.

Illustrative example The first section opens with the olla castiza, "el primitivo y gran plato nacional", and notes that dividing the pot into caldo and cocido is still the base of eating in Spain (Section 1, p. 1).

Theme1

1 Prologue argument

Pardo Bazán, prologue, pp. I–VIII

The prologue holds her national-cuisine argument. Cooking is not only women's business. Some national dishes are as historic as "una medalla, un arma ó un sepulcro", and while cooking French, Italian or Chinese style is fine, the base of the Spanish table "tiene que reincidir en lo español". In the recipes she mocks a French "Olla a la española" and claims Salsa Roberto for Spain.

Illustrative example "Cada época de la Historia modifica el fogón, y cada pueblo come según su alma" (p. III).

Concept1.1

1.1 Food as ethnography

Pardo Bazán, prologue, p. III

The claim that cooking is a document of a people: what a nation eats shows its character, sometimes better than official science.

Illustrative example She calls cooking "uno de los documentos etnográficos importantes" and adds that diet reveals what officially scientific inquiries may miss (p. III).

Concept1.2

1.2 Dishes as historic relics

Pardo Bazán, prologue, pp. III–VI

Old dishes carry history the way objects do, so a lost recipe is a lost relic and old recipes must be saved before they die out with the people who keep them.

Illustrative example In Granada she saw sweets whose sugar patterns copied the tiles of the Alhambra, "con todo el inconfundible carácter de lo tradicional" (p. VI).

Concept1.3

1.3 Spanish base vs French

Pardo Bazán, prologue, p. VI; recipes 9 and 559

Foreign styles are welcome at the Spanish table, but its base must stay Spanish. She defends Spanish dishes against French misreadings and claims some "French" classics back.

Illustrative example Before copying Gouffé's "Oille ú olla á la española" she warns that the French "pierden la cabeza" whenever something Spanish is concerned (p. 8); Salsa Roberto, "conocida por francesa, nos pertenece" (p. 367).

Theme2

2 Structure

Pardo Bazán, index; current page

A prologue and nine sections grouped by dish type (caldos, sopas, potajes, migas, tortillas, fritos and more), with more than 500 recipes; one press source counts 583. Her own voice runs through the book in comments and learned asides.

Illustrative example The index marks the recipes she has tested with an asterisk (index, p. 387).

Concept2.1

2.1 Prologue + nine sections

Pardo Bazán, prologue and section heads

The book's frame: an eight-page prologue (pp. I–VIII), then nine numbered sections (secciones) that run from broths to desserts.

Illustrative example Section 1 covers "caldos, cocidos, potes, potajes, sopas, migas, gachas" (p. 1); Section 9, the desserts, opens by saying it "tendría ella sola que constituir un libro" (p. 381).

Concept2.2

2.2 Grouped by dish type

Pardo Bazán, Section 3, pp. 73–74

Each section gathers one kind of dish, and she sorts some sections into her own sub-types, such as the fritos.

Illustrative example She splits pan dishes into frito (made "con arte y regularidad"), fritura or fritada (fried with no other dressing) and fritanga (the coarse dish), adding that fried hake slices are not a frito (pp. 73–74).

Concept2.3

2.3 500+ recipes, 412 pages

BNE record; Pardo Bazán, recipe 577

The size of the book: more than 500 numbered recipes (one press source counts 583) in VIII + 412 pages, recipes and index included.

Illustrative example Recipe 577, Bizcocho de Carballino, is the first of the desserts: "Por cada docena de huevos, media libra de azúcar, y ciento cincuenta gramos de harina" (pp. 381–382).

Theme3

3 Recipe sources

Pardo Bazán, prologue, p. VII; current page

Named women who sent recipes, friends and her mother; cookbooks including Muro's El Practicón and Picadillo's La cocina práctica, which she had prefaced in 1905; and literature, from Iriarte to a contribution by Galdós. She says she credits recipes taken from other books because "la probidad obliga".

Illustrative example "Varias recetas de este libro llevan la firma de las señoras que me las proporcionaron" (p. VII).

Concept3.1

3.1 Women friends, signed

Pardo Bazán, recipes 1 and 526

Recipes sent by women, often family friends, printed with the sender's name under them; her mother, the Condesa viuda de Pardo Bazán, signs many.

