Cooking on the Move

The Visigoths were the first to regulate the movement and grazing of livestock in open countryside. The practice was included in the Iberian Peninsula's first legal code, the Fuero Juzgo, which the Visigoths established in the year 654.

Seasonal migration was consolidated in 1273, when King Alfonso X created the Concejo de la Mesta or Council of the Mesta, a sheep farmers' assembly set up to defend and protect their interests. Seasonal migration became so important that, in the 15th century, five million sheep, goats, cows, and horses moved through Castile alone, along routes up to 370 miles (600 kilometers) long.

The Mesta essentially gave the Castillians a monopoly on the international wool trade until the 19th century, when Merino wool was first traded on the stock exchange in Amsterdam.

This economic activity explains the intricate network of cattle routes across Spain, from north to south and vice versa, along paths, tracks, and lanes. The majority of these cattle routes were abandoned over time and have been taken over by crops and urban development. This valuable historical heritage has been lost as a result of insufficient interest in their conservation.

Merino sheep are considered one of the best breeds in the world thanks to their herd instinct, ability to adapt to their environment, and excellent reproductive characteristics. They also produce meat and wool, and their milk is used to make wonderful cheeses. The production of fine Merino wool drove the development of an industrial and commercial pastoral culture that was exclusive to Spain.

Merino sheep breeding has also left its mark on popular culture, even making its way into proverbs. One famous expression, "No mezclar churras con merinas," warns against mixing Churra sheep with Merino. The saying's advice is not to conflate very different people or matters, reflecting the fact that Merino wool was much more highly prized than the coarser wool from Churra sheep.

Shepherds would spend half their lives on the road, and while they were traveling, they had to make do with little more than what they could carry in order to eat. According to Julio Camba, a 20th-century food journalist, the German philosopher Hermann von Keyserling once said that "to learn about the culinary arts of the Stone Age, one only has to visit the shepherds in the Spanish hills," such was their simple and frugal diet.

It is said that they ate two meals a day: breakfast before they turned out their sheep and dinner once they returned from pasture. Both meals would consist of bread soups (sopas de pan) or, for breakfast, fried breadcrumbs called migas, made with stale bread. These would be flavored with animal fat and olive oil (if there was any), garlic, salt, and paprika.

Shepherds would carry bread, bacon, salt-cured meat (cecina) or cheese in their packs to stave off their midday hunger, as well as a wineskin to quench their thirst. Sometimes there were chickens, which meant they could eat eggs, and they were also able to drink their animals' milk.

Certain dishes are mistakenly associated with the shepherds' diet, including three different lamb stews known as chanfaina, fritada, and caldereta de cordero. However, these dishes were only prepared on special occasions. Lambs were bred for their wool, not for their meat, and so were seldom slaughtered. In fact, the opposite was true: losing an animal to an accidental or natural death implied a financial loss.

If an animal did die, shepherds would make use of the meat by slow-cooking it in stews similar to the ubiquitous Spanish cocido (made with meat and chickpeas), drying it over the fire to make jerky, or curing it with salt.

This famous dish has been attributed to the Romans, Arabs, and native shepherds, according to different sources. Wherever it originated, this simple dish used up stale bread and anything else that was available. It spread throughout Spain over the centuries and became an extremely popular dish that is still cooked in a lot of homes today, and has even featured in haute cuisine.

This was a dish of scrambled and fried eggs, which formed part of a kind of primitive business lunch that was eaten to celebrate the settlement of shepherds' terms on Saint Peter's day. This settlement—called the ajuste—was when shepherds were hired for one whole year, and it took place on Saint Peter's day, on June 29.

These shepherds' buns were also served during the ajuste celebrations. They were the same shape and size as a loaf of bread and filled with bacon and sausage. Shepherds from the region of Maragatería in León, on the northern plateau, would eat them on certain holidays.

This stew is a typical dish in Castile and León that uses up all the discarded parts of the lamb. Traditionally, in both Castile La Mancha and Castile and León, as well as in Extremadura, masters would send their shepherds out to slaughter a lamb but would only eat the finest parts of the meat. The shepherds were able to use the rest to make a stew from the entrails and other offal, flavored with onion, garlic, red wine, bay leaf, aromatic herbs, and the ever-present paprika.

Given one of these two names, depending on the region, this is another dish in which all different parts of the lamb are stewed together, with little more than garlic and paprika. It is sometimes confused with caldereta, to the point that it can be hard to know the difference.