Iberia (23 page)

 

As he spoke, an American woman came into the store to
conclude a bargaining session that had extended over three days.
‘In spite of what Fielding says, I’m going to buy from you.’ She
was satisfied that Señor Simón’s prices were about as good as she
was going to find and she was prepared to place her order: ‘Six
of the larger ash trays, four pairs of scissors, four penknives, six
water jugs, six small swords for letter openers, one large plate,
one larger sword…’ I understood what Simón meant when he
said that with twenty customers a day he could get by. This
woman’s bill was going to be close to two hundred dollars and
she was delighted with the things she was getting. ‘This store is
so clean and well lighted it’s a pleasure to do business here,’ she
said. When she was gone, Simó said, ‘It ought to be clean. The
municipal government sends an inspector here once a month to
be sure the shop looks appealing. In Toledo, tourism is a big
business…the biggest we have, and we’ve got to do everything
we can to offset the bad blow Mr. Fielding gave us.’

 

On my way to inspect the damascene factory I had noticed, at
Calle de Santo Tomé, 6, an attractive restaurant whose main
dining room was the patio of an old convent. It was run by a
vigorous young man named Mariano Díaz and his robust,
handsome wife Sagrario. ‘And seven others, all members of the
family,’ Don Mariano explained. He was proud of this restaurant
and wanted to talk about it. ‘I’m from Toledo. My father has a
restaurant of his own on the other side of town and I’ve always
wanted to be in the business. It was Sagrario’s father who started
this one, and I took over when I married Sagrario. Her father
came from Valencia, during the Crusade. He couldn’t stand the
Communists who were in control of the city, so he fled. Started
a bar on this corner, but the big growth came when Sagrario and
I took over. We have 225 seats now and during most of the
summer they’re filled every noon. We pay commission to no
one…no guides, no tourist agencies, no runners. We don’t want
that kind of business. You look at us and if you like the way we
look…We spend a lot of time keeping this place clean and
attractive, and all of our business comes from walking tourists
who say, “That old convent looks interesting. Let’s eat there.” It
used to be a Franciscan convent. We rent it.’

 

Señor Díaz was the kind of man I enjoy meeting in any field
of endeavor, because he loved his work and took pride in
explaining its tricks and triumphs. He was a big, tall man with an
expressive face, a young man, too, barely in his thirties, filled with
plans for a better Toledo. ‘Some of us younger people wanted to
put up a hotel, a real fine place where you wouldn’t be ashamed
to stay. We figured about sixteen thousand dollars a room and
we could have financed it, but then we asked ourselves, “what
will we do about the winter?” And the more we studied, the more
we realized that any money we made in summer would be lost in
winter, when nobody comes here. Maybe we’ll work out
something else. I’m not worrying. I have enough to keep me busy
trying to make this a fine restaurant. Did you see where the French
guide gave us a two-fork rating? You can get a fine meal with us
and not spend too much money. We offer three different menus.
A la carte, and you can get a good meal from it for a dollar
eighty-five. Special lunch of the house, a dollar thirty. And of
course, the tourist menu at one fifty-five. How do the customers
choose? A la carte forty percent, house special thirty percent,
tourist thirty percent. Our very best meal, I would say, was
partridge Toledo-style. Estupendo! There’s a farm not far from
here that kills two or three thousand partridges a day in season.
The French, who know good cooking, always go for partridge
because at two-twenty it’s a sensational bargain. The
norteamericanos? Well, they don’t understand that game has to
be hung. Sometimes they say it smells, so we take it back and serve
them boiled chicken. They say it doesn’t smell.’

 

I spent a long time with the Díaz family, nine of them including
the wife’s sister, who must be the most beautiful waitress in Spain.
Kitchen, washrooms, tables and crockery were all immaculate.
‘The government’s smart,’ Díaz said. ‘They have one corps of
restaurant inspectors who live in Toledo, another in Madrid. They
send the Toledo men to inspect Madrid and the Madrid men out
here to inspect us. You could be one of the Madrid men, for all I
know. They pull tricks like that on us, but they have no problem
with me because we police ourselves. We try to do everything
possible to make tourists happy, and the disgraceful business you
had when you ordered from the tourist menu too late would never
happen here. The girls speak a lot of languages. French is most
important, especially in a restaurant, because a norteamericano
sits down and says, “Bring me that,” but the Frenchman wants
to know does it have a sauce, are the vegetables fresh, is the cream
chilled. Frankly, the French are more fun, but we do everything
we can to make the norteamericanos feel at home. They will spend
money if they’re encouraged.’

