There is no shortage of large mythical men bringing presents to children around the winter holidays. On December 25, there is the imported Santa Claus. On December 31, as well as on December 24, there is the recently revived Apalpador. On January 6, there are the three Wise Men. Elsewhere across northern Spain, parents venture up mountains to retrieve bread from mythical old women.
As January 6 is such a significant winter holiday, and since it is difficult to enforce travel restrictions between Spain’s autonomous regions, COVID cases spiked in the weeks following family gatherings, peaking around the 20th of January. In the US, on the other hand, cases began rising around Thanksgiving and peaked around the 10th of January, immediately after Christmas/New Years breaks.
Nevertheless, the December 24th/31st holiday is the most interesting of the bunch, as it is based on folk legend rather than on the Catholic calendar, and since it only seems to be rising in popularity as a foil to the foreign idea of Santa bringing gifts. The Apalpador, a large and clumsy charcoal burner, descends from his mountain dwelling on these nights and feels (palpa) the bellies of sleeping children to know whether they are hungry. He leaves them gifts and his signature portion of chestnuts. The English translation of his name (“Feeler” or “Toucher,” perhaps?) sounds wholly inappropriate, so in my translation of his story I will leave his name as is.
When I was looking for more stories about the importance of chestnuts in Spain, I came across a collection of stories by a nineteenth-century English writer named Thomas Hood. National Tales (1827) contains many short stories purporting to be about characters in various European countries, but whether they are pure invention or based on actual local narratives, they as always reflect the writer’s position more than the subject’s, in this case Hood’s foreign observations over the popular Spanish imagination. As I am too but an outsider here trying to make sense of local customs, my position may not be so different from Hood’s, had he had the opportunity to travel and study more extensively.
The one story that involves chestnuts is called “The Chestnut Tree.” A nobleman (“A certain Hidalgo” may have a different connotation if it were in Spanish, but to an Englishman the term probably just denoted nobility), in trying to flee a bull, finds himself stuck up a chestnut tree. Two men of lower class, one of whom is a notorious robber, find themselves in the same predicament, but as they arrived after the nobleman, situated themselves on a lower branch and did not notice the man above them. They discuss an incident in which this very nobleman had shot and killed one of their friends, while the friend was perched on a chestnut tree outside of the nobleman’s house. Then, as they had already bribed two of the nobleman’s servants, they reveal their plot for revenge, involving the murder of this nobleman and the taking of his daughters. In time, the two men safely descend the tree, and the nobleman does so as well. He immediately apprehends the servants who betrayed him and catches the robbers red-handed when they arrive. Coincidentally, thinking that the nobleman would not be home, his two daughters had brought lovers to the house, and because of the nobleman’s shock and the lovers’ politeness, he ends up agreeing to give his daughters to them. The story is set in Granada, a rather odd choice since chestnuts are more culturally prominent in northern Spain (see Magosto celebrations). The use of “banditti” rather than “robbers” and the specification of a stereotypical “Spanish” bull suggests that Hood was putting in a huge effort to sprinkle the story with local flair.
Another, titled “The Widow of Galicia,” is about a beautiful woman who is pursued by a man of questionable character (“a certain Old Knight of Castile”). Even when she gets married to another, he does not stop harassing her until her husband rebukes him. The harassment begins anew when her husband dies, and around this time one morning the woman’s servant discovers the poisoned dead body of the knight in the woman’s closet. At the trial, all evidence seems stacked against her until Maria, her servant (the woman protagonist ironically never gets a name), comes forward to say that she was bribed to sneak in the knight, who probably died from eating poisoned cakes meant for rats. Although the woman is now acquitted, she is overwhelmed with emotion and dies. One of the pilgrims that I translated in my thesis died the same way. She too was accused of robbery (but falsely), and when her innocence is proved through intercession of the Virgin of Guadalupe, she makes a pilgrimage to the Monastery of Guadalupe, serves her avowed three months there, and promptly passes away. Although these stories always sympathize with women in unfortunate situations, it is as if they are afraid to rectify them beyond a declaration of justice. The accused woman, whether innocent or poor or otherwise morally justified, is thus condemned to suffering and early death.
