the story of cold andalusian soups

Through Andalusia, in Search of Gazpacho

By ANDREW FERREN
Published: September 4, 2005

SPAIN is a matrix of themed routes - rutas as they are known in Spanish - carefully mapped out for those looking to follow a lead. There is the Catholic pilgrimage route of Santiago de Compostela, the Ruta del Quijote, trailing Cervantes's beloved character from windmill to windmill in La Mancha, and, in season, there is even a Strawberry Train.

So doesn't gazpacho, perhaps the country's most persuasive gastronomic goodwill ambassador, deserve the same? Cold soup was addictive long before the actress Carmen Maura tossed a fistful of Valium into a blender of gazpacho in Pedro Almodóvar's 1988 film, "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown." Perhaps the ultimate indication of its appeal today might be that for just one euro, a McDonald's meal in Spain can be supersized with a refreshing cup of the stuff.
A little research conducted among chefs, food critics and historians suggested that tracing the regional origins of some of Spain's most popular cold soups - gazpacho andaluz, and its chilly culinary cousins, ajo blanco malagueño and salmorejo cordobés, among others - would form the basis of a route for travelers through Andalusia, going bowl to bowl across the lovely patchwork landscape of olive groves and jagged mountain ranges dotted with castle-crowned hilltop towns. But along this Ruta de la Sopa Fría (Cold Soup Route), which took me from Córdoba to Carmona, near Seville, and down through Antequera to Málaga, I soon learned that I was probably the only person pausing to ponder whence cometh the cooling concoctions.
According to the historian and writer Inés Eléxpuru, who has written extensively on both historical Andalusian "rutas" and the region's rich culinary legacy, "Gazpacho and other cold soups have always just been part of the gastronomic mix" for Spaniards..................