On my way to inspect the damascene factory I had noticed, at Calle de Santo Tomé, 6, an attractive restaurant whose main dining room was the patio of an old convent. It was run by a vigorous young man named Mariano Díaz and his robust, handsome wife Sagrario. ‘And seven others, all members of the family;’ Don Mariano explained. He was proud of this restaurant and wanted to talk about it. ‘I’m from Toledo. My father has a restaurant of his own on the other side of town and I’ve always wanted to be in the business. It was Sagrario’s father who started this one, and I took over when I married Sagrario. Her father came from Valencia, during the Crusade. He couldn’t stand the Communists who were in control of the city, so he fled. Started a bar on this corner, but the big growth came when Sagrario and I took over. We have 225 seats now and during most of the summer they’re filled every noon. We pay commission to no one … no guides, no tourist agencies, no runners. We don’t want that kind of business. You look at us and if you like the way we look … We spend a lot of time keeping this place clean and attractive, and all of our business comes from walking tourists who say, “That old convent looks interesting. Let’s eat there.” It used to be a Franciscan convent. We rent it.’
Señor Díaz was the kind of man I enjoy meeting in any field of endeavor, because he loved his work and took pride in explaining its tricks and triumphs. He was a big, tall man with an expressive face, a young man, too, barely in his thirties, filled with plans for a better Toledo. ‘Some of us younger people wanted to put up a hotel, a real fine place where you wouldn’t be ashamed to stay. We figured about sixteen thousand dollars a room and we could have financed it, but then we asked ourselves, “what will we do about the winter?” And the more we studied, the more we realized that any money we made in summer would be lost in winter, when nobody comes here. Maybe we’ll work out something else. I’m not worrying. I have enough to keep me busy trying to make this a fine restaurant. Did you see where the French guide gave us a two-fork rating? You can get a fine meal with us and not spend too much money. We offer three different menus. A la carte, and you can get a good meal from it for a dollar eighty-five. Special lunch of the house, a dollar thirty. And of course, the tourist menu at one fifty-five. How do the customers choose? A la carte forty percent, house special thirty percent, tourist thirty percent. Our very best meal, I would say, was partridge Toledo-style. Estupendo! There’s a farm not far from here that kills two or three thousand partridges a day in season. The French, who know good cooking, always go for partridge because at two-twenty it’s a sensational bargain. The norteamericanos? Well, they don’t understand that game has to be hung. Sometimes they say it smells, so we take it back and serve them boiled chicken. They say it doesn’t smell.’
I spent a long time with the Díaz family, nine of them including the wife’s sister, who must be the most beautiful waitress in Spain. Kitchen, washrooms, tables and crockery were all immaculate. ‘The government’s smart,’ Díaz said. ‘They have one corps of restaurant inspectors who live in Toledo, another in Madrid. They send the Toledo men to inspect Madrid and the Madrid men out here to inspect us. You could be one of the Madrid men, for all I know. They pull tricks like that on us, but they have no problem with me because we police ourselves. We try to do everything possible to make tourists happy, and the disgraceful business you had when you ordered from the tourist menu too late would never happen here. The girls speak a lot of languages. French is most important, especially in a restaurant, because a norteamericano sits down and says, “Bring me that,” but the Frenchman wants to know does it have a sauce, are the vegetables fresh, is the cream chilled. Frankly, the French are more fun, but we do everything we can to make the norteamericanos feel at home. They will spend money if they’re encouraged.’
As to the food in El Plácido, as the quiet place was appropriately named, it was among the best I had in Spain. Don Mariano and his wife tried to push the stewed partridge, but when I resisted, they shrugged their shoulders and he said, ‘It’s the French who know how to eat. I suppose you want boiled chicken?’ I took the mixed salad, which was crisp and delicious.
Right across the street, at Calle de Santo Tomé, 5, stood an element of the tourist industry which had always fascinated me, the marzipan factory of Rodrigo Martínez, who ran the big retail shop on the Zocodover where trays of marzipan in various shapes have seduced generations of travelers. In Spain this delicacy is called mazapán and has many distinctive qualities which differentiate it from brands sold elsewhere in the world. Señor Martínez was a small, conservative man in his fifties, cautious in all he did and said, and quite unable to understand why a stranger would be interested in anything so Spanish as a mazapán factory. Gingerly, as if I were a commercial spy, he released one bit of classified information after another in what was one of the most painstaking interviews I have ever conducted.
