June 15, 2019 • 29 mins
This soup is made and served so fresh that it's sometimes called a salad. Anney and Lauren dip into the many varieties (and histories) of gazpacho, plus the science of making a perfect bowl.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio
and Stuff Media. I'm Anneries and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and
today we're talking about gaspacco. It is Yeah, this is
another one that I remember the very first time I
had it. Yeah, it was like five years ago. It
was recent at a very fancy restaurant in Atlanta. Some
(00:31):
would call it the fanciest restaurant in at Nanta. You
knew exactly what I was talking about. Um, it was
an amuse bush and it came in this time a
rutle cup and it was so cute, and it was
so delicious. That's lovely. It's very refreshing. Yeah. Oh yeah,
I had it way back in high school. I was
(00:52):
I took a few years of Spanish in high school
because I was living in South Florida at the time.
It seemed like the thing to do. Um, and uh,
it's a lot easier than French. And and we we
had a version of gaspacco that is not like what
I'm going to describe caspacho as being in a second here.
But it was very lovely and refreshing. Yeah. Before this episode,
(01:18):
I did not realize how popular was in Spain. Oh yeah, no,
it's kind of a thing. Yeah, I don't think I
would have if you said I had in high school
Spanish class without this knowledge that I now have, I
would have been like really, but now I know and
soon you will to listeners. Becau Spaco always makes me
think of a series of unfortunate events. Oh yeah, yeah,
(01:42):
from the wide window, which I think is the third
or fourth. I think it's the third, but um quote.
As you probably know, chilled cucumber soup is a delicacy
that is best enjoyed on a very hot day. I
myself once enjoyed it in Egypt while visiting a friend
of mine who works as a snake charmer. When it's
well prepared, chilled cucumber soup has a delicious minty taste,
cool and refreshing, as if you are drinking something as
(02:03):
well as eating it. My my, my mom, my mom
would make a children conversate for my school lunches sometimes. Um. Apparently,
Gaspaco is an important plot point in The Simpsons. Red
Dwarf psych and Chowder writ in about that, yeah in
(02:26):
the in the Simpsons clip. And to be fair, we
just pulled this up and watched it to make sure
we knew what we were talking about. We wouldn't want
to get anything about the Simpsons wrong. Yeah, Lisa tries
to encourage a vegetarian option of at at a barbecue
and and it goes over as well as you might
(02:47):
have met. Yes, but she didn't use the best descriptor
for it. I would say not to criticize Lisa, and yeah,
it is really popular in Spain. A Spanish refrain goes
quote there's never too much. Oh, it's it's it's um
vegaspaco no I am paco. Um. It literally translates to
(03:10):
something like there's no indigestion, where gaspacho is concerned, but um,
but has come to be used to mean um, you
can't have too much of a good thing. Ah. Yeah,
that's lovely. But this all brings us to our question
what is it? Well, gaspacho is a raw vegetable soup
(03:34):
blended and served chilled. What those vegetables are can vary
pretty widely, but the classic uh Spanish and delusion version
features tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumber. Key to making this
not just like salsa? Is it? You blend or pure
that vegetable stuff with olive oil and stale bread, creating
this lovely creamy emulsion and giving the soup some body. Also,
(03:56):
the tomatoes seeds should be sieved out and the skins
are usually removed. This version is often seasoned with just
a salt pepper and a splash of vinegar, preferably sherry vinegar,
and the result is kind of tart and vegetable and refreshing,
but also smooth and comforting. Yeah mm. The name most
likely comes from an Arabic word for soaked bread, or
(04:16):
perhaps a pre Roman word for residue and or fragment,
or a Greek word for collection box, which sometimes folks
would put bread into those collection boxes, okay, or a
Hebrew word meaning break into little pieces. Yeah, because traditionally
you're going to make it with a mortar and pestle,
and so yes, grind those ingredients into little pieces. Yes,
(04:39):
So lots of options there. Will get more into the
history as per usual. Little bit later, I found some controversies,
of course, to use onion or not to use onion,
and if so much garlic yes, no, spicy peppers cuman cuman. Yeah,
(05:06):
just like to make some rhymes when they're they're they're
uh yeah, there there are, Um, there are lots of
controversies about what you should and should not put in
different types of gaspacho, but there are a lot of
varieties and related dishes. Um. Really, gaspacho is a use
up what you've got sort of dish, like I use
what's freshest and ripest, So anything can go. In terms
(05:27):
of your vegetable and or fruit bass. I've read recipes
that include stuff like grapes, strawberries or honeydew melon, and
I am intrigued right to possible additions to add body
are ground almonds or pine nuts, or hard boiled eggs
or raw eggs or homemade mayo. Uh. Flavorings can include
citrus juice and fresh herbs for garnishes, anything from diced
(05:49):
vegetables of the varieties that you've put into cooked seafood
or boiled egg or cured ham or chopped olives or
tasted croutons, and on and on and on and on
and on. And we could probably have have a stiff
argument about whether adding almonds means you should just go
ahead and take out the tomatoes and make an aja blanco. Um,
And at what point the ratio of bread tomato makes
(06:12):
it a Gaspacho versus salt maejo versus Poora and taquarana.
Lots of lots of variation in there. Yeah, a little
little bit of wiggle room, some wiggle room, but not
too much wiggle room. No, no, this is the thing.
This is the sort of thing that people do have
opinions about. I am I'm not versed enough in it
(06:33):
to have opinions. Also, I really can't eat like classic
gaspacho because Bell Peppers. Right, I've only had it the twice,
and I've only had the tomato one, the one with
tom right. Yes, so I also cannot wait in too much.
(06:55):
We'll have to We'll have to figure it out. We'll
have to go. We'll just have to go to Spain. Done,
all right, agreed, that's the simplest way to do it. Yeah. Yeah,
there are even some versions served hot. I know what?
Yeah what? Oh well, I don't know about that. I'm
(07:20):
sorry if I've said something too shocking, I you have.
