a Spanish term whose meaning has evolved over the centuries. It is now most familiar in the form of Andalusian gazpacho, which is typically a cold soup with various vegetable ingredients, notably garlic, tomato, and cucumber. However, a gazpacho may be served hot during the winter; and in its original form, derived from the Arabs who occupied much of Spain from the 8th to the 13th centuries, the essential ingredients were bread, garlic, olive oil, vinegar, salt, and water. These ingredients were pounded in a mortar, and the result was very similar to Ajo blanco (ajo meaning garlic and blanco meaning white) or Sopa de ajo (garlic soup), two other ancient dishes which still survive.
Garlic was and remains the dominating flavour element. Bread is used to provide thickness and heartiness. (In some very early gazpachos the bread is left in small pieces and not blended in with the other ingredients. If the bread is pounded in the mortar, it blends with the water and oil.) Vinegar is important for the refreshing qualities of those gazpachos that are particularly associated with warm weather; and it provides a link to Roman culture, as it was the Romans who popularized throughout their empire the use of vinegar for refreshment purposes.
Gazpachos can thus range in consistency from very liquid to almost solid. The internationally famous Andalusian gazpacho, which is said to have been introduced to France by Eugenia de Montijo of Granada, the wife of the Emperor Napoleon III, is of the liquid kind, and kitchens in the south of Spain always have a supply on hand, ready to pour into glasses as a refreshing summer drink, or to serve as a cold soup with various finely chopped ingredients as garnish.
Ingredients from the New World, notably tomato, were not incorporated into gazpachos until comparatively recent times. Thus the recipe for gazpacho given by Juan de la Mata (Arte de reposteria, 1747) had none of these ‘new’ ingredients.
Less common types of gazpacho may include ingredients such as little pieces of fish or ham, hard-boiled (US hard-cooked) egg, green grapes, raisins, etc. Blanched almonds figure in the gazpacho of Antequera; red peppers and cumin seeds in that of Granada; and so on. The name gazpachuelo refers to an interestingly different gazpacho from Malaga; it may incorporate both angler-fish and small clams, potato, and mayonnaise, and is commonly served hot in winter.
Alicia Rios, a gastronomic consultant in Madrid, has written books on food history and cookery and also works in the field of aesthetics.
