Cultural Golden Age of Spain

"Modern" Spain began in the year 1469 with the marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, known as the Catholic Monarchs.  The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella united the two most important Kingdoms in the region, thus creating the Kingdom of Spain.  The forward thinking actions of Ferdinand and Isabella, notably with their support of explorers such as Christopher Columbus, was the beginning of the mighty Spanish Empire, one of the largest in the world.

Spanish conquistadors conquered civilizations and claimed vast stretches of land from North to South America for the Spanish Empire.  Throughout the 16th and 17th century, Spain was the dominate force in Europe with their famous armada ruling the sea and their famous tercios ruling the battlefield.  This period of time was also known as Spain's cultural golden age for they were also experiencing a time of flourishing arts and literature.


Art and Literature coming from the golden age of Spain include:

El Greco
Diego Velazquez
Miguel de Cervantes and his story of Don Quixote

By the mid 17th century though, Spain's dominance in Europe was waning.

Take a look at more of the art produced during Spain's cultural golden age.  Do you see similarities between different art.  Does it look like there is a shared style that defines the "golden age"?

The Spanish Language

When learning about any culture, it is helpful to learn a little something about the language.

The Spanish language is considered a romance language and began to develop in the 10th century.  Today, there are approximately 500 million Spanish speakers in the world.  In Spain, the Spanish language is called both espanol and castellano.  As with any country, different geographical areas of Spain have different dialects and variations in the language.  

The following are some basic Spanish, common Spanish phrases.  Click on the link to hear the English phrase spoken in Spanish.

Hello, how are you?

I am well, and you?

What is your name?

My name is Maggie.

Where are you from?

I am from Indianapolis.

Do you speak Spanish?

Yes, I speak a little Spanish.

Have a nice day.

Happy Birthday.

Good Morning / Good Evening / Good Afternoon

Pleased to meet you.

Help!

Learn more about the languages spoken in Spain. 

You can practice and record your own Spanish phrases using Audacity.

Spanish Cuisine

When thinking of Spanish food, many people often do not know what to expect. Spanish food varies by geography and climate. It is heavily influenced by the ocean that surrounds the country and therefore includes a lot of seafood. The food of northern Spain includes more animal fats while in the south the diet tends to be more Mediterranean in its influence.

Traditional Spanish dishes, common to nearly all areas of Spain, include Tortilla de patatas (fried potato omelet), paella (a rice based dish), a variety of stews, sausages, ham, and cheeses.

PAELLA
Paella is a common Spanish dish and is cooked in a special round, flat pan with 2 handles called a paellera. Paella is usually made with shellfish but is often also made with chicken or rabbit.

SIMPLE PAELLA RECIPE (from spain-recipes.com)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pint of olive oil

• 2 bowls of rice(1lb. 5 oz. approximately)

• 5 bowls of fish broth

• 1/2 lb. of shrimps

• 2 mid-sized squids

• 2 lb. of mussels or clams

• 1 green pepper

• 1 red pepper

• 1 small can of peas

• 1 small onion

• 2 tomatoes

• Saffron

• 1 clove of garlic (optional)

• Parsley

• Salt

Preparation:

Start to heat half of the oil and once warm toss the chopped onion. After 5 minutes, add diced tomatoes, without seeds and peeled. Let it braise about 5 minutes more, mashing the tomatoes with a skimmer. Strain it and throw it in the paella pan.

In a pot, begin to cook in cold water the shells of the shrimps, reserving the tails. In another ladle cook the mussels with little water (well washed before with water and salt). As soon as the shells open up, take them away and take off the half that doesn't have the bug, reserving the other halves and straining for a very fine strainer the broth where they have cooked, as well as that of the waste of the shrimps.

Add the rest of the oil to the paella pan. Throw the green pepper, cut to square pieces of half inch. Add the cut squid to ribbons or in fine hoops and the rice. Keep stirring with a wooden tablespoon, without letting it go brown. Throw salt, and the broth of the remains of fish, hot but not boiling. This is completed with the 5 broth bowls. Shake the paella pan a little taking it by the handles so that it is broth flows all over. All this should be made to medium fire.

