Through Andalusia, in Search of Gazpacho

SPAIN is a matrix of themed routes - rutas as they are known in Spanish - carefully mapped out for those looking to follow a lead. There is the Catholic pilgrimage route of Santiago de Compostela, the Ruta del Quijote, trailing Cervantes's beloved character from windmill to windmill in La Mancha, and, in season, there is even a Strawberry Train.

So doesn't gazpacho, perhaps the country's most persuasive gastronomic goodwill ambassador, deserve the same? Cold soup was addictive long before the actress Carmen Maura tossed a fistful of Valium into a blender of gazpacho in Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 film, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown." Perhaps the ultimate indication of its appeal today might be that for just one euro, a McDonald's meal in Spain can be supersized with a refreshing cup of the stuff.

A little research conducted among chefs, food critics and historians suggested that tracing the regional origins of some of Spain's most popular cold soups - gazpacho andaluz, and its chilly culinary cousins, ajo blanco malagueño and salmorejo cordobés, among others - would form the basis of a route for travelers through Andalusia, going bowl to bowl across the lovely patchwork landscape of olive groves and jagged mountain ranges dotted with castle-crowned hilltop towns. But along this Ruta de la Sopa Fría (Cold Soup Route), which took me from Córdoba to Carmona, near Seville, and down through Antequera to Málaga, I soon learned that I was probably the only person pausing to ponder whence cometh the cooling concoctions.

According to the historian and writer Inés Eléxpuru, who has written extensively on both historical Andalusian "rutas" and the region's rich culinary legacy, "Gazpacho and other cold soups have always just been part of the gastronomic mix" for Spaniards.

From Córdoba in the north of Andalusia to Málaga on the Mediterranean coast in the south, this proved to be the case. Gazpacho, which started out neither red (tomatoes and peppers didn't make the culinary scene in Europe until brought from the Americas at the start of the 16th century) nor cold (given the lack of refrigerators in the Middle Ages), has never stopped evolving.

Food historians trace antecedents of gazpacho at least as far back as the Romans in the third century B.C. though these were further refined by 800 years of Moorish presence in the region. Most versions evolved as a means by which peasants could make a meal using old bread, olive oil, nuts or vegetables as well as bits of ham, hard-boiled eggs and other ingredients that were either torn up into a salad or puréed with a mortar and pestle. In Andalusia, these versions developed into subtly refined soups, but in other regions, like neighboring Extremadura, they remained salads and are, in fact, often served that way, and described as gazpacho extremeño or en trozos ("in pieces").

So what we may think of as the classic gazpacho of tomato, cucumber, peppers, garlic, day-old bread, olive oil, water and salt - all blended up and iced down - was itself an arriviste not so long ago.

It's no wonder that so many distinct recipes evolved. In a less humble way, the process continues today in the age of nueva cocina, when Spanish chefs garner Michelin stars by making cold soups with unexpected ingredients - watermelon, cherries, mango or even sardines, for instance.

The celebrated Andalusian chef Dani García, whose restaurant Calima, opening soon in Marbella, will dedicate an entire section of its menu to both traditional and interpretive cold soups, explained some of the current trends. "Traditional malagueño ajo blanco was a slightly bitter soup of bread, almonds, olive oil, garlic, vinegar and water, so it was served with grapes or melon to add a note of sweetness," he said. "Today, chefs may use that melon or other fruits to make sweeter soups and so then garnish them with something savory."

Córdoba, the mythic capital of Al Andalus - as Moorish Spain was known - remains one of the most romantic cities in all of Spain. In the maze of narrow streets in the ancient Jewish quarter, in the shadow of the monumental Mezquita, or Great Mosque, one is transported back to the 11th century, when Jews, Muslims and Christians shared the city in relative harmony. With its forest of nearly 850 marble columns, the Mezquita is one of the great architectural wonders of the world and reason enough to visit the city.