‘If it weren’t for the oil contained in the seed kernel of the almonds,’ he began in the middle, ‘mazapán would last indefinitely, like the dried meat they chop up in northern countries.’ I must have shown my bewilderment at such a beginning, for he added slowly, ‘You’re probably like all other strangers and think that we get our almonds from Andalucía in the south. But we don’t. The almonds that do grow down there aren’t very good. We get ours from orchards along the Mediterranean coast. South of Valencia. Some of the best almonds in the world and to my taste much better than those grown in Arab countries. More consistent. Almonds and oranges grow in the same kind of soil and the same climate, so they compete.’
He must have concluded that was all I needed to know about mazapán because he stopped. After some moments of silence he added cautiously, ‘If you did want to make mazapán you’d get the best almonds you could find and dip them in boiling water, then run them through this friction machine, which scrapes off the skin. Look at that pile of skins. It has no commercial use whatever, doesn’t even burn well. When the almonds are clean and shining white you move them over to this machine, but be careful to set the grinding wheels fairly far apart. Into the hopper you put one part almonds, one part cane sugar, and this machine breaks the almonds into pieces and mixes the sugar with them. Almonds cost about eighty-five cents a pound and sugar about ten cents a pound, so you can see that there’s a great temptation to put in a lot of sugar and a little almond, but that makes wretched mazapán. Watch out for the man who puts in less than half almonds. You now throw the whole mass back into the grinder, but this time you set the wheels very close together, so that the almonds are pulverized. Then you press the paste into forms and bake it in a moderate oven for about fifteen minutes, take it out, paint it with a glaze of water and sugar and finish it off for another ten minutes to give that lovely brownish crust. That’s the best mazapán you can get in the world.’
Señor Martínez was still suspicious, but he asked softly, ‘Would you care to see what we do for Christmas?’ I tried to show the enthusiasm I was feeling, and he brought down from a high shelf a set of empty circular boxes covered with bright decorations. ‘Into these round boxes we coil long lengths of mazapán made in the shape of eels. They have scales of sugar, eyes of candy, and are filled with crystallized cherries, candied sweet potato, apricot jam and sweetened egg yolks. This big box sells for about four dollars, and lots of children think the thing inside is a real serpent, but of course it’s only mazapán. I supply stores all over Spain and some in América del Norte, too.’
I said that I was especially fond of marzipan and frequently bought small samples in America, at which his face took on the glazed look that overtakes a Frenchman when you praise California wine. ‘I’m afraid that in América del Norte you’ve never tasted real mazapán. Friends have sent me samples and it’s mostly sugar. Very bad. But wait a minute. In Mexico City there’s a man who learned how to make mazapán here in Toledo. During the Crusade he was on the other side, and when peace came he didn’t want to live in Spain any longer, so he went to Mexico.’ He paused, evidently remembering his long-absent friend, e
xiled from Toledo by the Civil War. ‘I’ve heard some very good things about the quality of mazapán he’s making in Mexico, but I’m sure you don’t get any of it in New York.’
The interview had ended and I was about to leave when I saw a sign which read: ‘Exquisite paste for making the classic almond soup, in packages of any weight, eighty-seven cents a pound.’ ‘Is that how you make almond soup?’ I asked with some excitement. ‘Do you know our great almond soup?’ he asked, his face brightening. ‘I was introduced to it the other day. Best soup I ever tasted. Like angels’ wings.’ He became positively animated and said, ‘Even better. We make a paste …’ as if he could not believe my sincerity, he asked, ‘Do you really like almond soup? Norteamericanos don’t usually like it. It’s the French who know something good when they taste it.’ I assured Señor Martínez that from the first moment I had tasted this delicious soup, fragrant and heavy with flavor, I had delighted in it. ‘The first bowlful they gave me had a rose petal floating in it. One rose petal, deep red against snowy white.’ He realized that I knew what I was talking about and said, ‘We don’t use rose petals much any more. But we make the paste. You take two hundred grams of the paste and one liter of very cold, rich milk. You add a little handful of sweet biscuits well flavored and a small touch of carnela.’ I asked him what carnela was, thinking that he must mean caramelo. No, he meant carnela. Everybody knew what carnela was, but my dictionary didn’t give the word, so I didn’t find out. ‘You put these together and beat them thoroughly. Then serve ice-cold … or if it’s Christmas, when we use almond soup a lot, you can heat it. Like our sign says, it’s a classic.’
