Spanish cookbook revives resourceful recipes from post-civil war food scarcity

A new cookbook by chef Berta Álvarez Acal compiles recipes from Spain's post-civil war era, when basic ingredients were scarce. The book includes substitutes like bread for potatoes in tortillas and onion rings for squid, drawing on historical sources and family manuscripts. It highlights how creativity and improvisation helped people endure severe food shortages during that period.

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The recipes emerged from a period when Spain's urban centers suffered most acutely, with historian Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco estimating roughly 200,000 starvation deaths between 1939 and 1942. Rural populations could supplement diets with olives and homegrown produce, but city dwellers faced conditions worse than during the conflict itself, as livestock fodder like beetroot and turnips became human fare.

Álvarez discovered her great-aunt's handwritten recipe collection marked "wartime," then expanded her research to include Ignacio Doménech's wartime substitution manual. She and her circle recreated the dishes, finding some surprisingly palatable while others fell short. The