BOOK PRESENTATIONS: TOWARDS READERS, 2017-2018

Ariel presented their edition of the book at Alambique cookshop in the heart of old Madrid, offering a tasting of Juan Altamiras’s dishes to independent booksellers, the Ariel team and authors. — The Ariel team – editorial, distribution and promotion - hosted a lunchtime presentation of the Spanish edition at Alambique. They welcomed booksellers and newly published authors to sample dishes alongside the history of food. © Editorial Ariel

Altamiras wrote for salaried professional cooks, friars, monks, nuns and women home cooks, a unique breadth of readership for an 18th-century European cookery book.

In recreating the book I wanted to take a similar spread of readers on a rigorously researched journey to the 18th century so they could understand New Art as Altamiras’s contemporaries had done.

That inclusive appeal of the book has been reflected in presentations. A discussion about “oeconomy” and sustainability with recreated dishes and wine was held at the invitation of Valencian art gallery Espacio 40, while three events in southern Aragon focussed on microhistory.

In La Almunia, Altamiras’s home town, a book club session brought together readers for a round-table discussion about local 18th-century food, economic crisis and lanscape as well as a sampling of members’ dishes recreated from New Art.

In Alpartir a weekend event included an annotated visit to San Cristóbal where Altamiras cooked in the Sierra de Algairen, and a tapas competition.

Finally a talk at the Universidad de Zaragoza’s summer school in La Almunia and Cariñena gave the chance to revisit papers I had written for Oxford (2011), Amsterdam (2015), Leeds Brotherton Library (2017) and the Dublin Symposium of Gastronomy (2018), but now setting the research against Spanish food historiography.

What all these events revealed is the hunger not only among chefs and scholars, but also the general public in Spain, to discover their culinary past.

Vicky Hayward

❖ If you’d like to read this text in Español, just click on this link!

Cherries, pears and apricots from La Almunia’s fruit cooperative, a thank-you gift from La Almunia’s reading club. Juan Altamiras served these fruits with his meals. — Cherries, pears and apricots from a local farmers’ cooperative were a thank-you gift from La Almunia’s reading circle. Altamiras had served them all in his refectory. © Vicky Hayward

La Almunia’s book-club session began as a live reading and conversation, then it became a food workshop. — La Almunia’s book-club session began as a library reading and grew into a food workshop, after which we migrated to El Patio’s tapas bar, a hub of the town’s life. © Club de Lectura de La Almunia

In recreating the book I wanted to take a wide spread of readers on a researched journey to the 18th century so they could understand New Art’s shock of the new.”

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