A third story, “The Tragedy of Seville,” features the same trope of the perishing female defendant. A poor woman tries to steal a loaf of bread and manages to throw it into the window of her small home but is then intercepted by Bazardo, a dishonest man who made his wealth in the “West Indies,” e.g. probably on a plantation in Spain’s American colonies. At the time of this book’s publication a significant number of these colonies had won their independence, so I wonder if Hood looked at these countries as places defined by turmoil or as places exploited unfairly by the Spanish. The negative connotation of getting rich quick in the Indies goes as far back as Cervantes’s Celoso Extremeño, in which an old man who has returned to Spain rich takes a charming young girl as a wife and locks her in a walled estate out of toxic jealousy. In any case, Bazardo accuses her publicly of stealing the bread, but she begs for mercy and begins to tell her life story, a riches-to-rags tale of losing landed wealth to the irresponsible behavior of a husband who eventually abandoned her and their two children. It happens that Bazardo, who neither recognized his wife nor was recognizable by her, is this long-lost husband who shamefully left his family to go to the Indies. It also turns out that, when her two children received the bread in the window, one accidentally stabbed and killed the other in their rush for the food. As Bazardo does not seem inclined to rectify the situation, the judge sends him to jail. When the judge laments that it was the lack of Christian charity (of alms, one might say) that brought about the woman’s present misfortune, people in the courtroom offer her money, but she is so shaken that she falls down dead by the time she gets back to her house.
In keeping with theme of clueless foreigners taking on Spain, this week I attempted to make a flourless almond cake. Although it was mostly inspired by Ann Reardon’s take on The Forme of Cury recipes, which produced desserts out of just almonds with sugar and some liquid, I discovered later that what I did was, ingredient-wise, not too far off from the locally popular Tarta de Santiago. I’m sure it can be adapted to other nut flours as well, like chestnut flour. And although it came out of the oven in one beautiful piece, it had quite a hard time staying together on the plate, so it needs more of a binding agent to be properly called a cake, but a binding agent would ruin the soft and fluffy texture imparted by the whipped aquafaba. In the end I paired it with some fruit so that the lack of structure isn’t bothersome at all.
Light-As-An-Expiring-Woman Almond Crumble
Ingredients:
- 1 cup dried chickpeas
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 cups almond flour
- 1/2 cup any flavorless watery milk
- toppings: fruit, agave or other sweetener
Directions:
- Boil chickpeas for 2.5 hours, replenishing water as necessary.
- When water level is right below the top of the chickpeas, remove from heat, strain out chickpeas, and refrigerate liquid overnight.
- Preheat oven to 180 C.
- Whip aquafaba for 20 minutes. Then refrigerate for 2 minutes, remove from refrigerator, and scoop off the properly whipped top layer into another bowl. What’s left should be totally liquid.
- Whip aquafaba for 10 minutes. Repeat refrigeration and scooping process until a minimal amount of liquid remains. Toss the remaining liquid.
- Add 3/4 cups powdered sugar to the whipped aquafaba, and continue whipping for 5 minutes. It should be holding stiff peaks.
- Transfer a few spoonfuls of whipped aquafaba into another bowl, and refrigerate the main portion.
- Add almond flour and remaining powdered sugar to the few spoonfuls of aquafaba and mix. Add enough milk so that the mixture is watery and does not hold a shape well.
- Fold together almond mixture and chilled aquafaba with a rubber spatula until just incorporated.
- Pour into a lined cake pan. Despite the lack of leavening agents, the cake will rise, so fill the tin only about halfway!
- Bake for 1 hour. Let cool completely before removing from pan. Top with fruit and agave, and enjoy! I used blood orange and dragonfruit.
Racións 
You must be logged in to post a comment.