Illustrative example Caldo del puchero is signed "(Condesa viuda de Pardo Bazán)" (p. 2); Masa de empanada clásica is signed "(Doña Elisa Ortega.)" (pp. 346–347).

Concept3.2

3.2 Picadillo, El Practicón

Pardo Bazán, recipe 72, p. 55

Earlier Spanish cookbooks she quotes and credits: Ángel Muro's El Practicón and Picadillo's La cocina práctica.

Illustrative example For fried eggs she leaves the matter to Picadillo, who says Muro's Practicón "somete el huevo á una porción de manipulaciones" he thinks needless (p. 55).

Concept3.3

3.3 Literature and Galdós

Pardo Bazán, recipes 78 and 166

Writers as sources: she cites literary texts about dishes and prints a recipe given by a novelist.

Illustrative example Bacalao á la Carmen Sánchez: "Esta fórmula pertenece á D. Benito Pérez Galdós" (p. 115); of huevos á la hugonota she notes that Tomás de Iriarte already speaks of them in his Fábulas literarias (pp. 59–60).

Theme4

4 Regional variety

Pardo Bazán, prologue, pp. IV–VI

She stresses how regional cooking fits each region's climate and customs, from Lenten caldos de pote and escudillas to gazpacho and Granada sweets, and asked for recipes from across Spain and the Americas.

Illustrative example Spanish cooking can boast "de su pintoresca variedad según las regiones" (p. V).

Concept4.1

4.1 Climate and custom

Pardo Bazán, prologue, p. V

The idea that each regional cooking fits its climate, work and health, which explains its strong, clear flavours and its lean toward vegetables.

Illustrative example She praises Spanish cooking's "perfecta adaptación al clima y á las necesidades del hombre, á su trabajo y á su higiene alimenticia" (p. V); the gazpacho andaluz takes "lo menos veinte minutos" of pounding (p. 33).

Concept4.2

4.2 Lent and convent cooking

Pardo Bazán, prologue, p. V; recipes 21, 31

Cuaresma (Lent) and convent life shaped Spanish cooking toward meatless caldos, potajes and escudillas; convents also kept old recipes alive.

Illustrative example She says showing "la influencia de la Cuaresma y de la vida conventual" would need a long article (p. V); a chickpea potaje is "un plato admitido hoy en Cuaresma, en mesas finas" (p. 19).

Concept4.3

4.3 Spain and the Americas

Pardo Bazán, prologue, pp. IV–VI; recipe 31

Spanish cooking's spread to Cuba, Mexico and Chile proves it has its own stamp; she includes some American dishes and asks readers in Spain and America to send recipes.

Illustrative example The Costrada de Cuaresma á la cubana bakes toasted bread in a broth of parsley, cheese, pine nuts and almonds under a lid with embers "hasta que forme costra" (p. 26).

Theme5

5 Gender politics

Pardo Bazán, prologue, pp. I–II; Moreno; Ingram

The Biblioteca de la Mujer, founded in 1892, stalled at its ninth volume for lack of interest in feminism, so she turned to domestic economy. One reading sees the book as a "sweet revenge" on the Real Academia, which had rejected her three times and whose dictionary she repeatedly corrects.

Illustrative example She notes that people take cooking for an essentially feminine matter while forgetting that male cooks are held superior to female ones (p. II).

Concept5.1

5.1 Biblioteca de la Mujer

Pardo Bazán, prologue, p. I; title page

Pardo Bazán's own book series, founded in 1892 to bring the best European writing on feminism to Spain; this cookbook appears in it.

Illustrative example She writes that she founded the series "aspirando á reunir en ella lo más saliente de lo que en Europa aparecía" on feminism (p. I).

Concept5.2

5.2 Feminist series stalled

Pardo Bazán, prologue, pp. I–II

The series stopped at its ninth volume for lack of readers interested in feminism, so she "returned to the beaten path" and added domestic economy (Economía Doméstica) titles.

Illustrative example "La Biblioteca tuvo que interrumpirse en el noveno tomo"; since opinion still confines women to housework, she chose to enrich its domestic economy section (pp. I–II).

Concept5.3

5.3 Jabs at the RAE dictionary

Pardo Bazán, recipe 25, p. 21; Section 3, p. 73

Her running corrections of the Real Academia Española's dictionary, which lacks or misdefines culinary words; one reading links them to the Academia's refusals to admit her.

