La Vida Toledana: Week 5
February 19, 2017
Exploring outside of Toledo these past couple weeks has been eye-opening. Despite its size, Spain has incredibly vibrant culture in every corner and in between. Exemplifying this variety are its languages; in addition to Castellaño (the language we Americans consider Spanish) there are six regional languages among other dialectal variants. While I still find new things every day in Toledo, our program trips and my own travels have given me a larger context of Spain and helped me situate myself in Castilla-La Mancha.
This variety is part of why I was excited to be studying in such a central locale as Toledo. While each region has its own claims to fame, La Mancha seems to be a crossroads. With its obvious historic and cultural importance, the region is ripe with curiosities and unique towns that seem to correspond with the wayward travels of Spain’s favorite maybe-fictional, perhaps actual character: Don Quijote de la Mancha
This past week we had our first of two cooking workshops, held at a highly-regarded local Chef school. I was thrilled to finally find out the secrets of preparing the Spanish tortilla, which is nothing like what you might be picturing. In Spain, a tortilla refers to the magical result of mixing potatoes and egg and sometimes other ingredients, in this case onions. We also sampled some more whimsical culinary treats and a traditional dessert of La Mancha, Flores Manchegas.
Being in the land of Don Quijote, Caballero de la Triste Figura is truly an experience. I somehow evaded studying Miguel de Cervantes’ brilliant novel, which is regarded as the first modern novel, in all my 8-10 years of Spanish studies (I’m not sure if I should count middle school). But when I learned that there was a class on Don Quijote as part of our program, I was ecstatic—what better place to study it than Toledo, where you can live and breath the events of the text?
Our professor for the course is phenomenal and full of energy. If she seems at all crazy, like the novel’s titular character, I must admit that I too feel like I’m losing my mind gradually as we delve further into the reading. We haven’t read it in a linear manner, interrupted by a laughably simplified adaptation, and we have spent a lot of time discussing the author, about whom an equally interesting book could be—and likely has been—written. But we now have tossed the adaptation and are studying the original text from the early 17th century.
On Saturday, we had a program excursion that, for the eight of us in the Don Quijote class, was less of a departure from our studies and rather an entry into the meat of the novel. In Consuegra, southeast of Toledo, we visited a ridge lined with the style of windmills so iconic to the region and so essentially symbolic of Don Quijote. The delusional, self-declared knight’s most infamous adventure is his affront with an army of giants that are, delusions aside, simple windmills.
The rocky ridge was beautiful and blanketed in blue sky and pillows of cloud. While the windmills are no longer functional, with a little of Don Quijote’s locura, one can imagine how they once would have appeared as menacing, terrible gi—I mean, a beautiful array to reduce the woes of flour-making. We toured the local castle, whose colorful history is a microcosmic account of the colorful cycle of Spanish rule.
We ended our trip with yet more gastronomic treats of La Mancha, including Migas, which is very similar to our stuffing and one of my favorite dishes so far. Although our reading load might have quintupled after opting for the original text over the adapted version, our understanding of it will only grow, bolstered by our proximity to the various places that make up the novel’s setting and our ability to wake up in it every day.
