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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Stephen Burgen in Barcelona

Spanish food without tomatoes and chilli? 14th-century cookbook shows you how

Patatas bravas in a black dish
Patatas bravas? Not in 1324. Photograph: Rebecca Lupton/The Observer

Forget gazpacho, patatas bravas or the tang of paprika in your chorizo. Such dishes may be considered staples of the Mediterranean diet but a new exhibition celebrating Spain’s oldest surviving cookbook suggests medieval Spanish cuisine was nothing like its modern successor.

Dating from 1324, almost 170 years before Christopher Columbus made his first voyage to the Americas and sparked a new transatlantic trade in foodstuffs, the Book of Sent Sovi is a collection of 72 recipes written in Catalan by an unknown author.

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