Gazpacho soup
Gazpacho or Gaspacho is a southern Spanish and Portuguese soup made from uncooked vegetables . It comes from Andalusia (Spanish: gazpacho [ gaθ'patʃo ]; more precisely gazpacho andaluz ) and the Algarve (Portuguese: gaspacho [ ɡɐʃˈpaʃu] ). In German, the Spanish spelling with z is common, but mostly with German pronunciation of the z as an s-sound: [ gas'patʃo ]. The Duden is the grammatical gender to: the or the gazpacho .
The original soup goes back to the Moors and was a white garlic soup made from pickles, bread, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt and water. The ingredients were ground in a mortar . Tomatoes and peppers were first brought to Europe from America by Christopher Columbus and were not part of this soup until the 18th century.
Ingredients, preparation
Classic main ingredients for gazpacho andaluz are tomatoes , white bread , green peppers, cucumber , garlic , olive oil , vinegar , salt and water.
The preparation is simple: all the vegetables and bread are pureed with the addition of water and olive oil and then seasoned with vinegar, salt and pepper. The consistency of a gazpacho can vary, from a very thin soup to a creamy version that is often less pureed.
The gazpacho is served cold with a guarnición , i. H. a side dish. These are usually green peppers, green cucumber, spring onions and tomatoes cut into very small pieces, which are added directly to the soup or mixed with a little olive oil under the soup. Sometimes the gazpacho is served with toasted white bread cubes.
variants
The ajoblanco from Málaga , which is now made with almonds and grapes , is still very similar to the original gazpacho. The gazpachuelo in Málaga also contains fish, mussels , potatoes and mayonnaise and is eaten hot in winter.
The Porra antequerrana from Antequera , north of Málaga, is a cold soup, but thicker, without cucumber and with more garlic, comparable to salmorejo .
Another dish called Gazpacho is Gazpacho manchego from the Castile-La Mancha region , which apart from its name has little in common with Gazpacho of the Andalusian style. It is a kind of stew made with chicken , rabbit and tortas de gazpachos .
history
One of the main ingredients, the cucumber, is native to India; it reached Europe via Greece. In the Roman Empire , the cucumber was cultivated in all areas and thus also came to the Iberian Peninsula. Even then, cucumbers were grown in greenhouses so that they were available all year round. Cucumbers seem to have been the most common vegetable in Spain until the 16th century. It has been suggested that Roman soldiers first prepared gazpacho in order to be able to drink their sour wine faster and thus get drunk faster. They also added bread and olive oil and cucumber to the wine.
swell
- Alan Davidson: The Oxford Companion to Food. 2nd. ed. Oxford 2006, article Gazpacho , p. 333
Footnotes
- ↑ a b Duden online: Gazpacho
- ↑ Jonathan D. Sauer: Historical Geography of Crop Plants. CRC-Press, ISBN 0-8493-8901-1 .
- ^ Toussaint-Samat Maguelonne: A History of Food. First edition. Wiley-Blackwell, 1994, ISBN 0-631-19497-5 .
- ^ S. González Anaya: Los naranjos de la mezquita. Editorial Juventud, Barcelona 1935, pages 382-383.
