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Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain - Volume I Foreword by José Andrés Preview (Publication 2021)
Ribadavia (Ourense, Galicia)
Gil Avital and Herminia with her Sephardic recipe pastries, La Tafona da Herminia, Ribadavia (Ourense), Galicia, April 1, 2019.
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Photograph from an early visit, Herminia
and her selection of pastries made from Sephardic recipes from the 15th
& 16th centuries, A Tafona da Herminia, Barrio Judio, Ribadavia
(Ourense province), Galicia, Spain. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2019, Canon M3
My pursuit of Jewish historical sites in Spain, no doubt a remnant of an earlier incarnation since I am not Jewish, took a quantum leap on my four-week wandering across Spain in late March and most of April. On the first part of the trip, I took a friend Gil Avital, originally from Israel and former owner of Tertulia Restaurant in Manhattan, to the old Jewish Quarter of Ribadavia in Galicia, where I have been nearly a dozen times. The Barrio Judio of Ribadavia is particularly fascinating since Jews were there from the 12th to the 16th Centuries, so they managed to hang on for awhile after the expulsion order in 1492, apparently crossing into nearby Portugal when the Inquisition was leaning on them, then coming back when the pressure was not as intense.
Photo by Gerry Dawes©2019.
I was delighted to find Herminia of La Tafona da Herminia at work de-stemming figs for the filling she uses in some of her Sephardic recipe pastries. She has recovered a number of recipes for typical Jewish pastries from the period when this Barrio was inhabited by Jews and now makes them for sale in her bakery.
Descriptions of pastries at La Tafona da Herminia, Barrio Judio, Ribadavia (Ourense province), Galicia, Spain. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2019.
Herminia has some ten different pastries and a sheet with drawings and the name of each pastry written in Gallego. There are bocadiños de améndoas (round cookies made almonds and cinnamon), kamisch-broit (made with walnuts or almonds), mamul (basic ingredients are dried fruits such as the figs, poppy petals and orange petal water), ma’amul (date cream and rose water), ghorayebah (wholemeal hazelnut flour), mostachudos (with walnuts and cloves), bocadiños de dátiles (with dates, walnut and ground brown sugar), kuferlin (wholemeal almond flower), kijeleje de mon (not sure if this is a riff on Demon’s Souls; made with poppy seeds), masiñas de mapoulas (mapoulas is gallego for ampolas, poppies; this is made with poppy seeds and vanilla essence) and cardamomo (with cardamom and almonds).
Gerry Dawes with Herminia at her Tafona de Herminia bakery in Ribadavia (Ourense), Galicia. Photo by Gil Avital.
Gil bought a half kilo of these cookie-like pastries we and shared them, including Herminia’s delicious fig-laced ones, for several days of our trip across Galicia. They were quite good.
Gerry Dawes and Gil Avital in the Barrio Judio of Ribadavia (Ourense province), Galicia.
More on Sephardic Spain:
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Shall deeds of Caesar or Napoleon ring
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
More true than Don Quixote's vapouring?
Hath winged Pegasus more nobly trod
Than Rocinante stumbling up to God?
Poem
by Archer M. Huntington inscribed under the Don Quixote on his horse
Rocinante bas-relief sculpture by his wife, Anna Vaughn Hyatt
Huntington,
in the courtyard of the Hispanic
Society of America’s incredible museum at 613 W. 155th Street, New York
City.
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36. Gerry Dawes's Spain: An Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel
About Gerry Dawes
My good friend Gerry Dawes, the unbridled Spanish food and wine
enthusiast cum expert whose writing, photography, and countless
crisscrossings of the peninsula have done the most to introduce
Americans—and especially American food professionals—to my country's
culinary life." -- Chef-restaurateur-humanitarian José Andrés, Nobel
Peace Prize Nominee and Oscar Presenter 2019
Gerry Dawes was the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York (streaming live and archived at www.pawlingpublicradio.org and at www.beatofthevalley.com.)
Dawes
was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía
(National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on
Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural
tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's
Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava
Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004,
was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles
& Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the
2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature
in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about
Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.
In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.
".
. .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià
in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow
narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish
correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food
journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a
self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again
brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane
Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher,
Food Arts, October 2009.
Pilot for a reality television series
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.
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Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@gmail.com
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