That was a shocker. I don't know if I can recover.
Oh my goodness. Alright, alright, um, it is super popular
in Spain. People drink it straight. I saw many pictures
of just gaspacho and people's refrigerators kind of like the
like a picture of or like a cardboard you know.
Here you just get like a cardboard milk thing. And yeah,
(07:44):
it's's frequently served in a glass, so yeah, some people
drink it every day. It's a hot weather. Go to
some Spanish cookbooks classified gaspacho as a salad. It would
be in the salad section of their cookbook, a liquid
salad salad uh And nutrition wise, you know, it depends
on what you put in it, but it's like a
(08:06):
liquid salad, lowish in fat and sugars, with a good
punch of protein and micronutrients here vitamins and minerals. It's
got a lot of vitamin C in particular. And one
study out of Tufts University had its participants ecaspaco twice
a day in addition to their usual diet, and within
a week, the subjects had lower amounts of these stress
related compounds in their blood um the kinds of things
(08:28):
that indicate cellular and system dysfunction, like chronically. These compounds
can cause progressive damage from inflammation and are part of
like the plaques that cause heart disease. Researchers think that
the vitamin c Inpaco is primarily responsible. Uh so a
nice picker up. Yeah phrase, yeah it is. Now it's
(08:49):
a it's a good way to get your vegetables. Yes, yes,
I concur um numbers on you might be shocked to
here are hard to find, but I would wager there's
quite a lot of it being consumed in Spain in particular. Yes, yes,
i'd say it Waxes and Waynes and popularity through other
(09:12):
other places in the world. Yeah, I would agree. And
this just about brings us to our history section. But
first it brings us to a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,
(09:33):
thank you. Okay. So I I have some opinions about
this myself, Oh goodness. But some historians say that ancient
Roman soldiers were making an early Formspaco with their rations,
which we did touch on in our m R. E episode,
but as a reminder, olive oil, bread, salt, garlic, and vinegar.
(09:57):
Still others saying there was a Gospaco prototype in the Bible.
Throughout history, we have searched for ways to use up
stale bread, and by we I mean humanity, yes, not
just lord enough right, And in the book of roof.
There is a mention of dipping bread in vinegar. Is
it is that the I mean, is it exactly? Is it?
(10:21):
But it does come up when you look up history
of Gaspacho, and I guess you can say it's a
very very early, early relative. I feel like usually there's
a bit of a closer uh connect. But I am
not the foremost store and expert on this, so I
will I will include it in here. Yes, some believe
(10:45):
that the Arabs, who occupied Spain from the eighth century
to the twelveth century CE, brought with They brought white
soup with them, made with almonds, bread, garlic, salt, and
olive oil. And this is that a whole bluncle that
I was talking about earlier. Um and grapes are melon
are used for garnish or sometimes in the soup it
celf o um. But yeah, yeah, this this is considered
(11:08):
a legit uh Gaspacho adjacent dish. I feel like we're
throwing some shade, and I don't mean to personally. I
don't know how this happened. Maybe I was just in
a spicy mood when I wrote this. One of the
first records of Gaspacho was in a medicinal book, prescribing
(11:29):
it for stomach acountments, soften the stomach and prevent future faction.
Oh yeah, that is what it was supposed to help
you with. Sure, okay, sounds nice. In the seventeenth century,
Don Quixote's pal Sancho Ponzo mentioned gaspacho quote, A reaping
hook fits my hand better than a governor scepter. I'd
rather have my fill of gaspacho than be subject to
(11:52):
the misery of a meddling doctor. H Tomatoes have been
a key ingredient in Gaspaco since the nineteenth century, making
the so called red Gaspaco that went international. See our
tomato episode, which is one of my faves for more.
But basically, Spain was cultivating tomatoes soon after Columbus brought
(12:12):
them back from his journey. Definitely by the sixteenth century.
It took a minute for tomatoes to catch on because
people thought that they were poisonous or like possibly caused
you to become a werewolf. I feel bad laughing because
I'm sure it was very serious. But in are these
are modern ears? It sounds funny, it does? It is?
(12:33):
It is humorous to imagine someone avoiding eating a tomato.
Because it might make them a werewolf, it is, but
also living a little on the wild side and using
it for decoration only, all right, because because yeah, like like,
look at this expensive, toxic thing, and look at how
daringly close it is to my uh eating food et humans.
(12:56):
I love you. I could become a werewolf at any minute.
Gaspaco like this red gaspaco did follow us soon after
the tomatoes. People who planted and harvested tomatoes used gaspacho
to keep them going. Landowners sometimes hired gaspace aros who
are people to make this cheap food and serve it
(13:17):
to the folks working on the field so they could
keep working even longer. A seventy seven description of gaspaco
entailed soaking bread crust first and water, then in a
sauce of garlic and choby bones, vinegar, sugar, salt, and
olive oil. Wants the bread of soften fruits and vegetables
were added in. And yes, uh, keep in mind that
(13:39):
blenders did not exist at this point in history, so
I mean neither did refrigerators. So so two of the
important elements that we have in making gaspaco today we're missing.
Um And yeah, these these big wooden bowls and big
wooden pestles would have been used to grind all the
ingredients together into kind of like a paste andaco and
gaspacco and mark out. At the time, it was definitely
(14:04):
viewed as a food of the working class. From the
sixteen eleven book The Treasury of the Spanish Language, it
listed gaspacho as quote food for vulgar people. But by
the nineteenth century it had been embraced by the bourgeoisie.
But they of course fancied it up with a bowl
what oh my goodness, cut shop, boiled eggs, peppers and tomatoes,
(14:29):
all of these were options. It was like kind of
like a bar situation. We're could be like, I want
this anyway. In for Napoleon the Third's wife, Eugenia de
Montello introduced France to gaspaco around this time as well,
and perhaps largely to northern Spain, because the dish came
out of Andalusia at the southern chunk of Spain. And yeah,
(14:49):
she insisted that gaspacho was served during their wedding banquet.
