ciadoncha; ¡cuántos recuerdos - Webpages at SCU - Santa Clara ...

One participant commented how at one time, onion soup was eaten morning,
afternoon, and night in Ciadoncha. Today, all the restaurants offer this dish as a special.
He smiled and told me- “Before, onion soup was food for the poor”- He later told me
that in those times, if someone came to the door and the family was eating onion soup,
they would hide it. I think the same happened with nut-brittle. This was the food that the
pastors took to the field. At one point, it was seen as less by everyone else, but today we
pay whatever for a good piece of nut-brittle, either hard or soft.
In the magazine we found an article about the preparation of bread. In it, some
people explained how and when this work was done. It involved kneading and kneading,
at least for one hour. The dough, which was made of sifted flour, salt, water and yeast,
had to get hard enough. Then, a cross was made in the dough and it was covered with a
cloak for about two hours, until it rose. Then it had to bake. In those times, all the
houses did not have ovens, unlike today with all the modern stoves. There were several
ovens, but back then they were very expensive so they had to ask for a turn. Sometimes
they had to get up very early because they baked twice, in the morning and in the
afternoon.
They heated the oven with straw or firewood, throwing it in handfuls or bent
down on their knees. When the oven turned white, the inside was cleaned out and the
bread was placed inside. First the oil tarts and then the large loafs. They baked for 15
days. Sometimes the bread would get moldy and they would have to eat it, taking off the
worst parts. They stored the bread in a room, in a corner –“It smelled so good when we
passed by”- commented the narrator (10).
In Ciadoncha, whatever is eaten is what has been prepared at home that day. For
many years, refrigerators were maintained empty. First because it was not customary to
store food from one day to the next. Then, since they had lived without one for so many
years they had developed other methods of conservation and were not in need of the
modern refrigerator. Today we see more than anything that the freezer is kept full of
meat from the sacrifice and of products from the orchard.
A typical breakfast in Ciadoncha.
Photo Lucía Varona
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