A Stew for the End of the World: Spanish Cocido
Only a few hours after the Prime Minister announced mandatory lockdowns throughout Spain, some hundred phones in Beires and the adjacent villages pinged, alerting their owners to a new email.
It was from Lola, bartender, chef, and owner of Casa Rural Entresierras, the town’s only bar or restaurant, a summer stopover for Sierra Nevada hikers but only quietly busy with a couple dozen or so locals in the off-season. She had sent the email to her small subscriber list, mostly these regulars, to let them know she’d be temporarily closing in response to the shut down. There would however, still be a small variety of things available para llevar or entrega (for takeaway or delivery): In the morning, cafés con leche or cortados and bread smeared with either tomato or soft sobrasada, and in the afternoon or evening, booze, of course, as well as a selection of Lola’s homemade specialties, frozen.
And of these delicacies, stacked amongst the caldos (bone broths) and judías (beans) in the swirling freezer fog, one was as good as gone before Lola even hit send on her email. A dish to warm your bones through the frigid rainy season and to comfort your soul during uncertain times. A stew for the end of the world: Lola’s cocido.
…
Most basically, cocido is a rich chickpea, vegetable, and mixed-meat stew – really, more of a feast in a pot – which can be served rustically as a one-dish-meal or distributed across multiple platters and courses for a special occasion. Literally meaning to cook or to boil, cocido’s origins are unassuming. Like French pot-au-feu or Italian ribollata, it was born a peasant’s dish, labor and time transforming cheap meats, common beans, and hearty vegetables into something delicious and satisfying after a days work.
The first cocidos are said to have originated among the Sephardic Jewish community of northern Spain, who could prep the dish the night before the Sabbath and allow it to cook untouched throughout the following day until ready to eat that evening. This original version likely contained fewer meats, no pork, and no chickpeas. These now ubiquitous ingredients come later, layered amongst the cabbage like a fossil record cataloging Spain’s history of conquest, defeat, changing demographics and changing tastes:
First, Moorish invasion and rule beginning in the 8th century introduced chickpeas to the south of Spain. (As most hummus loving Americans won’t be surprised to hear,) These quickly spread north from Andalucía, becoming a staple of Spanish cuisine and an essential element of cocidos throughout the country. Then, at the turn of the 16th century, Catholic Reconquista and the Inquisition led to the proliferation of pork products into Spanish cuisine as a whole – pig consumption a cruel test of the veracity of Jewish or Muslim conversions to Catholicism. Thus, were hams, hocks, chorizos, lacóns, ears, snouts, and all other manner of porcine funk tossed along with the beans into the olla de cocido. Finally, comfort food knowing no bounds, cocido slowly climbed up the social ladder, finding an aristocratic and royal audience who added to the quantity and range of meats included as well as adapting some of the more elaborate serving conventions still seen today.
Cocido then, is truly a Spanish dish, history and religion and tradition all melding in it’s opaque fat-rich broth. It’s comfort food close to every Spaniard’s heart, which consequently means there is no one cocido. It’s a stew of a thousand recetas and countless variations, and every one with acolytes willing to die to defend the authenticity of that version; cecina (salt beef) is added in León, butifarras (black and white pork sausages) in Catalonia, and lacón (shoulder ham) and grelos (turnip greens) in Galicia to name just a few. Which particular variant of cocido you make is the product of a Venn-diagram of biographical details: which region are you from? Do you live in the north or the south? Which of your grandmothers did you prefer?
In this way, cocido is the ultimate embodiment of one of the paradoxes central to Spanish cuisine*: a proud regionalism born from centuries of division (geographical and political) which inexplicably cohere into a broader national identity around staple flavors and dishes. Among these staples, “mother” cocido, though less well known than paella or gazpacho outside of Spain, reins supreme.
…
A week into our quarantine’s unrelenting rain (March and April are rainy season here in the Sierra Nevadas), we finally resolved to slip on our jackets and head down to Lola’s. We needed something to combat the cold seeping into our bones and to beat back the encroaching malaise brought on by endless grey. We needed cocido.
As we stepped outside, a gale rolling down from the terraces above nearly ripped us from our perch atop the village. Leaning into its pressure at our backs, we shuffled slowly down the steep and winding streets. Small streams rushed down their centers, the inlaid grooves posing no match to the mountain’s worth of run-off currently being funneled through town. We followed one of these all the way down to the hotel where we hopped off, leaving it to continue its roiling course down past the church, around the mining museum, and beyond the village entrance.
We stood dripping in front of an apartment across the small alley from the restaurant. Alone in the storm, our hoods amplified the heavy raindrops so that we could hear nothing else. As instructed by the sign hanging in the window, we knocked. Lola called out from inside and a few seconds later swung open the door. Luna, her dog (or was she a stray) barked and licked our ankles by way of greeting. Lola waited expectantly.
“¿Todavía tiene comida?” I asked, my slow Spanish made slower by the cold stiffening my face.
“Si, claro,” she responded, impatient to get back to her shows and to warmth, “¿que tenéis?”
“Cocido, por favor. Necesitamos cocido.” She turned from the door and leaned into a large chest freezer surrounded on all sides by cases of Estrella and local wines for the bar.
“Estais de suerte,” she said, pulling two yellow bricks from the depths, “los ultímos.” You’re in luck. The last ones. She handed over the plastic containers which immediately froze to our dripping fingers. We said our thanks and turned back towards the cold and the rain. Our stiffened legs flew, and we rose with our spirits back up the hill at the mere thought of imminent cocido. Minutes later we were in our “Cat House,” peeling off our soaked through clothes and warming our hands over the electric heater while the stew warmed on the stove.
Immediately, the cold dissipated and our muscles relaxed as we inhaled the steam rising off of the milky bone-rich broth. Relentlessly we ate, our lips glistening with the fat of the soup. Every spoonful of creamy chickpea, buttery cabbage, and savory hock seemed to revitalize our spirits. Soon, we forgot the chill of an hour ago and, if only briefly, the specter of illness spreading around the world. It was restorative and intensely comforting. It was perfect. And it was gone.
If we were to survive our rainy-season-lockdown we would need more. Hell, if we had more it could rain all year for all I cared. But those were los ultímos…
Which left only one option: the following day I was back at Lola’s door, trudged through the now slackening rain, to ask for her recipe. To ask for comfort and warmth. For cocido, the perfect stew for the end of the world and exactly what everyone needs in times like these.
Many thanks to Penelope Casas whose books feed our hunger and Maricel Presilla* whose notes got us thinking.
And of course to Lola, for sharing her recipe with us.