Apparently in eighteen fifty three, the dish had made its
way to America. By the eighteen hundreds, It was included
in Mary Randolph's cookbook The Rginia Housewife. Um, although it
was called gaspacho and the recipe didn't seem to call
for smooching, so I'm not sure. I think it might
have just been like a salad, like an actual like salad,
(15:10):
like not a liquid salad, but a salad salad. And
apparently it became a trendy by the nineteen sixties here
in the States. In sixty three one, Betty Wasson wrote
in the Art of Spanish Cooking that quote, almost overnight, gaspacho,
the soup salad of Spain, has become an American food fashion.
(15:30):
American food fashion. M m. Yeah. It was a plot
point from the Oscar nominated film Women on the Verge
of a Nervous Breakdown. Um. And the plot point is
that laced with sleeping pills. Yeah, yeah, I think I
think valium. Maybe you watch this, you watch this character
like like putting the ingredients for gaspacho in a blender
(15:52):
and just shoving in like a handful of valium. Oh
why uh you know they're women on the verge of
a nervous down. It's right there in the kind of
your right what am I thinking. Um. And as of
today in Spain, you can add a cup of gaspacho
to your McDonald's meal for around a euro. Oh that's
(16:13):
healthy than a lot of the options we have. Goodness,
I know, um And on rather the other end of
the food spectrum, chefs are doing all sorts of lovely
sounding things, adding diced mango, macerated and an east liqueur uh,
serving it in bowls made of woven cucumber slices, topped
with with red wine, granada or green apple ice cream.
(16:34):
I know I want to eat all of those things.
I do too, I have to say, I don't. I
feel like I don't see gaspaco on menus around here
too often, but I would love to see some of these. Yeah.
I can't think of the last time that I saw
it on a menu in Atlanta, giving it in a
little thimble. I don't think they even do that anymore,
(16:55):
because I'm pretty sure they change how they home menu.
Sure questions for later, Yes, yes, but this brings us
to the end of our history. We do have some science.
But first we've got one more quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
(17:23):
thank you and yes we're back with gaspacho. Science. There's
science for everything. It's wonderful there is, I know, huh
so because gaspacho is a simple dish that highlights the
flavors of raw vegetables. If you're gonna make spaco, you
want the best ripest vege that you can find. Felicity Cloak,
writing for The Guardians, said, there's no point in making
(17:44):
it with anything less than obscenely ripe ingredients. Obscenely right.
I loved um and further as my very favorite food
science writer one J Kenji Lopez Alt pointed out over
on Serious Eats, the fact that you're not cooking this
means that you need to find other ways to bring
out the flavor of your vege. Part of that is
(18:06):
a literal physical bringing out, because the flavor of a
plant is often largely locked up inside of it's a stiff,
protective cell walls. Um. Those flavors come from molecules that
the plant uses to to grow and to thrive. When
we apply heat to foods um, we're softening those cell
walls to get that good stuff out. But heat is
not the only way we can do this. No, no. Now,
(18:29):
of course, that the part of gaspacho where you blend
or pure a. It means you're you're busting open some
cell walls from like pure mechanical force. But there are
a couple things that you can do to help the
process along and make sure that you're getting the most
out of those lovely, obscenely ripe ingredients. First, maceration maceration um,
(18:50):
not mastication. That's different, uh, And it's also different from
another word that frequently people con confuse it. I think
I did that on this very show once. Um Asceration
is soaking something so that it softens and and breaks
down a bit um. And a fun thing about fruit
and vegge is that you can mass rate them in
their own juices. Because of science. If you sprinkle vegetables
(19:12):
with salt, it'll draw water out of the cells and
then get to work on and then that water will
get to work on softening those vegetables, and a bonus
along with that water, some water soluble compounds will come
along for the ride, and some of those compounds our flavor.
So if you chop up your cospatcho ingredients and then
sprinkle them with salt and let them sit for like
a thirty minutes or more, they'll go juicy and get
(19:34):
softer and release some of their flavors. This also works
with sugar. If you're making like a fruit salad and
can be really it can be really nice, just a
really good punch to like kind of just make everything
a little bit. If you're looking for crisp, it's not
the way to go unless you put paper towels on
top and then set something on top, because that's how
I make UM. I make lasania, but the noodles are
(19:54):
like zucchini, and you put salt on there and then
you put paper towels and and a weight and it
helps get it drain out the liquid reid. Yes, excellent.
Oh now I want lasagna, okay um. And in the
case of gaspacho, UM, you'll also want to mascerate your
bread just by soaking it in water. UM. You should
(20:17):
probably drain the softened breads that you're not watering down
the final soup. M But next after masceration, you can
do something that I would normally never recommend doing to
a tomato. You freeze it. I know. The reason that
you normally do not want to freeze or even really
(20:37):
refrigerate tomatoes is that they are very cold sensitive. A
deep chill will soften their delicate cell walls and make
them go all mushy, which is the opposite of what
you want a tomato to be. Um, but that's actually
exactly what we're looking for here. So yeah, salt your edge,
freeze it overnight, and then thought before blending, get the
(20:58):
most out of him. Also for best results, um, I
have seen it suggested to refrigerate your gaspacho overnight so
that all of the flavors really melt together. Yeah. Yeah,
actually too lazy to do that. And a lot of
times I read it and there's a part of my
brain says, no, I can't be true, just because I
know what's going on. You just don't want to wait.
(21:19):
Oh yeah, I feel that one. I never I never
remember to. This is why I don't bring food to parties,
or if I do, it's like I got carrots and
some humus really available, will taste good? How how it is? Yes?
Those are good too? Oh hey, they're delicious. M I
think I'm just hungry. Yeah, I think I am too.
(21:41):
I don't know what's going on right now. That's about
all we have to say. That is that is relatively
short episode. Um, but but please, uh, folks out there
from who are from Spain or who have visited. Uh,
if you have an in gaspacho stories, we would love
to hear them. Or recipes. Oh good, so are recipes?
