5 - Post-Thebussem: Regional Pluralism and the Re-vindication and Nationalization of Spanish Cuisine

Summary

Dionisio Pérez (‘Post-Thebussem’), whose three gastronomic texts, Guía del buen comer español (1929), Naranjas: el arte de prepararlas y comerlas (1930) and La cocina clásica española. Excelencias. Amenidades. Historia. Recetarios. (posthumous 1936), are the subject of my discussion in this chapter, has the most enduring celebrity of the culinary writers included in this monograph. Indeed, critics and historians of Spanish gastronomy are unanimous in their appraisal of Post-Thebussem as one of Spain's most authoritative food writers. For instance, Alberto Insúa claims that although many Spanish writers and intellectuals at the end of the nineteenth century wrote about Spanish cuisine, ‘[n]inguno alcanzó la sabiduría ni la autoridad de Dionisio Pérez, tales fueron sus investigaciones, sus curiosidades y sus estudios hasta llegar a dominarla’ (18). In a similarly congratulatory fashion, the Spanish food historian Manuel Martínez Llopis highlights how enduring Post-Thebussem's legacy is, with particular reference to his culinary guide: ‘[y] puede decirse que es constantemente utilizada y citada por cuantos se interesan por estos asuntos’ (Historia 432). Therefore, unlike most of the other culinary writers discussed here – who have either been neglected over time or disregarded as inconsequential to the history of Spanish gastronomy because of the foreignness of their culinary discourse – Post-Thebussem continues to be celebrated as one of Spain's most eminent food writers.