Meanwhile, in a mortar mash a little bit of garlic (optional), the parsley and the saffron, with a little bit of salt so that it doesn't slip, and it wet it with a couple of soup spoonfuls of temperate water. Spill this mixture on the rice and shake again the paella pan. Incorporate now the shrimps tails and when the broth has reduced to the half decorate the paella with the red pepper cut to ribbons, the mussels and the peas.

Let it cook about 20 minutes.

Once the rice is cooked and the broth has reduced, retire the paella pan from the fire, on a wet cloth, leaving it rest for about 5 minutes.

Serve it with some big clusters of lemon without peeling like decoration.

Simple Paella Recipe

Spanish Cuisine

More recipes are available at www.spain-recipes.com. Please feel free to share your experiences with cooking and eating Spanish cuisine.

The festival of San Fermin or Sanfermines

The festival of San Fermin, held in Pamplona, Spain, occurs yearly from the 6th to the 14th of July. This festival is perhaps best known for the traditional running of the bulls, a daily event during the festival in which six bulls and six steers chase hundreds of people down a half mile stretch of road in Pamplona. The 9-day celebration includes many other traditional, folkloric events though and is Spain's largest fiesta, attracting over 1,000,000 people.

THE EVENTS OF SAN FERMIN
Chupinazo marks the beginning of the festival. The single rocket, set off at noon on the 6th of July, officially begins the week long celebration.

San Fermin Procession is the most important single event in the festival. Held on the 7th of July, the procession sees thousands of people process down the streets of Pamplona accompanied by a statue of San Fermin, the patron saint of Navarre.

Bull Fights are held daily. The six bulls driven to the ring that day during the day's running of the bulls are killed during the afternoon's bull fighting. Despite the massive size of the bull fighting ring, tickets to this daily event are hard to come by.

Parade of gigantes y cabezudos (giants and big-heads) is a daily, morning parade. The parade includes 8 150 year old giant figures representing 4 pairs of kings and queens of 4 different races and places. The remaining 17 figures in the parade include 6 kilikis and 5 big-heads (human, caricature type beings) and 6 zaldikos (horses with rider).

Pobre de Mi (poor me) is the closing event of the week long fiesta. The people of Pamplona gather in the town Plaza at midnight and sing the traditional, mournful pobre de mi song.

San Fermin

Which part of the festival sounds like the most fun to you?  Would you want to run down the streets with the bulls?

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí was a 20th century Spanish surrealist painter. Surrealism was a movement beginning in the 1920s and included elements of surprise and the unexpected. Dalí's best known work, the paining The Persistence of Memory is definitely unexpected with its depiction of melting clocks. Dalí's work often included symbolism.

Clocks, elephants, and eggs are three images that repeatedly occur in his work as symbolism. The clocks represented in The Persistence of Memory are said to represent the relativity of time and came to him while looking at a piece of melting cheese on a hot day.
While best knows for being a painter, Dalí was also produced works of film, sculpture, and photographs.


LEARN MORE!
Salvadore Dali
Surrealism


Take a look at more of the works of Dali.  The melting clocks made Dali think of cheese melting on a hot day, what do they make you think of?  How do his other works make you think and feel?
*Photo taken in London, November 2007 and depicts an elephant with long, spindly legs, one of the reoccurring images of symbolism Dali used in his work.

Cristóbal Colón - Christopher Columbus

On August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus set sail from the Spanish Coast at the behest King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. While intending to find an alternate, shorter trade route to India and the spice trade, Columbus instead, on October 12, 1492, landed at an unknown location in what is now The Bahamas, thus "discovering" North America and initiating its European colonization.

Spain celebrates October 12 as its National Day, commemorating the day Columbus set foot in America. Their celebration traditionally includes a military parade, presided over by the king.

Fiesta Nacional de Espania
Christopher Columbus

Once you learn more about Christopher Columbus try to imagine being an explorer like him.  How would it feel to set off to an unknown place and meet unknown people when you arrived?  Please share.