Yeah yes, but we have heard in the meantime from
(22:04):
some other listeners because we are now at listener Ma
too cool. Their school like Spaco, except that your school
apparently you had in Spanish. Yeah, it's a big world
out there. It's a wild world in Spanish class Corel Springs,
(22:28):
Florida is a wacky place. Well, I believe that, but
so many strip malls anyway, yes, anyway, Geneva wrote, I
grew up in the midwest, North Dakota, to be exact,
and lived within three blocks of a Taco John. Yeah,
we had a Taco Bell, but it wasn't as popular
as the Taco John's in Bismarck. I did not realize
(22:49):
that a majority of the states did not know the
glorious Taco John's until moving out to Oregon. We got
some great street tacos here, so not missing their tacos,
but very once in a while I get a craving
for potato alais, which are basically salty coin sized tater
tots with the delicious and unhealthy nacho cheese sauce to
dip them. When I was in Nebraska, there was a
(23:12):
Taco Bell on one side the street and a Taco
John's on the other side near my work, and at lunch,
I would go to Taco Bell to get a Dorita's
lecos taco and Taco John's to get lays, then go
back and have a fantastic meal in my car. That
sounds amazing. So many people have written in about Taco Johnson,
every single one of them no joke mentioned the potato Lays,
(23:34):
which I think now is just updated and has a
different cartain, which is a big deal apparently. Yeah, so
if you're in the region someone passing through live there,
uh Taco John's Potato checking out a sponsorship. No, just
saying what the listeners have have informed us. We are
(23:56):
merely reporting exactly exactly. Rose wrote, I really enjoyed your
recent episode on the Humble Sweet Potato as they are
delicious and brought back one of my fondest memories of
my one year study abroad to Tokyo, Japan. Picture it.
It's the fall of two thousand seven. I'm once again
a stranger in a strange land. I'm German and immigrated
to the US at age fifteen, freshly arrived from Seattle
(24:18):
to Tokyo to partake in a year long intensive program
at the best private university Kale. Each evening I walled
myself off in my private dorm room, studying away, feeling
culture shock and utterly lost in this new environment. Until
one evening in early October, a mournful cry matched my
homesick melancholy, the voice from a passing loud speaker called Yumaima.
(24:46):
At first, I paid no mind to these morning cries.
I could hardly understand what the sad voice was even saying.
In just three short weeks, I had heard similar messages
announcing the gas men, political candidates, the large appliance, household,
recycling truck, and more. They there is a truck and
allowed speaker in Japan for every possible surface. Unlike these others,
who would at most only come around once a week,
(25:07):
the Yucky Emo truck began to come by every single night,
interrupting my studies. The other trucks came by midday or
early evening. Yucky Emo man came by late at night,
seven eight or nine o'clock. Finally I couldn't take it.
Who was the sad, yucky emo man and what was
a yucky emo? I had to find out. So one night,
when his melancholy cries started up, I dropped my studies
(25:29):
to follow the mysterious voice. I chased him down narrow
streets blocked by dead ends. I'd turn right, he'd go left,
past the cemetery in the old neighborhood Buddhist temple. Then
I turned the corner and there it was a small,
flatbed Japanese truck with a raging wood burning fire. In
the bed of the truck. Over the fire was a
roasting drum, like what's used to roast chilies in the
fall in the United States. I was gobsmacked. The radiant
(25:53):
heat was so intense I could feel it from a
yard away. As I approached the truck, a young child
and his mother excitedly exchanged money for a brown paper bag.
As soon as the boy received the bag, he tore
it open to reveal a perfectly roasted sweet potato. He
split the sweet potato in half, and without ceremony, dug in.
No condiments needed in that instant, watching this scene unfold,
(26:13):
I realized I was looking at the Japanese version of
the ice cream Man. I was hooked. I ordered two
on the spot and never looked back. That's beautiful, I
would like to say, because this is not a visual medium,
we were doing interpretive reading. Oh yes, yeah, not per se.
It's a dance adjacent but very close, not quite but
(26:37):
very close. That sounds amazing. I would love that. Oh yeah,
that that sounds so good. Um And and I hope
I don't think I quite captured the melancholy that it
sounds like this. This man was was crying his wares
with He did a pretty excellent job. Also, my Japanese
is super rusty, so I hope that I got most
(26:58):
of those words vaguely correct, did better than I would
have done. Well, there you go, there you go. I
also wanted to include um A Shannon sent us a
picture that she witnessed in downtown Chicago. And it's a
Hostess Twinkie trailer and it looks like a big Twinkie.
It's a giant It's a real giant Twinkie trailer. Um.
(27:22):
It is a thing of beauty, it really is. It's
I would be so disappointed when I if I like,
boarded this trailer and it wasn't filled with cream. Though
that's true, we can't we can't delve in anymore. We
can't let the dream die because right now we can
still believe it. It's just just a giant yeah. Um, oh, twinkies.
(27:44):
I never had a twinkie. You've never had a twinkie? Yes,
And our coworker Ramsey, for a while he wanted to
do like an up close twinkie action video of me
trying it, and it never happened on like moral grounds
or no. No, it's just never ever come away. Okay, Yeah,
all right, well thanks to work on Yes, self improvement
(28:06):
were always a work in progress. You know, I've got
a lot of good traits, but on the bad side,
never had a twinkie. Probably a lot of people are like,
she is weird. Something is clearly off. I don't think
I had one until college. My dad was very firm
about not having food like that in the house. And
(28:29):
thanks to all three of them for writing. Yeah, you
two can write to us and we would love to
hear from you our emails. Hello at savor pod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Twitter and Facebook and Instagram all at Savor Pod. We
do hope to hear from you. Savor is a production
of I Heart Radio and Stuff Media. For more podcasts
(28:49):
from my Heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thank you as always to our superproducers Dylan
Vagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
Hello, and welcome to Savor Protection of I Heart Radio
and Stuff Media. I'm Anneries and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and
today we're talking about gaspacco. It is Yeah, this is
another one that I remember the very first time I
had it. Yeah, it was like five years ago. It
was recent at a very fancy restaurant in Atlanta. Some
(00:31):
would call it the fanciest restaurant in at Nanta. You
knew exactly what I was talking about. Um, it was
an amuse bush and it came in this time a
rutle cup and it was so cute, and it was
so delicious. That's lovely. It's very refreshing. Yeah. Oh yeah,
I had it way back in high school. I was
(00:52):
I took a few years of Spanish in high school
because I was living in South Florida at the time.
