who they were still hunting down. Some of the most obvious
differences were pork, rabbit, and shellfi sh—none of which are
kosher, but are fi xated on by the Spanish. The fi rst major early modern cookbook was Diego Granado’s
Libro del Arte de Cozina (“Book on the Art of Cooking”). It is no
coincidence that it’s published right at the start of the new reign
of Philip III in 1599. (There were none published during the reign
of Philip II.) Unfortunately, almost all of it is pirated directly from
Scappi, without attribution, so it’s not really a Spanish cookbook. The era of Don Quixote, in the 17th century, explains partly why
Spain sets the culinary fashion throughout Europe. Despite the
fact that Spain now had an enormous empire stretching around
the world, it also had serious economic problems. This was partly
because of fi nancing expensive wars—trying to hold onto the
Netherlands, for example—but it was also because the American
colonies grew fi nancially independent. Oddly, Spain was also comparatively depopulated, which made
it quite different from the rest of Europe. Aside from emigration
to the New World and expulsions, the economy was to a great
extent controlled by powerful Castilian nobles who preferred to
live in leisure, buying paintings and sipping chocolate, rather than
investing their savings or innovating. This meant that agriculture
stagnated, and Spain was even forced to import grain. Ironically, despite economic disaster, the Spanish court blithely
went about the business of entertaining itself in grand style and, for
a brief time, was at the forefront in matters artistic and gastronomic.
In the reigns of Philip III and IV, great artists and poets were
patronized, and Spanish fashions were imitated everywhere. For a
while, Spain had the most dazzling court in Europe.Maceras’s Cookbook
The fi rst cookbook of the Golden Age was actually not written for
the court, but for a college dining hall: Domingo Hernández de