No eggs, no potatoes but ‘a lot of imagination’: how Spain cooked in war’s hunger years
Summary
The article talks about how people in Spain survived hunger after the Spanish Civil War from 1939 to 1952 by using creative recipes. A chef and writer, Berta Álvarez Acal, collected and tested these wartime recipes that used substitutes for missing ingredients like eggs and potatoes.Key Facts
- Spain faced severe food shortages after the civil war ended in 1939.
- Basic ingredients like eggs and potatoes were often unavailable; people found substitutes such as moistened bread and onion.
- Some recipes mimicked dishes like fried squid with deep-fried onion rings or used salt cod instead of fresh hake.
- Coffee was replaced by a blend of barley, malt, and chicory during the war.
- Berta Álvarez Acal researched and recreated these recipes in her book "Recetas de Guerra" (Wartime Recipes).
- Historian Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco says about 200,000 people died of starvation in Spain between 1939 and 1942.
- Food shortages were worse in cities like Madrid, Barcelona, and Valencia than in rural areas.
- The recipes show how people used imagination and made the most from limited food during very hard times.
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