It seemed like the thing to do. Um, and uh,
it's a lot easier than French. And and we we
had a version of gaspacco that is not like what
I'm going to describe caspacho as being in a second here.
But it was very lovely and refreshing. Yeah. Before this episode,
(01:18):
I did not realize how popular was in Spain. Oh yeah, no,
it's kind of a thing. Yeah, I don't think I
would have if you said I had in high school
Spanish class without this knowledge that I now have, I
would have been like really, but now I know and
soon you will to listeners. Becau Spaco always makes me
think of a series of unfortunate events. Oh yeah, yeah,
(01:42):
from the wide window, which I think is the third
or fourth. I think it's the third, but um quote.
As you probably know, chilled cucumber soup is a delicacy
that is best enjoyed on a very hot day. I
myself once enjoyed it in Egypt while visiting a friend
of mine who works as a snake charmer. When it's
well prepared, chilled cucumber soup has a delicious minty taste,
cool and refreshing, as if you are drinking something as
(02:03):
well as eating it. My my, my mom, my mom
would make a children conversate for my school lunches sometimes. Um. Apparently,
Gaspaco is an important plot point in The Simpsons. Red
Dwarf psych and Chowder writ in about that, yeah in
(02:26):
the in the Simpsons clip. And to be fair, we
just pulled this up and watched it to make sure
we knew what we were talking about. We wouldn't want
to get anything about the Simpsons wrong. Yeah, Lisa tries
to encourage a vegetarian option of at at a barbecue
and and it goes over as well as you might
(02:47):
have met. Yes, but she didn't use the best descriptor
for it. I would say not to criticize Lisa, and yeah,
it is really popular in Spain. A Spanish refrain goes
quote there's never too much. Oh, it's it's it's um
vegaspaco no I am paco. Um. It literally translates to
(03:10):
something like there's no indigestion, where gaspacho is concerned, but um,
but has come to be used to mean um, you
can't have too much of a good thing. Ah. Yeah,
that's lovely. But this all brings us to our question
what is it? Well, gaspacho is a raw vegetable soup
(03:34):
blended and served chilled. What those vegetables are can vary
pretty widely, but the classic uh Spanish and delusion version
features tomatoes, bell peppers, and cucumber. Key to making this
not just like salsa? Is it? You blend or pure
that vegetable stuff with olive oil and stale bread, creating
this lovely creamy emulsion and giving the soup some body. Also,
(03:56):
the tomatoes seeds should be sieved out and the skins
are usually removed. This version is often seasoned with just
a salt pepper and a splash of vinegar, preferably sherry vinegar,
and the result is kind of tart and vegetable and refreshing,
but also smooth and comforting. Yeah mm. The name most
likely comes from an Arabic word for soaked bread, or
(04:16):
perhaps a pre Roman word for residue and or fragment,
or a Greek word for collection box, which sometimes folks
would put bread into those collection boxes, okay, or a
Hebrew word meaning break into little pieces. Yeah, because traditionally
you're going to make it with a mortar and pestle,
and so yes, grind those ingredients into little pieces. Yes,
(04:39):
So lots of options there. Will get more into the
history as per usual. Little bit later, I found some controversies,
of course, to use onion or not to use onion,
and if so much garlic yes, no, spicy peppers cuman cuman. Yeah,
(05:06):
just like to make some rhymes when they're they're they're
uh yeah, there there are, Um, there are lots of
controversies about what you should and should not put in
different types of gaspacho, but there are a lot of
varieties and related dishes. Um. Really, gaspacho is a use
up what you've got sort of dish, like I use
what's freshest and ripest, So anything can go. In terms
(05:27):
of your vegetable and or fruit bass. I've read recipes
that include stuff like grapes, strawberries or honeydew melon, and
I am intrigued right to possible additions to add body
are ground almonds or pine nuts, or hard boiled eggs
or raw eggs or homemade mayo. Uh. Flavorings can include
citrus juice and fresh herbs for garnishes, anything from diced
(05:49):
vegetables of the varieties that you've put into cooked seafood
or boiled egg or cured ham or chopped olives or
tasted croutons, and on and on and on and on
and on. And we could probably have have a stiff
argument about whether adding almonds means you should just go
ahead and take out the tomatoes and make an aja blanco. Um,
And at what point the ratio of bread tomato makes
(06:12):
it a Gaspacho versus salt maejo versus Poora and taquarana.
Lots of lots of variation in there. Yeah, a little
little bit of wiggle room, some wiggle room, but not
too much wiggle room. No, no, this is the thing.
This is the sort of thing that people do have
opinions about. I am I'm not versed enough in it
(06:33):
to have opinions. Also, I really can't eat like classic
gaspacho because Bell Peppers. Right, I've only had it the twice,
and I've only had the tomato one, the one with
tom right. Yes, so I also cannot wait in too much.
(06:55):
We'll have to We'll have to figure it out. We'll
have to go. We'll just have to go to Spain. Done,
all right, agreed, that's the simplest way to do it. Yeah. Yeah,
there are even some versions served hot. I know what?
Yeah what? Oh well, I don't know about that. I'm
(07:20):
sorry if I've said something too shocking, I you have.
That was a shocker. I don't know if I can recover.
