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The United Nations was well appointed on February 10 - last Monday - World Legumes Day , and it seemed to this chronicler that in the middle of this month, generally freezing in our latitudes, we had to talk about them and the dishes spoon Then comes the weather and its changes and we have a cooler than freezing February, although with its spectacular wind and rain storms as well. And besides, it doesn't matter: we don't need to ice outside to enjoy our spoon dishes, which seem to be recovering today with the rebound of traditional cuisine.
Although all over Europe there are dishes of this type - pot-au-feu , bollito misto -, in a few there is a typical dish with legumes practically in each region, like here. They play a role similar to pasta in Italy, and the arrival of beans from America propelled them even more , although their origin is older, probably derived from Sephardic adefin.
Some are taken in several rollovers, as escudella i Carn d'Catalan pot, it says in its name: escudella is both the container in which the soup and the soup itself is cooked traditionally and fine noodles rice, and then that pot meat that is not only meat but vegetables, white and black sausage and the famous pilota is consumed. Of course, legumes were only present, in the form of chickpeas, in the so-called escudella de pagès , which also had cabbage and which today seems rather forgotten.
Its rival - in this also - is Madrid stew , originally a derivation of Extremadura stew. Both, especially the Catalan pot, were disappearing from the menus of the restaurants in Barcelona and Madrid, but in the capital the stew has recovered notably from the 70s of the last century, with its three overturns (vegetables and meats separated ) or only two. And today we have a new uptick of the traditional, as we indicated. The presence of the centenary Lhardy as the maintainer of the essences has not been alien to that permanence.
Our stews are based primarily on two legumes: chickpea, of which we are probably the only amateur Europeans and even devotees of it, while others tend to despise it, and beans, beans or beans, of American origin. This is later in our recipes, but neither does the use of chickpea seem to go beyond the seventeenth century.
The luxurious Castilian stew from the past, the rotten pot - which apparently was nothing rotten, but powerful , a word derived from 'power', because it was either very powerful or was eaten by the powerful - is now practically disappeared.
A seemingly opposite case is that of mountain stew , which in books half a century or more ago - for example, the essential book of Spanish cuisine , by Néstor Luján and Joan Perucho, published just in 1970 - is never mentioned. But no, it was not invented then: its name was invented, and it is a fun -and true- story of ingenuity.
That story was told, after having lived closely, our teacher Punto y Coma, who was a mountain man (now one would say Cantabrian, after the application of the name of Cantabria, which historically did not correspond to the territory of the Castilian Mountain, to the new autonomy) . And it is this:
José Luis Herrero Tejedor (Fernando's brother, Adolfo Suárez's mentor, and uncle of the journalist Luis Herrero), appointed in 1966 Delegate of Information and Tourism and director of the International Music Festival in Santander, found a setback: there was no his province a regional dish of great fame with which to entertain illustrious visitors and hungry orchestra conductors as did his colleague from Oviedo with the fabada or from Bilbao with the marmitako.
Yes, there was a rich and thick soup made with beans, cabbage and meat only known as stew - and very similar to the Asturian pot - that could be agreed, but that name was bland and lacked local connotation. And Herrero Tejedor came up with the brilliant idea to rename it as mountain stew . The Karajan and other famous musicians were responsible for spreading their fame everywhere ... but did not arrive in time for Luján and Perucho.
The whole north cornice is rich in stews and pots, with or without legumes: the different Galician pots (aside, cabbage, potatoes, turnip greens, together with cuts of pork such as knuckle, ear or rib), the beans that reign in Asturias, not only in bean stew or pot, but increasingly seaworthy versions, made especially small verdinas, and red beans from Tolosa that have been imposed, with black pudding, like the big bowl of Basque spoon in their land and throughout Spain. In the past, the tremendous Basque stew was popular, with its four trays: one of chickpeas and potatoes, another of beans, another of cabbage and another of meats.
The archipelagos also have: there are the Mallorcan bullit , with vegetables that go from the chickpea to the sweet potato, or the Canarian stew , so exotic (sweet potatoes, corn ...) of which we keep great and old memories in the Mesón El Drago tinerfeño .
In the two plateaus they eat cooked with chickpeas that usually vary in the chapter of the meats, according to the typical chacinas of each place. And the very original cooked maragato , in León, is eaten upside down: ending with the soup. The map is completed with the great Andalusian stew with its pringá . It takes veal, Iberian bacon, chickpeas, potatoes, carrots, leek ... The thing about pringá refers to meats and bacon, which are consumed separately, shredding the meat together with the bacon and preening bread with it. Don't stop trying it!
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