Soldaditos de Pavia, battered and fried bacalao, one of Sevilla's favorite tapas explained. At Las Teresas, an excellent tapas bar in the Barrio de Santa Cruz.

 

* * * * *

 

Soldaditos de Pavia, battered and fried bacalao, one of Sevilla's favorite tapas.  "The little soldiers of Pavia" supposedly gets its name from Pavia in Italy or from a general Pavia whose soldiers wore red berets.  This tapa is often served with a strip of red pepper on top, the red "beret," so came to be called by this popular name, soldaditos de Pavia, at least that is what my Sevillano brother Manolo Esquivias Fedriani told me. 

 

This is why I sometimes go to my very long-time friend Janet Mendel, the great author of books and cookbooks on Spanish cuisine. From her My Kitchen in Spain blog: "Soldaditos de Pavía means “little soldiers of Pavía.” The “soldiers” are strips of batter-fried cod. The saffron in the batter turns the fritters yellow and they’re usually wrapped in a strips of red pimiento, so they are named, depending on which story you prefer, either for the color of the uniforms worn by the Spanish Hussars who occupied the Italian city of Pavia in a famous battle of 1525, won by Emperor Charles V, or else for the troops of General Pavía, who wore red waistcoasts when in 1874 they stormed Parliament and forced its dissolution at bayonet point, marking the beginning of the end of Spain’s first republic."

 

* * * * * 

 

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 (Santa Fe, NM) and at Kitchen Arts & Letters bookstore (NYC). 

 

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.

 

Help Support Gerry Dawes's Spain & Its Content

If you enjoy these blog posts, please consider a contribution to help me continue the work of gathering all this great information and these photographs for Gerry Dawes's Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel. Contributions of $5 and up will be greatly appreciated. Contributions of $100 or more will be acknowledged on the blog.

Please click on this secure link to Paypal to make your contribution.

 

* * * * *

  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.

 ______________________________________________________________________________________

 

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

Museo Sefardí in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish Quarter of Sevilla. (Now, sadly closed.) Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain & The Pre-Post COVID 3500 Kms. Road Warrior Adventure in June 2021.

 

* * * * * 

 

"Always grazing
here in this garden--
I'm dark-eyed just
like you, and lonely.
We both live far
from friends, forsaken --
patiently bearing
our fate's decree."

-- Qasmuna bint Ismail al Yahudi

 

Qasmuna bint Ismail al Yahudi, 11th - 12th century writer and poet, prominent in the Medieval Jewish community of Sevilla.  Museo Sefardí (now closed), Sevilla.

 

Capital imbedded in the wall at the Museo Sefardí in the Barrio de Santa Cruz,  the old Jewish Quarter of Sevilla.  The museum is now closed. 

 

On this trip, continuing my exploration of Sephardic Spain sites, I was excited to find the Museo Sefardí in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, where I used to live. It was closed when I encountered it, so we planned to come back the next morning after I did my walk retracing the route of my first entrance into Sevilla in 1968. 

 

 

The next morning it was also closed and when we rang the bell to see if we could visit the museum, a woman from upstairs came to the window and told us that the museum was closed permanently. Later I found this on the Museum´s Facebook page, along with some of the pictures. The ABC piece with a photo from the Museum is the article the museum directors are lamenting about coming with too little, too late. 

 

"We have been closed for more than a year, what's more, we have just closed closed permanently and have benn evicted the premises that housed the exhibition. Now we have to continue working to move this very important collection to another municipality, some of which are very interested, but it is a pity that the exhibition finally has to leave the best place where it could be, in the Jewish Quarter of Seville.

 

We have not received any aid from the institutions, despite the calls for help, nor have we ever aroused their interest (more than from the institutions themselves, their managers, delegates, advisers, etc.), despite being a center whose cultural value was not only great but above all, necessary. 

 

Today our valuable work is echoed in this article in the ABC newspaper, assuming that we are active, alive and kicking, when it is not like that ... Like many things in Seville, it arrives very late. We always have the knowledge that our work has been useful for many people (mostly from other countries) who have seen the importance and have memories of this project, which also created jobs.

 

Here we leave you the article that has been published today on ABC ..."

 

Photo #3 courtesy of ABC newspaper, Sevilla. 

 

The photo of the Museum sign and the capital imbedded in the wall are by Gerry Dawes©2021.

 

Photo 3 is the photo that appeared with ABC article and the other photos are from the Museo Sefardí Facebook page.

 

  Museo Sefardí (now closed), Sevilla.

 

Museo Sefardí (now closed), Sevilla.

 

Museo Sefardí (now closed), Sevilla.

 

* * * * * 

 

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior in Spain Volume I Enhanced Photograph Edition, Foreword by José Andrés.

Sunset in a Glass: Adventures of a Food and Wine Road Warrior Volume I (of IV) is a collection of non-fiction stories about the adventures of recognized Spanish food, wine and travel authority Gerry Dawes, recipient of the prestigious Spanish National Gastronomy Prize. Sunset in a Glass is illustrated with more than 150 color and black-and-white photographs chronicling adventures from decades of living and traveling in Spain. Foreword by José Andrés.