Oh my goodness. Alright, alright, um, it is super popular
in Spain. People drink it straight. I saw many pictures
of just gaspacho and people's refrigerators kind of like the
like a picture of or like a cardboard you know.
Here you just get like a cardboard milk thing. And yeah,
(07:44):
it's's frequently served in a glass, so yeah, some people
drink it every day. It's a hot weather. Go to
some Spanish cookbooks classified gaspacho as a salad. It would
be in the salad section of their cookbook, a liquid
salad salad uh And nutrition wise, you know, it depends
on what you put in it, but it's like a
(08:06):
liquid salad, lowish in fat and sugars, with a good
punch of protein and micronutrients here vitamins and minerals. It's
got a lot of vitamin C in particular. And one
study out of Tufts University had its participants ecaspaco twice
a day in addition to their usual diet, and within
a week, the subjects had lower amounts of these stress
related compounds in their blood um the kinds of things
(08:28):
that indicate cellular and system dysfunction, like chronically. These compounds
can cause progressive damage from inflammation and are part of
like the plaques that cause heart disease. Researchers think that
the vitamin c Inpaco is primarily responsible. Uh so a
nice picker up. Yeah phrase, yeah it is. Now it's
(08:49):
a it's a good way to get your vegetables. Yes, yes,
I concur um numbers on you might be shocked to
here are hard to find, but I would wager there's
quite a lot of it being consumed in Spain in particular. Yes, yes,
i'd say it Waxes and Waynes and popularity through other
(09:12):
other places in the world. Yeah, I would agree. And
this just about brings us to our history section. But
first it brings us to a quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsored, Yes,
(09:33):
thank you. Okay. So I I have some opinions about
this myself, Oh goodness. But some historians say that ancient
Roman soldiers were making an early Formspaco with their rations,
which we did touch on in our m R. E episode,
but as a reminder, olive oil, bread, salt, garlic, and vinegar.
(09:57):
Still others saying there was a Gospaco prototype in the Bible.
Throughout history, we have searched for ways to use up
stale bread, and by we I mean humanity, yes, not
just lord enough right, And in the book of roof.
There is a mention of dipping bread in vinegar. Is
it is that the I mean, is it exactly? Is it?
(10:21):
But it does come up when you look up history
of Gaspacho, and I guess you can say it's a
very very early, early relative. I feel like usually there's
a bit of a closer uh connect. But I am
not the foremost store and expert on this, so I
will I will include it in here. Yes, some believe
(10:45):
that the Arabs, who occupied Spain from the eighth century
to the twelveth century CE, brought with They brought white
soup with them, made with almonds, bread, garlic, salt, and
olive oil. And this is that a whole bluncle that
I was talking about earlier. Um and grapes are melon
are used for garnish or sometimes in the soup it
celf o um. But yeah, yeah, this this is considered
(11:08):
a legit uh Gaspacho adjacent dish. I feel like we're
throwing some shade, and I don't mean to personally. I
don't know how this happened. Maybe I was just in
a spicy mood when I wrote this. One of the
first records of Gaspacho was in a medicinal book, prescribing
(11:29):
it for stomach acountments, soften the stomach and prevent future faction.
Oh yeah, that is what it was supposed to help
you with. Sure, okay, sounds nice. In the seventeenth century,
Don Quixote's pal Sancho Ponzo mentioned gaspacho quote, A reaping
hook fits my hand better than a governor scepter. I'd
rather have my fill of gaspacho than be subject to
(11:52):
the misery of a meddling doctor. H Tomatoes have been
a key ingredient in Gaspaco since the nineteenth century, making
the so called red Gaspaco that went international. See our
tomato episode, which is one of my faves for more.
But basically, Spain was cultivating tomatoes soon after Columbus brought
(12:12):
them back from his journey. Definitely by the sixteenth century.
It took a minute for tomatoes to catch on because
people thought that they were poisonous or like possibly caused
you to become a werewolf. I feel bad laughing because
I'm sure it was very serious. But in are these
are modern ears? It sounds funny, it does? It is?
(12:33):
It is humorous to imagine someone avoiding eating a tomato.
Because it might make them a werewolf, it is, but
also living a little on the wild side and using
it for decoration only, all right, because because yeah, like like,
look at this expensive, toxic thing, and look at how
daringly close it is to my uh eating food et humans.
(12:56):
I love you. I could become a werewolf at any minute.
Gaspaco like this red gaspaco did follow us soon after
the tomatoes. People who planted and harvested tomatoes used gaspacho
to keep them going. Landowners sometimes hired gaspace aros who
are people to make this cheap food and serve it
(13:17):
to the folks working on the field so they could
keep working even longer. A seventy seven description of gaspaco
entailed soaking bread crust first and water, then in a
sauce of garlic and choby bones, vinegar, sugar, salt, and
olive oil. Wants the bread of soften fruits and vegetables
were added in. And yes, uh, keep in mind that
(13:39):
blenders did not exist at this point in history, so
I mean neither did refrigerators. So so two of the
important elements that we have in making gaspaco today we're missing.
Um And yeah, these these big wooden bowls and big
wooden pestles would have been used to grind all the
ingredients together into kind of like a paste andaco and
gaspacco and mark out. At the time, it was definitely
(14:04):
viewed as a food of the working class. From the
sixteen eleven book The Treasury of the Spanish Language, it
listed gaspacho as quote food for vulgar people. But by
the nineteenth century it had been embraced by the bourgeoisie.
But they of course fancied it up with a bowl
what oh my goodness, cut shop, boiled eggs, peppers and tomatoes,
(14:29):
all of these were options. It was like kind of
like a bar situation. We're could be like, I want
this anyway. In for Napoleon the Third's wife, Eugenia de
Montello introduced France to gaspaco around this time as well,
and perhaps largely to northern Spain, because the dish came
out of Andalusia at the southern chunk of Spain. And yeah,
(14:49):
she insisted that gaspacho was served during their wedding banquet.
