On September 6 (but from 500 years ago) it was successfully completed The first travel around the world . With departure and arrival in Andalusia, the Autonomous Community could not forget to prepare something very special.
And so it has been. Tasty and spicy is the proposal of the Menu V Centenary of the First Around the World.
Under the tutelage of the Ministry of Tourism, chef Julio Fernández Quintero, from the restaurant Abantal (Seville), together with food critics, restaurateurs and researchers, was the name chosen to make 52 recipes inspired by dishes of the time.
Bringing back elaborations with pre-Columbian products and those discovered overseas, the creations do not all await in your space. The program was created with the intention of offer the proposals of the dishes to other cooks of the Spanish map for each one to take –and adapt– what they consider necessary.
Paradores, for example, has just confirmed that from April 21 to June 30 the chain's 16 Andalusian establishments will offer a unique dish from this Menu V Centenary of the First Around the World.
Menu V Centenario: Potaje that is called porriol in Parador de Carmona.
A REVIEW OF THE HISTORY
It was 1519 when Carlos I agreed to the proposal of a crazy Portuguese named Fernando de Magallanes.
Five ships from Seville were what this navigator needed to reach the moluccas –And to his precious spices – by an alternative route to the one blocked by the Ottoman Empire.
Appointed Captain General of the Navy, with Magellan he would begin an expedition to the Indian Ocean through the newly discovered America that would have the presence of a young man from Getaria named Juan Sebastian Elcano.
Five centuries later, his story needs little introduction. Although Magellan was unable to return to Spain alive again, Elcano did, thus completing the The first travel around the world.
An arduous expedition, with many deaths along the way, aboard some primitive ships and in deplorable conditions that, despite everything, It would mark a before and after in civilization.
The Archive of the Indies in Seville.
Specifically, it would be on September 20, 1519 when they left the port of Sanlúcar de Barrameda five naos –Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria and Santiago– with 244 men.
After going through Santa Cruz of Tenerife, two and a half months later, these brave men played the Bay of Santa Lucia (between Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo) and then go into the Rio de la Plata. So far his predecessors had already achieved similar feats but what followed was complete and utter uncharted territory.
Reaching Cabo Vírgenes, on October 21, 1520, was the team's first great discovery. No one had ever discovered the long-awaited passage to the other side of the, known at that time, the Indies.
After the abandonment of the ship San Antonio and the sinking of the Santiago, three ships will be the ones to set course for the later called Strait of Magellan for, finally, on November 28, 1520, flow into the Pacific Ocean.
Engraving in which an episode of the First Around the World is recreated.
It will be months before they find an island where they can land. It was on what is now known as the island of Guam, in the Micronesia. Then it would be the turn of The Philippines –Cebu, Bohol, Kagayan, Palawan…–, the island of Borneo and, finally, the long-awaited Molucca Islands.
With Magellan deceased in the Philippines and Elcano named captain of the Victoria, begins the return to Spain through Cape Verde. 153 days later, Elcano crosses the Indian Ocean until reaching this point, from which, they will put heading back to Sanlúcar de Barrameda with arrival on September 6, 1522.
Only 18 men returned, albeit with a precious shipment of 60,000 kilos of spices, including 27 tons of cloves.
Engraving of Ferdinand Magellan.
A VERY MEASURED “EXPERIMENT”
When last September 6 exactly the 500 years from the moment in which Elcano and the only surviving ship – the Victoria – docked in Andalusian lands , Turismo de Andalucía launched a tribute based on the common good that was the seed of travel: spices.
Pepper, cinnamon, ginger and of course cloves are the main players –together with the countries and ports that the expedition touched– of the 52 dishes designed by Julio Fernandez Quintero.
This tasty tribute includes foods that were first eaten in other parts of the world thanks to new trade routes, such as sugar cane, citrus or olive oil; as well as those who joined our kitchen, such as potato, spices, avocado, cocoa or tropical fruits.
In collaboration with historian Antonio Sanchez de Mora, of the General Archive of the Indies (Seville), and following the writings of the chronicler of the expedition, the Italian Antonio Pigafetta , the chef signs this adventure in the kitchen.
The project has also been cooked under the magnifying glass of a previous process of historical-gastronomic research through a bibliographic review of scientific and popular texts, literary works and the search for products, techniques, utensils and recipes related to the time and, specifically, to the route of the first circumnavigation of the world.
spices.
A MENU OF HEIGHT
The search for precious spices in the Moluccas was the engine of a journey that would change the world. But Fernandez Quintero he did not want to recreate the meals of a long-suffering crew , but he has been inspired by the food they carried in their cellars and the food they found along the way.
So in this menu V Centenary of the First Round the World we find a classic ajoblanco of almonds with plums, capers and dried croaker, since almonds and salted fish were part of the diet of the adventurers.
His passage through America will be clear in the presence of cocoa, but not in the dessert as it usually is. In one of his creations, he covers a tuna with onions –since the ships carried garlic and onions to make stews with what the sailors fished–.
Mazamorra with dried sea bass (Menu V Centenario).
As for techniques, it is worth highlighting a marinated rabbit with three peppers (black, from Sichuan and Jamaica), a true declaration of traveling intentions that also recovers a conservation technique brought by the Arabs to Al-Andalus.
The Abantal chef did not want to forget the importance of rice "who saved so many lives" on this nautical voyage, and he emulates it in a socarrat with snapper tartare. He has also not neglected the historic banquet dedicated by the governor of Borneo to sailors with a cheek stew with Pedro Ximénez.
And in the sweets? Tropical pineapple meets spices like turmeric, cloves and ginger in a flirty sponge cake. Or the coconut, baptized as the finishing touch, pays homage to the globe itself in an elegant ball covered in white chocolate and gold, a symbol, after all, of an expedition born for commercial purposes.
V Centenary Menu: coconut emulating the globe.