 

As to the food in El Plácido, as the quiet place was appropriately
named, it was among the best I had in Spain. Don Mariano and
his wife tried to push the stewed partridge, but when I resisted,
they shrugged their shoulders and he said, ‘It’s the French who
know how to eat. I suppose you want boiled chicken?’ I took the
mixed salad, which was crisp and delicious.

 

Right across the street, at Calle de Santo Tomé, 5, stood an
element of the tourist industry which had always fascinated me,
the marzipan factory of Rodrigo Martínez, who ran the big retail
shop on the Zocodover where trays of marzipan in various shapes
have seduced generations of travelers. In Spain this delicacy is
called mazapán and has many distinctive qualities which
differentiate it from brands sold elsewhere in the world. Señor
Martínez was a small, conservative man in his fifties, cautious in
all he did and said, and quite unable to understand why a stranger
would be interested in anything so Spanish as a mazapán factory.
Gingerly, as if I were a commercial spy, he released one bit of
classified information after another in what was one of the most
painstaking interviews I have ever conducted.

 

‘If it weren’t for the oil contained in the seed kernel of the
almonds,’ he began in the middle, ‘mazapán would last
indefinitely, like the dried meat they chop up in northern
countries.’ I must have shown my bewilderment at such a
beginning, for he added slowly, ‘You’re probably like all other
strangers and think that we get our almonds from Andalucía in
the south. But we don’t. The almonds that do grow down there
aren’t very good. We get ours from orchards along the
Mediterranean coast. South of Valencia. Some of the best almonds
in the world and to my taste much better than those grown in
Arab countries. More consistent. Almonds and oranges grow in
the same kind of soil and the same climate, so they compete.’

 

He must have concluded that was all I needed to know about
mazapán because he stopped. After some moments of silence he
added cautiously, ‘If you did want to make mazapán you’d get
the best almonds you could find and dip them in boiling water,
then run them through this friction machine, which scrapes off
the skin. Look at that pile of skins. It has no commercial use
whatever, doesn’t even burn well. When the almonds are clean
and shining white you move them over to this machine, but be
careful to set the grinding wheels fairly far apart. Into the hopper
you put one part almonds, one part cane sugar, and this machine
breaks the almonds into pieces and mixes the sugar with them.
Almonds cost about eighty-five cents a pound and sugar about
ten cents a pound, so you can see that there’s a great temptation
to put in a lot of sugar and a little almond, but that makes
wretched mazapán. Watch out for the man who puts in less than
half almonds. You now throw the whole mass back into the
grinder, but this time you set the wheels very close together, so
that the almonds are pulverized. Then you press the paste into
forms and bake it in a moderate oven for about fifteen minutes,
take it out, paint it with a glaze of water and sugar and finish it
off for another ten minutes to give that lovely brownish crust.
That’s the best mazapán you can get in the world.’

 

Señor Martínez was still suspicious, but he asked softly, ‘Would
you care to see what we do for Christmas?’ I tried to show the
enthusiasm I was feeling, and he brought down from a high shelf
a set of empty circular boxes covered with bright decorations.
‘Into these round boxes we coil long lengths of mazapán made
in the shape of eels. They have scales of sugar, eyes of candy, and
are filled with crystallized cherries, candied sweet potato, apricot
jam and sweetened egg yolks. This big box sells for about four
dollars, and lots of children think the thing inside is a real serpent,
but of course it’s only mazapán. I supply stores all over Spain and
some in América del Norte, too.’

 

I said that I was especially fond of marzipan and frequently
bought small samples in America, at which his face took on the
glazed look that overtakes a Frenchman when you praise
California wine. ‘I’m afraid that in América del Norte you’ve
never tasted real mazapán. Friends have sent me samples and it’s
mostly sugar. Very bad. But wait a minute. In Mexico City there’s
a man who learned how to make mazapán here in Toledo. During
the Crusade he was on the other side, and when peace came he
didn’t want to live in Spain any longer, so he went to Mexico.’
He paused, evidently remembering his long-absent friend, exiled
from Toledo by the Civil War. ‘I’ve heard some very good things
about the quality of mazapán he’s making in Mexico, but I’m
sure you don’t get any of it in New York.’