Apparently in eighteen fifty three, the dish had made its
way to America. By the eighteen hundreds, It was included
in Mary Randolph's cookbook The Rginia Housewife. Um, although it
was called gaspacho and the recipe didn't seem to call
for smooching, so I'm not sure. I think it might
have just been like a salad, like an actual like salad,
(15:10):
like not a liquid salad, but a salad salad. And
apparently it became a trendy by the nineteen sixties here
in the States. In sixty three one, Betty Wasson wrote
in the Art of Spanish Cooking that quote, almost overnight, gaspacho,
the soup salad of Spain, has become an American food fashion.
(15:30):
American food fashion. M m. Yeah. It was a plot
point from the Oscar nominated film Women on the Verge
of a Nervous Breakdown. Um. And the plot point is
that laced with sleeping pills. Yeah, yeah, I think I
think valium. Maybe you watch this, you watch this character
like like putting the ingredients for gaspacho in a blender
(15:52):
and just shoving in like a handful of valium. Oh
why uh you know they're women on the verge of
a nervous down. It's right there in the kind of
your right what am I thinking. Um. And as of
today in Spain, you can add a cup of gaspacho
to your McDonald's meal for around a euro. Oh that's
(16:13):
healthy than a lot of the options we have. Goodness,
I know, um And on rather the other end of
the food spectrum, chefs are doing all sorts of lovely
sounding things, adding diced mango, macerated and an east liqueur uh,
serving it in bowls made of woven cucumber slices, topped
with with red wine, granada or green apple ice cream.
(16:34):
I know I want to eat all of those things.
I do too, I have to say, I don't. I
feel like I don't see gaspaco on menus around here
too often, but I would love to see some of these. Yeah.
I can't think of the last time that I saw
it on a menu in Atlanta, giving it in a
little thimble. I don't think they even do that anymore,
(16:55):
because I'm pretty sure they change how they home menu.
Sure questions for later, Yes, yes, but this brings us
to the end of our history. We do have some science.
But first we've got one more quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,
(17:23):
thank you and yes we're back with gaspacho. Science. There's
science for everything. It's wonderful there is, I know, huh
so because gaspacho is a simple dish that highlights the
flavors of raw vegetables. If you're gonna make spaco, you
want the best ripest vege that you can find. Felicity Cloak,
writing for The Guardians, said, there's no point in making
(17:44):
it with anything less than obscenely ripe ingredients. Obscenely right.
I loved um and further as my very favorite food
science writer one J Kenji Lopez Alt pointed out over
on Serious Eats, the fact that you're not cooking this
means that you need to find other ways to bring
out the flavor of your vege. Part of that is
(18:06):
a literal physical bringing out, because the flavor of a
plant is often largely locked up inside of it's a stiff,
protective cell walls. Um. Those flavors come from molecules that
the plant uses to to grow and to thrive. When
we apply heat to foods um, we're softening those cell
walls to get that good stuff out. But heat is
not the only way we can do this. No, no. Now,
(18:29):
of course, that the part of gaspacho where you blend
or pure a. It means you're you're busting open some
cell walls from like pure mechanical force. But there are
a couple things that you can do to help the
process along and make sure that you're getting the most
out of those lovely, obscenely ripe ingredients. First, maceration maceration um,
(18:50):
not mastication. That's different, uh, And it's also different from
another word that frequently people con confuse it. I think
I did that on this very show once. Um Asceration
is soaking something so that it softens and and breaks
down a bit um. And a fun thing about fruit
and vegge is that you can mass rate them in
their own juices. Because of science. If you sprinkle vegetables
(19:12):
with salt, it'll draw water out of the cells and
then get to work on and then that water will
get to work on softening those vegetables, and a bonus
along with that water, some water soluble compounds will come
along for the ride, and some of those compounds our flavor.
So if you chop up your cospatcho ingredients and then
sprinkle them with salt and let them sit for like
a thirty minutes or more, they'll go juicy and get
(19:34):
softer and release some of their flavors. This also works
with sugar. If you're making like a fruit salad and
can be really it can be really nice, just a
really good punch to like kind of just make everything
a little bit. If you're looking for crisp, it's not
the way to go unless you put paper towels on
top and then set something on top, because that's how
I make UM. I make lasania, but the noodles are
(19:54):
like zucchini, and you put salt on there and then
you put paper towels and and a weight and it
helps get it drain out the liquid reid. Yes, excellent.
Oh now I want lasagna, okay um. And in the
case of gaspacho, UM, you'll also want to mascerate your
bread just by soaking it in water. UM. You should
(20:17):
probably drain the softened breads that you're not watering down
the final soup. M But next after masceration, you can
do something that I would normally never recommend doing to
a tomato. You freeze it. I know. The reason that
you normally do not want to freeze or even really
(20:37):
refrigerate tomatoes is that they are very cold sensitive. A
deep chill will soften their delicate cell walls and make
them go all mushy, which is the opposite of what
you want a tomato to be. Um, but that's actually
exactly what we're looking for here. So yeah, salt your edge,
freeze it overnight, and then thought before blending, get the
(20:58):
most out of him. Also for best results, um, I
have seen it suggested to refrigerate your gaspacho overnight so
that all of the flavors really melt together. Yeah. Yeah,
actually too lazy to do that. And a lot of
times I read it and there's a part of my
brain says, no, I can't be true, just because I
know what's going on. You just don't want to wait.
(21:19):
Oh yeah, I feel that one. I never I never
remember to. This is why I don't bring food to parties,
or if I do, it's like I got carrots and
some humus really available, will taste good? How how it is? Yes?
Those are good too? Oh hey, they're delicious. M I
think I'm just hungry. Yeah, I think I am too.
(21:41):
I don't know what's going on right now. That's about
all we have to say. That is that is relatively
short episode. Um, but but please, uh, folks out there
from who are from Spain or who have visited. Uh,
if you have an in gaspacho stories, we would love
to hear them. Or recipes. Oh good, so are recipes?
