The climate, culture and tradition of Tierra de Caballeros and Tablas de Daimiel combine to provide a high quality and varied culinary offer that transmits this area’s passion for good food.
(…) Mirad, señor doctor: de aquí adelante no os curéis de darme a comer cosas regaladas ni manjares esquisitos, porque será sacar a mi estómago de sus quicios, el cual está acostumbrado a cabra, a vaca, a tocino, a cecina, a nabos y a cebollas; y, si acaso le dan otros manjares de palacio, los recibe con melindre, y algunas veces con asco. Lo que el maestresala puede hacer es traerme estas que llaman ollas podridas, que mientras más podridas son, mejor huelen, y en ellas puede embaular y encerrar todo lo que él quisiere, como sea de comer, que yo se lo agradeceré y se lo pagaré algún día (…)
CHAPTER 49. Part 2. On what happened to Sancho Panza in making the round of his island.
Who better than Don Quixote to talk about the gastronomy of this region, as Cervantes includes an extensive recipe book of La Mancha cuisine in his novel; a cuisine based on an agricultural economy of natural products. The dishes are highly nutritional and filling, so that farmers and shepherds could get the energy they needed for their work. Through his ingenious nobleman, Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes immortalised popular dishes such as olla (meat and vegetable stew), salpicón (chopped seafood or meat with onion, tomato and peppers), or duelos y quebrantos (fried dish made with eggs and animal fat, particularly bacon or brains) that are famous the world over.
These traditional dishes that the noblemen, shepherds, farm labourers and mule drivers ate are today offered to visitors by the area’s dining establishments.
However, if there are two culinary icons that are truly emblematic of the area, these would be authentic Manchego cheese, made with raw sheep’s milk and protected by the Manchego cheese Designation of Origin; and the wines, extraordinarily represented by the many wineries located in our municipalities.