As we talked we were surrounded by trays full of marzipan, some plain, some shaped in little cups and filled with apricot jam, and now Don Rodrigo offered me samples, delighted to have found someone who appreciated his art. As I ate, he said, ‘After the battle of Navas de Tolosa in the year 1212 there was famine in many parts of Spain, so the monks of San Clemente convent, here in Toledo, developed the secret upon which our industry is founded. How to crush almonds so they will stay good to eat after four or five months. We sent our paste throughout Spain and that’s how Toledo became famous for this delicacy. The secret? Well, when I was telling you how to make mazapán … the wheels and the sugar and the hot water … well, I didn’t tell you everything.’
Much later, when I happened to have a bowl of almond soup in Madrid, the host sprinkled it with cinnamon. ‘Canela,’ he said. ‘The final touch.’
When I left the marzipan factory I wandered to the west and came to a promenade that ran along the top of a cliff, from which I could look down into the river below. As I strolled along I came to a notable old building which stood hidden behind a high brick wall, as if it were a jewel under protection. A creaking gate let me into a Moorish garden which could have existed in that spot a thousand years ago when the Moors still occupied Toledo. Palm trees and lemon and orange grew in lovely patterns. In one corner a fountain bubbled, sending echoes across the graveled walks, and there were benches from which I could study at leisure the low and unimpressive building. I could not identify it: possibly it had been a mosque, or a synagogue or a church, for it seemed to partake of many characteristics. At the bottom it was built of unfinished brick; at the top, of a muddy stucco, which had begun to peel. The windows were off-center and the entrance was notable principally for a very old wooden door decorated in Moorish design.
I pressed against the door and it opened slowly to reveal a most beautiful building which looked like a mosque. The interior was filled by twenty-four octagonal columns, each topped by a capital of Arabic design supporting Moorish arches, but when I looked for the Muslim mihrab which would show worshipers the direction of Mecca, I found instead a Christian altar, for this was the famous Santa María la Blanca church and its origin was one of the compelling stories of Toledo.
To understand it we must leave Santa María and go to another part of Toledo, where in the Plaza Santo Domingo el Real we find imbedded in a wall a plaque which reads: ‘Memorial to the fiestas which the Valencian colony of Toledo held in honor of San Vicente Ferrer solemnizing the Fifth Centennial of his glorious death, May 1919.’ Vicente Ferrer was an inspired Dominican orator who operated around Valencia at the end of the fourteenth century. His preaching was so persuasive that he was credited with the conversion of thousands in lands as remote as Ireland and Italy. He was especially famed for his ability to convince Jews of their error and was responsible for converting many. In 1405 he came to Toledo to deliver a series of sermons against the Jews, which caused one historian to describe him as ‘the bloodthirsty enemy of the Jews, intolerant and vehement, with an oratorical style both vibrant and tempestuous and a destructive eloquence without par.’
Following one inflamed sermon, his audience became so infuriated with the obstinacy of Toledo’s Jews who refused to heed the words of Ferrer that they swarmed out of church, ran through the streets gathering a mob and burst into the Moorish building which I have been describing. It was then operating as a synagogue, from which the mob hauled all Jews they could find, dragged them to the promenade overlooking the river, cut their throats and threw them onto the rocks below. In one tremendous spasm the Jews of Toledo were practically eliminated, and no sooner were they gone than their synagogue was consecrated a church, and so it remains to this day.
One would suppose that after such tragedy the Jews would have had enough of Toledo, but a few years later the quota was again about normal. Jewish traders flourished, and although their original synagogue had been lost to them, since a building once consecrated could not revert to a prior use, they were encouraged to worship in another building nearby, which still stands as Spain’s finest example of a synagogue. Thus matters stood until 1492, when Queen Isabel, acting under guidance and pressure from Cardinal Cisneros, decreed that all Jews in her kingdom must either convert to Christianity or go into exile. It is strange, in this day, to read on the interior wall of the cathedral a huge sign which commemorates the expulsion:
In the year 1492, on the second day of the month of January, Granada with all its kingdom was captured by the monarchs Don Fernando and Doña Isabel, the Most Reverend Don Pedro González de Mendoza, Cardinal of Spain, being archbishop. This same year, at the end of the month of July, all the Jews were expelled from all the kingdoms of Castilla, of Aragón and of Sicily. The following year 93 at the end of the month of January, this holy church was completed, Don Francisco Fernández de Cuenca, archdeacon of Calatrava, being in charge of the decoration, painting and tracery of the vaults.