Yeah yes, but we have heard in the meantime from
(22:04):
some other listeners because we are now at listener Ma
too cool. Their school like Spaco, except that your school
apparently you had in Spanish. Yeah, it's a big world
out there. It's a wild world in Spanish class Corel Springs,
(22:28):
Florida is a wacky place. Well, I believe that, but
so many strip malls anyway, yes, anyway, Geneva wrote, I
grew up in the midwest, North Dakota, to be exact,
and lived within three blocks of a Taco John. Yeah,
we had a Taco Bell, but it wasn't as popular
as the Taco John's in Bismarck. I did not realize
(22:49):
that a majority of the states did not know the
glorious Taco John's until moving out to Oregon. We got
some great street tacos here, so not missing their tacos,
but very once in a while I get a craving
for potato alais, which are basically salty coin sized tater
tots with the delicious and unhealthy nacho cheese sauce to
dip them. When I was in Nebraska, there was a
(23:12):
Taco Bell on one side the street and a Taco
John's on the other side near my work, and at lunch,
I would go to Taco Bell to get a Dorita's
lecos taco and Taco John's to get lays, then go
back and have a fantastic meal in my car. That
sounds amazing. So many people have written in about Taco Johnson,
every single one of them no joke mentioned the potato Lays,
(23:34):
which I think now is just updated and has a
different cartain, which is a big deal apparently. Yeah, so
if you're in the region someone passing through live there,
uh Taco John's Potato checking out a sponsorship. No, just
saying what the listeners have have informed us. We are
(23:56):
merely reporting exactly exactly. Rose wrote, I really enjoyed your
recent episode on the Humble Sweet Potato as they are
delicious and brought back one of my fondest memories of
my one year study abroad to Tokyo, Japan. Picture it.
It's the fall of two thousand seven. I'm once again
a stranger in a strange land. I'm German and immigrated
to the US at age fifteen, freshly arrived from Seattle
(24:18):
to Tokyo to partake in a year long intensive program
at the best private university Kale. Each evening I walled
myself off in my private dorm room, studying away, feeling
culture shock and utterly lost in this new environment. Until
one evening in early October, a mournful cry matched my
homesick melancholy, the voice from a passing loud speaker called Yumaima.
(24:46):
At first, I paid no mind to these morning cries.
I could hardly understand what the sad voice was even saying.
In just three short weeks, I had heard similar messages
announcing the gas men, political candidates, the large appliance, household,
recycling truck, and more. They there is a truck and
allowed speaker in Japan for every possible surface. Unlike these others,
who would at most only come around once a week,
(25:07):
the Yucky Emo truck began to come by every single night,
interrupting my studies. The other trucks came by midday or
early evening. Yucky Emo man came by late at night,
seven eight or nine o'clock. Finally I couldn't take it.
Who was the sad, yucky emo man and what was
a yucky emo? I had to find out. So one night,
when his melancholy cries started up, I dropped my studies
(25:29):
to follow the mysterious voice. I chased him down narrow
streets blocked by dead ends. I'd turn right, he'd go left,
past the cemetery in the old neighborhood Buddhist temple. Then
I turned the corner and there it was a small,
flatbed Japanese truck with a raging wood burning fire. In
the bed of the truck. Over the fire was a
roasting drum, like what's used to roast chilies in the
fall in the United States. I was gobsmacked. The radiant
(25:53):
heat was so intense I could feel it from a
yard away. As I approached the truck, a young child
and his mother excitedly exchanged money for a brown paper bag.
As soon as the boy received the bag, he tore
it open to reveal a perfectly roasted sweet potato. He
split the sweet potato in half, and without ceremony, dug in.
No condiments needed in that instant, watching this scene unfold,
(26:13):
I realized I was looking at the Japanese version of
the ice cream Man. I was hooked. I ordered two
on the spot and never looked back. That's beautiful, I
would like to say, because this is not a visual medium,
we were doing interpretive reading. Oh yes, yeah, not per se.
It's a dance adjacent but very close, not quite but
(26:37):
very close. That sounds amazing. I would love that. Oh yeah,
that that sounds so good. Um And and I hope
I don't think I quite captured the melancholy that it
sounds like this. This man was was crying his wares
with He did a pretty excellent job. Also, my Japanese
is super rusty, so I hope that I got most
(26:58):
of those words vaguely correct, did better than I would
have done. Well, there you go, there you go. I
also wanted to include um A Shannon sent us a
picture that she witnessed in downtown Chicago. And it's a
Hostess Twinkie trailer and it looks like a big Twinkie.
It's a giant It's a real giant Twinkie trailer. Um.
(27:22):
It is a thing of beauty, it really is. It's
I would be so disappointed when I if I like,
boarded this trailer and it wasn't filled with cream. Though
that's true, we can't we can't delve in anymore. We
can't let the dream die because right now we can
still believe it. It's just just a giant yeah. Um, oh, twinkies.
(27:44):
I never had a twinkie. You've never had a twinkie? Yes,
And our coworker Ramsey, for a while he wanted to
do like an up close twinkie action video of me
trying it, and it never happened on like moral grounds
or no. No, it's just never ever come away. Okay, Yeah,
all right, well thanks to work on Yes, self improvement
(28:06):
were always a work in progress. You know, I've got
a lot of good traits, but on the bad side,
never had a twinkie. Probably a lot of people are like,
she is weird. Something is clearly off. I don't think
I had one until college. My dad was very firm
about not having food like that in the house. And
(28:29):
thanks to all three of them for writing. Yeah, you
two can write to us and we would love to
hear from you our emails. Hello at savor pod dot com.
We're also on social media. You can find us on
Twitter and Facebook and Instagram all at Savor Pod. We
do hope to hear from you. Savor is a production
of I Heart Radio and Stuff Media. For more podcasts
(28:49):
from my Heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. Thank you as always to our superproducers Dylan
Vagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and
we hope that lots more good things are coming your way.
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Anney Reese
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