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A point of pride in Spain

There's an imaginary border that crosses through the South of France and northern Italy, angling through Greece and Turkey toward the Middle East. Call it the olive oil line -- to the north, the cuisines are flavored with butter and other oils; to the south, the warm Mediterranean flavors of olive oil predominate. Another culinary border follows it almost exactly: the Great Garbanzo Divide.


But there are few places where they are more popular than in Spain, where garbanzos are everyday fare and cooks argue the merits of garbanzos coming from specific areas -- Segovia or Zamora, Badajoz or Cadiz. It's where "my mother-in-law's garbanzos" are compared with "your sister's garbanzos." Or, last Sunday's garbanzos are compared with today's garbanzos.



In Spain and Latin America, the Kabuli type is most common. In Spain this includes three principal varieties -- the castellano, the pedrosillano and the blanco lechoso.

The most common is the castellano, now also widely grown in Mexico. It is rough-skinned, medium-sized (about the size of a hazelnut) and yellowish in color. A variation grown around Fuentesauco in Zamora province is especially esteemed because, cooked long and slow, it becomes creamy in texture without disintegrating. Fuentesauco garbanzos are special enough to have earned an Indicacion Geografica Protegida, a protected geographic origin, which means that they can be specifically labeled as coming from that area.

Garbanzos of the pedrosillano variety, also grown in the central region of Castilla y Leon, are tiny, fairly smooth, almost perfectly round and a dark caramel color. The blanco lechoso variety, grown in Andalusia, is pale, very large and irregularly shaped.

In Spain, garbanzos appear almost daily in the cocidos (one-pot meals) and potajes (thick soups) of every region. They have a special affinity for the strong flavors in Spanish cooking -- salt pork, sausages, tomatoes, cabbage, garlic and onions, pimenton and cumin.

The most emblematic Spanish meal including chickpeas is the grand cocido madrileno, Madrid-style meal-in-a-pot. Stewing hen, beef shin, hambone, pancetta, chorizo, morcilla sausage and chickpeas are slowly simmered with aromatic vegetables.





In Spain, where chickpeas are cooked on a daily basis, home cooks regularly use a pressure cooker to cut down on cooking time. In the pressure cooker, garbanzos cook in about 40 minutes -- and as long as they're cooked with other flavorful ingredients, it's hard to tell the difference.



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Andalusian stew (Berza Andaluza)

Total time: 2 hours

Servings: 6

Note: Morcilla (Spanish blood sausage), particularly onion morcilla, adds a spicy flavor to this stew. If morcilla is not available, add a pinch of clove, a spoonful of pimenton (paprika) and crushed garlic to the vegetable pot.

1/2 pound chickpeas, soaked overnight and drained

2 quarts hot water

3/4 pound beef shin or brisket

1/2 pound meaty pork spareribs, cut crosswise into short lengths

Small piece of hambone (optional)

2 ounces pancetta

1 (1-pound) bunch of Swiss chard, chopped

1 carrot, chopped

1 pound pumpkin or winter squash, cut in chunks

6 ounces morcilla (blood) sausage

5 peppercorns

1 teaspoon salt

1 pound boiling potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks

1. Place the drained chickpeas in a large soup pot with the hot water. Bring to a boil over high heat, skimming off the froth. Add the beef, pork ribs, hambone and pancetta. When the water comes to a boil again, reduce the heat to a very gentle simmer, cover and cook for 1 hour.

2. Stir the chard, carrot and pumpkin in with the beans. Prick the morcilla several times with a toothpick or skewer (so it doesn't pop as it cooks) and add it to the pot. Place the peppercorns in a sachet and add them to the pot, along with the salt. Cover again and continue to gently simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Stir in the potatoes, cover and gently simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 20 minutes. Remove several chunks of potatoes and pumpkin and mash them smooth. Stir the mash back into the pot to thicken the broth.

4. Remove the stew from heat and set it aside for about 10 minutes to marry the flavors. Remove the meats from the stew. Cut the meats into pieces (remove the bones), then stir the pieces back in with the stew. Remove the sachet, taste and season the stew if desired. Serve the chickpeas, meats, vegetables and broth in shallow soup dishes.

Each serving: 514 calories; 32 grams protein; 43 grams carbohydrates; 9 grams fiber; 24 grams fat; 8 grams saturated fat; 86 mg cholesterol; 7 grams sugar; 858 mg sodium.

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