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Original Articles

The unity and diversity of La olla podrida: an autochthonous model of Spanish culinary nationalism

Pages 400-414 | Published online: 09 May 2014
 

Abstract

Penning their gastronomic texts at the same time that the Spanish nation was being written into existence in laws, literature and history (see Labanyi 1–28), Spain's pioneering gastronomes debated the question of their nation's culinary identity. As this article discusses, one of the outcomes of this exchange was the inclusion of la olla podrida (the “rotten pot”) at the royal table. Indeed, when Dr. Thebussem made his unorthodox suggestion to the King's Chef that la olla podrida be served at official court banquets as Spain's national dish, he not only influenced the dining habits of the country's elite but also introduced the importance of regional cuisines to Spanish culinary identity. Such was (and is) the strength of regional bonds in Spain that Dr. Thebussem realized any discussion about a national cuisine or dish would need to take into account the diversity of Spain's regional foodscapes, and thus from the outset his vision of Spanish cuisine contrasted with the dominant assimilationist French model of nationalism. In choosing a national dish that promoted both national unity and regional diversity, Dr. Thebussem highlighted the importance of not reducing Spain's multiple cuisines to a single, homogenized repertoire. This article argues that the “recipe” offered up for Spanish culinary nationalization, therefore, is unique, offering unity in diversity. The persistence of this approach, I argue, emphasises the continued aptness of this model in the context of a country that is regionally diverse, and celebrated for being so.

Notes on contributor

Dr. Lara Anderson is Senior Lecturer in Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her main research focus is Spanish culinary culture, from the role of gastronomy in Spain's fin-de-siècle identity formation to Spanish cookery television shows as a site for gender critique. Dr. Anderson has recently embarked on a new project looking at historical memory and culinary nostalgia in contemporary Spanish culture. This builds on her interest in cookery books written during the Spanish civil war, as well as her research into contemporary Spanish gastro-tourism and the ways culinary culture is used to project and construct national identity.

Notes

1. Dr. Thebussem's choice of pen name meant that there was much debate about where he came from, a point explained by Ruiz Cobos, who writes: “Creían unos, que era el Doctor Thebussem algún escritor alemán … decían otros, que el Doctor Thebussem no era extranjero, sino un andaluz de humor” (52).

2. Indeed, as Gloria Claveria explains in her article “El léxico del correo en los diccionarios de la Academia Española”, Dr. Thebussem felt it necessary to address the fact that there were many words for stamp in circulation in the nineteenth century, such as, “sello, sello de franqueo, sello natural de franqueo, sello de franqueo de correos, sello para el franqueo, sello para el franqueo de la correspondencia, sello del franqueo de la correspondencia particular, sello de correo, timbre de franqueo” (383). Although, as Claveria explains, in 1869 the newly formed Spanish government declared “sello de comunicaciones” the official term for “stamp” in an effort to make postal lexicon more uniform, Dr. Thebussem, she writes, was pessimistic about the popular usage of the term, given that, ironically, government officials would be the first to decide not to use it (see 384).

3. Miguel Angel Almodóvar writes: “El doctor Thebussem empieza su misivas quejándose del afrancesamiento que se ha generalizado en la corte y pidiendo que las listas a los convites dados por el rey de España se redacten en castellano y no en francés” (118).

4. Hasta la época de la Restauración no hay un sincero esfuerzo para que la olla podrida vuelva a la mesa de Alfonso XII. En el libro editado en 1888, escrito por el Doctor Thebussem y <Un Cocinero de su Majestad>, titulado La mesa moderna, se defiende brillantamente la reaparición, en la mesa real, de la olla podrida. El Doctor Thebussem aboga por esta aparición viendo en ella, incluso, una ventaja politica; es decir, la simbólica asociación, en un plato único, de productos de casi todas las zonas y latitudes de la peninsula ibérica.

5. de Garciarena y Muñoz's La cocina moderna (1857) and Guillermo Moyano's El cocinero español (1867) are good examples of Spanish cookery books that were all but copies of their French counterparts.

6. The King's Chef and Dr. Thebussem were just two of many Spaniards of note to visit this exhibition. Pardo Bazán and Benito Pérez Galdos also attended and published their accounts of it. One of the salient concerns for Spanish intellectuals at this event was the articulation of Spain as more Oriental than European (see Anderson Al pie de la torre Eiffel: Emilia Pardo Bazán's Critique of the 1889 Paris Exposition 118). The collective anxieties about the constructs in circulation at this event would have surely influenced the King's Chef's beliefs about the need for Spain to emulate culinary and, indeed, cultural modernity.

7. Fueros were the charters granted to villages, towns and regions by Spanish monarchs in the middle ages that established their rights and obligations. The fueros became a point of contention in the nineteenth century, being abolished and restored depending on the monarch or administration in power.

8. On this point, Juan Pablo Fusi agrees: “Ortega was right. Madrid's cultural influence did not extend beyond six kilometres. Spain was – we need to insist together with the philosopher from Madrid – pure province” (90).

9. Martí-López notes that in spite of the reality of Madrid's limited role as a national capital in the Parisian sense, “[t]he history of Madrid is [still] presented as the genesis and evolution of a municipality that summarizes, generates, and represents all the important events, and feelings, of what is posited as the Nation” (“Autochthonous Conflicts” 150).

10. Of course these gastro tours of different regions appeared earlier in France. For instance between 1910 and 1930, French gastronome Maurice-Edmond Sailland, commissioned by the tyre company Michelin, wrote a number of food guides, encyclopaedias and atlases showcasing France's regional cuisines.

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