 

 Constructive comments are welcome and encouraged.

 

 Help Support Gerry Dawes's Spain & Its Content

If you enjoy these blog posts, please consider a contribution to help me continue the work of gathering all this great information and these photographs for Gerry Dawes's Insider's Guide to Spanish Food, Wine, Culture and Travel. Contributions of $5 and up will be greatly appreciated. Contributions of $100 or more will be acknowledged on the blog. Please click on this secure link to Paypal to make your contribution.

 

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.

 

* * * * *

  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.

 _______________________________________________________

 

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 Bio, Awards, Quotes from Famous Chefs and Culinarians and Custom Gastronomic and Cultural Tours to Spain

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

 

 

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.

* * * * *

  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.

 _______________________________________________________________________________________________

 

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

Casa Román, Located in the Heart of the Barrio de Santa Cruz, Sevilla--Famous for Its Jamones Ibéricos de Bellota. The Owner Was My Landlord for Nearly Four Years

 * * * * *


Jamones Ibéricos de bellota (hams from Iberian pigs that eat acorns as a part of the diet that fattens them for the market), tapas and the Goya-esque painting that has been on walls for more than fifty years at Casa Román, Barrio de Santa Cruz, Sevilla.   Photograph copyright by Gerry Dawes 2019.

I spent nearly four of the happiest years of my life living in the Barrio de Santa Cruz at calle Justino de Neve 3.  Just around the corner, in la Plaza de los Venerables, were two my most frequented tapas bars, Hosteria del Laurel, the famous setting for scenes in Don Juan Tenorio, and  Casa Román, a tapas and copitas (glasses of vino) bar specializing in jamones Ibéricos de bellota (hams from Iberian pigs that eat acorns as a part of the diet that fattens them for the market).  Román Castro Medina, the gravedigger-hard working, never smiling founder and owner was from Guijo de Àvila, a village just five miles from the great Ibérico ham curing town of Guijuelo in the province of Salamanca.  Román Castro was also my landlord.  He owned Justino de Neve 3 and rented it to me and my Spousal Equivalent, Diana Valenti, who subsequently became my wife while we were still living in Sevilla.   Later, I will elaborate about the fantastic times we had in that wonderful house on Justino de Neve, but for now, just a few photos that I took on another of my trips back to Sevilla in February 2019.  

 

The first home I shared with the late Diana Valenti Dawes at Justino de Neve 3, in the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish quarter of Sevilla.  We lived here for almost four years.  ". . . .Nothing is calculated to interest the stranger as he wanders through Seville, than a view of these courts obtained from street, through the iron-grated door.  Oft I have stopped to observe them, and as often sighed that my fate did not permit me to reside in such an Eden for the remainder of my days . . . " - - George Borrow, The Bible in Spain, 1840.  Photograph copyright by Gerry Dawes.

 

Re-visiting Justino de Neve 3 in el Barrio de Santa Cruz, Sevilla during a trip in February 2019.

Photo by Kay Balun.

  Miguel Ángel Adarve Linares, the manager of his hotels and a friend during our reunion at the bar of Casa Román.

During our trip to Sevilla in February, I ran into my old friend Miguel Ángel Adarve Linares, the manager of his hotels and a friend in front of the Hotel Murillo, which Miguel Ángel owns, along with a famous family antique shop next to the Alcázar Moorish fortress in Sevilla.  Hotel Murillo and is just a block from Casa Román, so we moved our reunion to bar there, ordered some cerveza and jamón Ibérico and had a fine time reminiscing about the days when I lived in the Barrio de Santa Cruz and used to see and have drinks with Miguel Angel in the bar at Hotel Murillo, whose lobby was one of our hangouts.  In the bar of Hotel Murillo, I met numerous Americans, one of whom became a partner in Galeria Dawes, our art gallery in the village of Mijas on la Costa del Sol (Málaga).   We also met another American there, arranged for him to buy a wonderful village house in Mijas, then rented it from him while we were operating our art gallery.

Román Castro Medina, the gravedigger-hard working, never smiling founder and owner was from Guijo de Àvila, a village just five miles from the great Ibérico ham curing town of Guijuelo in the province of Salamanca.  Román Castro was also my landlord.

* * * * *

  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.

 _______________________________________________________________________________

 

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

Jewish Spain Susona: The Legend of the Beautiful Jewish Girl in Sevilla Whose Betrayal Led to Implementation of The Spanish Inquisition in the 15th Century (My article In Madrid's Guidepost Magazine, May 25, 1974)

* * * * * 

The stuff of legend, Susona's skull, on a house in el Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish Quarter of Sevilla.  (Photo courtesy of Leyendas de Sevilla)

La bella Susona. Una mujer fatal del siglo XV.   (Leyendas de Sevilla) 

Version in Spanish.

* * * * * 

About Gerry Dawes

Writing, Photography, & Specialized Tours of Spain & Tour Advice

For custom-designed tours of Spain, organized and lead by Gerry Dawes, and custom-planned Spanish wine, food, cultural and photographic itineraries, send inquiries to gerrydawes@aol.com.  