But I was in town for cold soup, since the city lends its name to a dish known as salmorejo cordobés - a sturdy form of gazpacho that, depending on whom you consult, includes more bread and less (or no) water than gazpacho and also has both hard-boiled and raw eggs for added texture and richness. In fact, it's sturdy enough that it is usually served on a plate rather than a bowl and traditionally arrives at the table topped with morsels of succulent jamón serrano and some chopped egg.

The salmorejo at El Churrasco on Calle Romero, a charmingly overdecorated Andalusian mesón, did not disappoint. Advised of my interest tracing the origins of Andalusia's cold soups, the affable waiter Paco suggested I order some crisply fried eggplant as a vehicle for the creamy salmorejo.

Salmorejo was not the only dish I tried at El Churrasco. Though I was not meant to sample it until Málaga, the ajo blanco tempted me, and for good reason. It was a luscious purée of pine nuts instead of almonds, topped with a chunky dice of acidic green apple and sweet sultanas. It quickly became clear that cold soup respects no traditional borders.

Just down the street, Casa Pepe, a lively jumble of small rooms on two floors, with a shaded patio at its heart, offers its own inspired version of ajo blanco in which a scoop of tart green apple ice cream and four translucent cubes of raisin confit float. The chef, Juan Carlo Muñoz, also offers a gazpacho of cherries with a drizzle of chive oil - maintaining the sweet-savory balance - on top, served in a short glass to be drunk.

Since gazpacho andaluz is the patrimony of an entire province and no one particular town, I was free to select the next stop on the Ruta and chose Carmona, a town most likely as old as gazpacho itself. Perched on a highly defensible hill overlooking the vast Andalusian plains, Carmona was for millennia an important stop on the trade route between Córdoba and Seville, as seen by the picturesque town's high density of Roman and Moorish ruins as well as splendidly ornate Baroque churches and grand palaces.

Restaurant San Fernando occupies an airy second-floor dining room with large windows overlooking the treetops and giddy wrought-iron pavilion in the Plaza San Fernando below. While the luxuriantly creamy soup was about the closest thing I would sample on my journey to a classic gazpacho, it was served in a bowl made of decoratively interlaced cucumber slices.

Heading southeast out of Carmona across the wide-open fields where centuries before, gazpacho's early practitioners perfected their recipes between shifts picking olives or harvesting wheat, one passes such picturesque towns as Marchena and Osuna en route to Antequera. The namesake of a soup known as porra antequerana, Antequera is perhaps even older than Carmona, given the Bronze Age complex of vast cave chambers on the outskirts of town. The Municipal Museum includes more recent cultural relics, most notably the famous first-century Ephebe of Antequera - a beautifully preserved Roman bronze sculpture of a youth.

According to most recipes, porra is basically gazpacho to which no water is added, creating a soup that is denser and slightly more acidic than most gazpachos. Most recipes call for topping it with bits of jamón serrano and hard-boiled egg, but in Antequera I didn't meet a porra that didn't also wear some tuna and tomato wedges as well. The best I had was at La Espuela, but it may have had to do with the romance of the location since the restaurant is inside the city's historic bullring.

Just 45 minutes south of Antequera is Málaga, cradle of ajo blanco. José Carlos Capel, perhaps Spain's leading food critic, suggested I go to the Michelin one-star restaurant Café de Paris to try the ajo blanco, which is allegedly garnished with a frozen red wine granita, "giving the soup a touch of nobility." I say "allegedly garnished" because Café de Paris was unexpectedly closed, so I booked at the recently opened Trayamar, where there were four cold soups on the menu - two gazpachos and two ajo blancos. The best of the bunch was a richly smooth, more or less traditional ajo blanco of almonds, but at the bottom of which floated diced mango macerated in anis-flavored liqueur.

Like Málaga itself - its historic center being rapidly revitalized - it seems that cold soups are preserving the best of their traditional incarnations, but freely updating. Five hundred years after the introduction of the tomato, it's worth considering that the Ruta de la Sopa Fría might be more about where the road is leading than where it's been.

[NYT]