Illustrious names of the European nobility tasted tripe and some other of the heartiest dishes of Spanish cuisine without endangering the future of their lineages or dynastic houses (not, at least, because of indigestion). In these dates so conducive to culinary excesses, it is advisable to follow the example of figures such as Edward VII or Carlos Alejandro Augusto Juan de Sajonia, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.
In 1876 in Spain, both of them survived banquets that could leave the best-stocked Christmas tablecloths or the Sant Esteve cannelloni in the shape of a Siberian oil pipeline in tatters. How they did it? Simple. Eating in moderation. A saying goes: “Empty belly, heart without joy.” But another maxim adds that one should “eat to live and not live to eat.” It is worth remembering this on the eve of Christmas Eve.
May it not happen to anyone during these times like one of the characters we have talked about here, the Sangonera of Canes and mud, capable of eating until he dies. Cervantes himself narrates in Don Quixote the wedding of Camacho, where “rustic provisions were served, but so abundant that they could sustain an army.” Good old Sancho couldn't believe his eyes: a steer spit on a spit made from a whole elm...
And pots that looked like jars, so large that “whole rams were boiling inside without being noticed, as if they were pigeons,” as well as “hares without skin and chickens without feathers.” In the belly of the bull there were “twelve tender, small piglets that, sewn on top, served to give it flavor and tenderness.” They had not bought the spices by the pound, “but by the carob and they were all visible in a large chest.”
Nobody is obliged to eat everything, neither in life nor in literature. Some literary banquets would even choke Polyphemus, who could swallow a cow (or a man: he was a man-eater) in one bite. The appetite of Gargantua and his son, Pantagruel, was also enormous. His lunch, says François Rabelais, could have consisted of “16 oxen, three heifers, 32 calves, 63 domestic goats and 398 piglets.”
That, of course, to whet your appetite. And then “220 partridges, 700 woodcocks, 400 capons, 6,000 chickens and as many pigeons, 600 hens, 1,400 hares and 303 bustards.” And, to kill the bug, “11 wild boars, 16 deer, 140 pheasants and a few dozen pigeons, teals, larks, plovers, thrushes, ducks, lapwings, geese, herons, storks, harriers, ducks, Indian chickens and others birds in very abundant quantity.”
Not so well known, but equally notable, is the case of Reverend Pendrake, who briefly shelters Jack Crabb, the protagonist of Little Big Man, by Thomas Berger, an author who with this work entered the Olympus of modern literature. West, although his book can also be read as a picaresque novel, as if a modern Buscón had moved to live on the great plains of the United States.
The reverend was fried “six eggs, a large mass of potatoes and a steak about the size of two giant hands, a couple of quarts of coffee and ten or twelve grilled pancakes topped with a piece of butter as big as an apple and dripping with molasses.” And that was for breakfast, imagine lunch: “Two whole chickens with stuffing, potatoes, some vegetables, five breads, half a cake swimming in cream…”.
And if digestion takes time, so do the preparations. A story by Emilia Pardo Bazán, El honor, talks about a cook, a devoted and loving father, who isolates himself from reality while concentrating on his work: soup, trout a la Chambord, “in which the garnish was a prodigy of delicacy , with the beautifully turned truffles” and “oysters and crab tails placed symmetrically.” And, after the trout, the rest.
That? Parental obligations at last? No, the preparation of the rest of the feast: “Regency carp fillets, American-style lobster, champagne truffles.” And the dessert, “the bomb of pineapple, melon, orange and currant, worthy of the best pastry chef.” Only after serving every last dish on an endless menu can the cook run to his house, where they have sent him urgent notice, because his son is dying.
Pardo Bazán's cook could have been the one on the gargantuan menu of April 30, 1876, when Alfonso XII entertained the Prince of Wales and future King Edward VII of Great Britain in the columned hall of the Royal Palace: Spanish-style cooked, cod Biscayan style, stewed beef with stew, squid in black sauce (or in its ink), traditional Castilian clothing, chicken with rice and pickled partridges, desserts aside.
And they weren't just any desserts. The finishing touch to such an egregious menu was the “bartolillos a la Botín”, traditional cream sweets that can still be tasted in one of the oldest restaurants in the world: Casa Botín, one of the hallmarks of Madrid and the who came to eat, among others, Francisco de Goya, Benito Pérez Galdós (Emilia Pardo Bazán's lover, by the way) and Ernest Hemingway.
The Prince of Wales was invited at least twice to the tables of Alfonso XII. Months later, it was the turn of the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach during his visit to the capital of Spain: garlic soup with eggs, stew, Madrid-style tripe, paella (then Valencian rice), calamari, ropavieja, roast suckling pig, pickled partridges, pepper salad and the everlasting cream bartolillos.
How did Edward VII or the Duke of Saxony escape unscathed from such high-calorie feasts? Eating in moderation. Therein lies the key, which must be remembered at the gates of Christmas feasts (in homes that can afford them, of course, but that is another topic). Neither in the palace nor in the mother's house (those are delicacies fit for kings) is it imperative to empty the trays. Today's leftovers will be a great dish tomorrow...