Illustrative example "El deficientísimo Diccionario de la Academia no trae la palabra burete" (p. 21); frito in its cooking sense "no aparece en el Diccionario de la Academia" (p. 73).

Theme6

6 Legacy

Anderson 2013 · Ingram 2009, 2022 · Moreno · Hércules reprint

Studied by Lara Anderson (2013), Rebecca Ingram (2009, 2022) and María Paz Moreno; reprinted by Hércules with her moderna and Picadillo's book.

Illustrative example The prologue's call "Hay que apresurarse á salvar las antiguas recetas" (p. IV) is the book's own case for being kept in print.

Concept6.1

6.1 Anderson, 2013

Anderson 2013, ch. 4 · example own placement

Lara Anderson's Cooking Up the Nation (2013), whose chapter on Pardo Bazán reads her cookbooks as the nationalization and modernization of Spanish cuisine.

Illustrative example She hopes the Cocina moderna volume will show "cómo los guisos franceses pueden adaptarse á nuestra índole" (p. VI).

Concept6.2

6.2 Ingram, 2009 and 2022

Ingram 2009, 2022 · own wording · example own placement

Rebecca Ingram's studies of Pardo Bazán's cookbooks (2009) and her book Women's Work (2022), which read them as women's writing.

Illustrative example The prologue ends with what she calls its most feminine advice: ladies who cook should let the cook handle onion and garlic (pp. VII–VIII).

Concept6.3

6.3 Moreno, La Tribuna

Moreno, La Tribuna · own wording · example own placement

María Paz Moreno's article in La Tribuna on Pardo Bazán's cookbooks, one of the scholarly readings of the book.

Illustrative example She asks that a Spanish cookbook be written in "castellano castizo" and warns against the jargon of hotel menus (p. VII).

Concept map

The themes, their order and the concepts placed under each are the agent's own placement, drawn from the book and the cited sources.

BOOKLa cocina española antiguaPardo Bazán · [1913?] · BNE
- THEMEpart ofPrologue argumentPardo Bazán, prologue, pp. I–VIII
  - CONCEPTpart ofFood as ethnographyPardo Bazán, prologue, p. III
  - CONCEPTpart ofDishes as historic relicsPardo Bazán, prologue, pp. III–VI
  - CONCEPTpart ofSpanish base vs FrenchPardo Bazán, prologue, p. VI; recipes 9 and 559
- THEMEpart ofStructurePardo Bazán, index; current page
  - CONCEPTpart ofPrologue + nine sectionsPardo Bazán, prologue and section heads
  - CONCEPTpart ofGrouped by dish typePardo Bazán, Section 3, pp. 73–74
  - CONCEPTpart of500+ recipes, 412 pagesBNE record; Pardo Bazán, recipe 577
- THEMEpart ofRecipe sourcesPardo Bazán, prologue, p. VII; current page
  - CONCEPTpart ofWomen friends, signedPardo Bazán, recipes 1 and 526
  - CONCEPTpart ofPicadillo, El PracticónPardo Bazán, recipe 72, p. 55
  - CONCEPTpart ofLiterature and GaldósPardo Bazán, recipes 78 and 166
- THEMEpart ofRegional varietyPardo Bazán, prologue, pp. IV–VI
  - CONCEPTpart ofClimate and customPardo Bazán, prologue, p. V
  - CONCEPTpart ofLent and convent cookingPardo Bazán, prologue, p. V; recipes 21, 31
  - CONCEPTpart ofSpain and the AmericasPardo Bazán, prologue, pp. IV–VI; recipe 31
- THEMEpart ofGender politicsPardo Bazán, prologue, pp. I–II; Moreno; Ingram
  - CONCEPTpart ofBiblioteca de la MujerPardo Bazán, prologue, p. I; title page
  - CONCEPTpart ofFeminist series stalledPardo Bazán, prologue, pp. I–II
  - CONCEPTpart ofJabs at the RAE dictionaryPardo Bazán, recipe 25, p. 21; Section 3, p. 73
- THEMEpart ofLegacyAnderson 2013 · Ingram 2009, 2022 · Moreno · Hércules reprint
  - CONCEPTpart ofAnderson, 2013Anderson 2013, ch. 4 · example own placement
  - CONCEPTpart ofIngram, 2009 and 2022Ingram 2009, 2022 · own wording · example own placement
  - CONCEPTpart ofMoreno, La TribunaMoreno, La Tribuna · own wording · example own placement