 

The interview had ended and I was about to leave when I saw
a sign which read: ‘Exquisite paste for making the classic almond
soup, in packages of any weight, eighty-seven cents a pound.’‘Is
that how you make almond soup?’ I asked with some excitement.
‘Do you know our great almond soup?’ he asked, his face
brightening. ‘I was introduced to it the other day. Best soup I ever
tasted. Like angels’ wings.’ He became positively animated and
said, ‘Even better. We make a paste…’ as if he could not believe
my sincerity, he asked, ‘Do you really like almond soup?
Norteamericanos don’t usually like it. It’s the French who know
something good when they taste it.’ I assured Señor Martínez that
from the first moment I had tasted this delicious soup, fragrant
and heavy with flavor, I had delighted in it. ‘The first bowlful they
gave me had a rose petal floating in it. One rose petal, deep red
against snowy white.’ He realized that I knew what I was talking
about and said, ‘We don’t use rose petals much any more. But
we make the paste. You take two hundred grams of the paste and
one liter of very cold, rich milk. You add a little handful of sweet
biscuits well flavored and a small touch of carnela.’ I asked him
what carnela was, thinking that he must mean caramelo. No, he
meant carnela. Everybody knew what carnela was, but my
dictionary didn’t give the word, so I didn’t find out. ‘You put
these together and beat them thoroughly. Then serve ice-cold…or
if it’s Christmas, when we use almond soup a lot, you can heat it.
Like our sign says, it’s a classic.’

 

As we talked we were surrounded by trays full of marzipan,
some plain, some shaped in little cups and filled with apricot jam,
and now Don Rodrigo offered me samples, delighted to have
found someone who appreciated his art. As I ate, he said, ‘After
the battle of Navas de Tolosa in the year 1212 there was famine
in many parts of Spain, so the monks of San Clemente convent,
here in Toledo, developed the secret upon which our industry is
founded. How to crush almonds so they will stay good to eat after
four or five months. We sent our paste throughout Spain and
that’s how Toledo became famous for this delicacy. The secret?
Well, when I was telling you how to make mazapán…the wheels
and the sugar and the hot water…well, I didn’t tell you
everything.’

 

Much later, when I happened to have a bowl of almond soup
in Madrid, the host sprinkled it with cinnamon. ‘Canela,’ he said.
‘The final touch.’

 

When I left the marzipan factory I wandered to the west and
came to a promenade that ran along the top of a cliff, from which
I could look down into the river below. As I strolled along I came
to a notable old building which stood hidden behind a high brick
wall, as if it were a jewel under protection. A creaking gate let me
into a Moorish garden which could have existed in that spot a
thousand years ago when the Moors still occupied Toledo. Palm
trees and lemon and orange grew in lovely patterns. In one corner
a fountain bubbled, sending echoes across the graveled walks,
and there were benches from which I could study at leisure the
low and unimpressive building. I could not identify it: possibly
it had been a mosque, or a synagogue or a church, for it seemed
to partake of many characteristics. At the bottom it was built of
unfinished brick; at the top, of a muddy stucco, which had begun
to peel. The windows were off-center and the entrance was notable
principally for a very old wooden door decorated in Moorish
design.

 

I pressed against the door and it opened slowly to reveal a most
beautiful building which looked like a mosque. The interior was
filled by twenty-four octagonal columns, each topped by a capital
of Arabic design supporting Moorish arches, but when I looked
for the Muslim mihrab which would show worshipers the
direction of Mecca, I found instead a Christian altar, for this was
the famous Santa María la Blanca church and its origin was one
of the compelling stories of Toledo.

 

To understand it we must leave Santa María and go to another
part of Toledo, where in the Plaza Santo Domingo el Real we find
imbedded in a wall a plaque which reads: ‘Memorial to the fiestas
which the Valencian colony of Toledo held in honor of San
Vicente Ferrer solemnizing the Fifth Centennial of his glorious
death, May 1919.’ Vicente Ferrer was an inspired Dominican
orator who operated around Valencia at the end of the fourteenth
century. His preaching was so persuasive that he was credited
with the conversion of thousands in lands as remote as Ireland
and Italy. He was especially famed for his ability to convince Jews
of their error and was responsible for converting many. In 1405
he came to Toledo to deliver a series of sermons against the Jews,
which caused one historian to describe him as ‘the bloodthirsty
enemy of the Jews, intolerant and vehement, with an oratorical
style both vibrant and tempestuous and a destructive eloquence
without par.’