At Café Manuela in the Malasaña neighborhood of Madrid with American ex-pat journalist William Lyon and his friend Antonio Vásquez. Vásquez verified information about my claims that Restaurante Sobrino de Botìn was not the Botín restaurant made famous by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises.

 

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At Café Manuela Antonio Vásquez passionately explains to ex-pat journalist Bill Lyon his meticulous research in Spanish underscoring that Restaurante Sobrino de Botín at calle Cuchilleros 17 in Madrid is not the restaurant Hemingway wrote about, it was the original La Antigua Casa Botìn on Plaza de Herradores, northwest of La Plaza Mayor.   Both Antonio Vásquez and Bill Lyon have studied my article (excerpted below) and agree with many of my conclusions.

 

  

 

A TALE OF TWO BOTINS By Gerry Dawes Part One / A Luncheon Epiphany: Botín and The Mythology of the Legendary Last Roast Pig Meal in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises 

Also see: 

Madrid, Museo del Pan Gallego with a Photograph of the Original La Casa Antigua Botín, the Actual Botín of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

At Café Manuela in the Malasaña neighborhood of Madrid. Sunday night I rendezvoused with the great American ex-pat journalist William Lyon and his friend Antonio Vásquez, a perfect English-seaking Spanish physicist with a mind like a steel trap who has been researching the history of the two restaurants known as Botìn, La Antigua Casa Botìn, the original on Plaza de Herradores, and Sobrino de Botín, which opened in 1865 and thus could not have been open for 300 years as claimed. 

  

The Botín made famous by Ernest Hemingway in The Sun Also Rises was without a doubt the original in Plaza de Herradores, but the Hemingway aficionados who follow The Sun Also Rises religiously and have believed for more than 50 years that Sobrino de Botín was the place that characters Jake Barnes and Lady Brett Ashley had that famous last lunch got pissed off that Pamplona writer Miguel Izu who first discovered the truth, and I, were working on this thesis. Several Hemingway devotees said we were assholes. 

 

Some people who should know better, but assigned themselves as gate keepers of the legend--so fuck the truth--began vilifying me. A couple called me names such as "Supreme Asshole" and much worse (unprintable here, unless you are not offended by the word "cocksucker,") demeaned my character, which made one of them seem like the "Supreme Asshole" that they called me.

 

Well, Antonio Vásquez, whom I had never met, was having none of it. With my permission, Bill Lyon sent him my 14,000 word treatise on Botín.   Bill Lyon set up a meeting with Antonio Vásquez and himself.   Vásquez showed me his findings, which verified many of the points I had been making about the two Botín restaurants. 

 

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Gerry Dawes will be leading a specialized gastronomy, wine and cultural tour to Western and Southern Spain from Tuesday, October 14 – Thursday, October 30, visiting the great cities and towns of Madrid, Segovia, Ávila, Salamanca, Trujullo, Mérida, Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Cádiz, Sevilla, Ronda and Málaga. For further information contact gerrydawes@aol.com.  

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Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photography Edition

 

(Available at Amazon, Despana (NYC), LaTienda.com, La Boca Restaurant and Bodega, Santa Fe, NM), at Ibiza Kitchen (Chappaqua, NY) and at Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore (NYC) and at a punto, calle Farmacia 6, Madrid. 

 

 

Comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

Text and photographs copyright by Gerry Dawes©2021.  Using photographs without crediting Gerry Dawes©2021 on Facebook.  Publication without my written permission is not authorized.

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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?

 

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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In 2019, again ranked in the Top 50 Gastronomy Blogs and Websites for Gastronomists & Gastronomes in 2019 by Feedspot. (Last Updated Oct 23, 2019) 

"The Best Gastronomy blogs selected from thousands of Food blogs, Culture blogs and Food Science blogs in our index using search and social metrics. We’ve carefully selected these websites because they are actively working to educate, inspire, and empower their readers with frequent updates and high-quality information."  

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 is 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.
 

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain  

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