I have planned and led tours for such culinary stars as Chefs Thomas Keller, Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Lomonaco and Michael Chiarello and such personalities as baseball great Keith Hernandez and led on shorter excursions and have given detailed travel advice to many other well-known chefs and personalities such as Drew Nieporent, Norman Van Aken, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg, Christopher Gross, Rick Moonen, James Campbell Caruso and many others.

 * * * * *

“The American writer and town crier for all good Spanish things Gerry Dawes . . . the American connoisseur of all things Spanish . . .” Michael Paterniti, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and The World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese

* * * * *

"Gerry Dawes, I can't thank you enough for opening up Spain to me." -- Michael Chiarello on Twitter. 

"Chiarello embarked on a crash course by traveling to Spain for 10 days in 2011 with Food Arts

contributing authority Gerry Dawes, a noted expert on Spanish food and wine.  Coqueta's (Chiarello's new restaurant at Pier Five, San Francisco) chef de cuisine, Ryan McIlwraith, later joined Dawes for his own two week excursion, as well. Sampling both old and new, they visited wineries and marketplaces, as well as some of Spain's most revered dining establishments, including the Michelin three-star Arzak, Etxebarri, the temple to live fire-grilling; Tickets, the playful Barcelona tapas bar run by Ferran Adrià and his brother, Albert; and ABaC, where Catalan cooking goes avant-garde." - - Carolyn Jung, Food Arts, May 2013.

* * * * *

"In his nearly thirty years of wandering the back roads of Spain," Gerry Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth..." -- James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections

 * * * * *

Gerry 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. 

* * * * *

Trailer-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

Jewish Spain: Iglesia de Santa María de las Nieves, Popularly Known as Santa María la Blanca, at the Edge of The Barrio de Santa Cruz, The Ancient Jewish Quarter of Sevilla

* * * * * 
(Note:  All text & photographs, except when otherwise indicated, are by Gerry Dawes©2019.)

Entrance to the former synagogue, earlier mosque that is now la Iglesia de Santa Maria de los Nieves,popularly known as Santa María la Blanca. Photo by Gerry Dawes©2019

After a morning jaunt across my old barrio, the Barrio de Santa Cruz, the old Jewish Quarter of Sevilla, we went to Santa María de la Nieves church, more popularly known as Santa María la Blanca, (the same name as the exceptional other former synagogue in Toledo, also called Santa María la Blanca).  This church was built on the foundations of both the original small neighborhood mosque that was converted after the re-conquest of Sevilla from the Moors in the 13th Century into a synagogue used by Jews in the Jewish barrio of Sevilla (the barrio where I lived off and on for parts of five years).   Santa María la Blanca was a synagogue until the late 14th Century, when, after a terrible pogrom, it was converted into a Christian church.   

Santa María la Blanca is also the name of the street where the former synagogue is located.

Santa María la Blanca, with its overwrought, overwhelming and over-the-top Baroque decoration, as spectacular and meticulously restored as it is, will be somewhat of a disappointment to those looking for vestiges of the synagogue. 

 

Santa María la Blanca's overwrought, overwhelming and over-the-top Baroque decoration.

Almost nothing of the former synagogue is evident, except for the front entrance to the church, which was apparently the front door of the synagogue, and the much restored and altered rounded mudéjar-designed arches that are remnants of the synagogue (surprisingly not the former mosque) supported by columns whose originals were replaced with ones of red marble from Antequera.  

 

 

The rounded mudéjar-design arches that are most re-worked remnants of the synagogue.

These arches are somewhat reminiscent of other Jewish synagogues like the sublime Santa María la Blanca in Toledo in which Jewish congregations adopted and commissioned the popular mudéjar, or Moorish-inspired architecture of that epoch, usually done by Moorish artisans, bricklayers, etc. working under Christian rule. Often the three cultures--Christian, Jewish and Moorish--overlapped, so sometimes you see a mix of influences.

 

12th-Century Ibn Shushan Synagogue in Toledo, now Santa Maria La Blanca, but used mostly as a museum site of Jewish culture in Toledo.  Notice the decorative arquillos (little arches; above the main arches).  These synagogue arquillos were also found under some Murillo paintings during restoration a few years ago of Santa Maria La Blanca in Sevilla (see below). 

 These synagogue arquillos, little arches, were also found under some Murillo paintings during restoration a few years ago at Santa Maria La Blanca in Sevilla. 

 Floor plan of the 14th Century synagogue that became Santa Maria La Blanca church in Sevilla.

Sideview of of the 14th Century synagogue that became Santa Maria La Blanca church in Sevilla.

______________________________________________________________________________________ 

 

About Gerry Dawes

Gerry Dawes is the Producer and Program Host of Gerry Dawes & Friends, a weekly radio progam on WPWL 103.7 FM Pawling Public Radio in Pawling, New York.

 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@gmail.com; Alternate e-mail (use only if your e-mail to AOL is rejected): gerrydawes@spanishartisanwine.com