I had not intended saying anything about ‘The Burial of Count Orgaz,’ the chief work of El Greco, for this has been so well and so repeatedly described that there seemed little I might add, but I passed the church of Santo Tomé so often on my way to the synagogue of Santa María la Blanca or to the damasquinado shop of Señor Simón that I thought it silly not to revisit the magisterial painting; however, I did not do so until one afternoon when a party of English tourists asked me the way to St. Ptomaine’s and I accompanied them to the church, where I took a seat with them and decided simply to look at the painting as if I had never seen it before. Santo Tomé’s makes it easy to see its stupendous El Greco: a section of the church is set aside for this purpose, with eight comfortable Renaissance armchairs facing the picture, plus benches for ten and folding chairs for an additional thirty-five. It was late afternoon and we were the only group in the church; soon the English travelers left and I was alone in my Renaissance chair with the marvelously fresh and well-lighted canvas before me.
Tourist wares.
Like most universal masterpieces, this one has many fine passages and others that are frankly bad. There are three glaring defects: the picture breaks into two unrelated halves, an upper and a lower; the yellow-robed angel that is supposed to unite them is one of the sorriest figures El Greco ever drew and fails completely in his mission (in Spain all angels must be male); and the clouds of little bodiless angel
s consisting only of head and wings are ridiculous and, unlike the similar putti of Raphael and the other Italians who used the convention with charm, accomplish nothing. The unresolved breaking into two halves is caused by that much-vaunted line of heads which is one of the glories of the work but which in its excellence creates a problem that El Greco could not surmount. The faulty angel is poorly designed, poorly placed and poorly executed, which is curious, since El Greco used the same device with success in other paintings. As for the clouds of bodiless angels, I am not one to discuss El Greco’s success or failure with this device because to me the convention has always seemed stupid, but I do know that in this great work it clutters up the heavens with ugly or even repulsive forms, whereas in certain Italian works it seems to add a sense of mysterious unearthliness. What I object to most, however, is that the putti are badly painted, and as one looks at the canvas with a fresh eye unimpeded by what others have seen, they merely add to the general clutter of a work that was poorly organized to begin with.
On the other hand, as I slowly studied the canvas I found hidden beauties which had escaped me on previous visits. In the lower left-hand corner of the painting, the right-hand panel of St. Stephen’s cloak contains a small inserted depiction of the stoning of St. Stephen, which would have constituted one of the world’s principal art treasures had it been painted as a full-scale canvas of its own. The naked figures throwing rocks would have anticipated Cézanne’s ‘Bathers’ by three hundred years. In fact, this little excerpt is so good that it alone would establish El Greco as a major painter. I was similarly struck by the group of the heavenly musicians in the cloud to the Virgin’s right, that is, at the extreme left-hand margin of the painting. These three in their powerfully sculpted robes are drawn and painted about as well as figures could be when seen from below, and I wondered that I had not noticed them before. Again, if they had formed the subject matter for a full-sized canvas, they would now be famous. The marvelous figure of St. Peter, robed in saffron, with two giant keys dangling from the limp right hand, proves once more the affinity El Greco felt for this particular saint; he never painted Peter better than here, and in doing so, achieved one of his most successful religious portraits. But when one looks at the painting for a long time, three or four hours perhaps, one is struck mostly, I think, by that host of paradise that fills the upper right-hand corner. Here are the tormented figures from the streets of Toledo, the half-idiots that El Greco loved to paint, the aimless ones, the God-driven. They crowd in upon the scene, beseeching the Virgin to receive the soul of the Conde de Orgaz and present it to Christ, robed in white, who waits above. They are a remarkable assembly, more compelling and more Spanish, I think, than the notables lined up below, even though El Greco himself stands among the latter. For me the painting repeats the dichotomy of Spain that we saw earlier in the two paintings by El Greco and Goya: the sober, secure and well-groomed nobles who now keep and have always kept Spain under rigid control, and the wonderfully human peasant types whose fiery passions have provided the torment and vision of the land, but as I look at the latter crowding heaven I ask, ‘If this is paradise, what must hell be like?’