Refreshing dishes for summer in Malaga

The rich and varied gastronomic offering that Malaga and its province has is clearly and evidently shown with the arrival of summer and heat. Once the time for stews has passed, gazpachos, salads and other light dishes invade the tables of Malagueños. The season begins for espetos in the beach bars, for porras and pipirranas in bars and restaurants and in each and every home.

These are dishes closely linked to popular cuisine. Malaga historian Fernando Rueda, an expert in Malaga's culinary heritage, acknowledges that they almost always arise "as a result of hardship, scarcity and hunger". In his book The Popular Cuisine of Malaga he argues that traditional food "is a popular art, just like craftsmanship or the techniques for carrying out traditional trades" and concludes that "necessity is, possibly, the cook that has contributed the most dishes to the popular gastronomic curriculum".

These are just some of the most sought-after and refreshing ones:

It is one of the most authentic dishes of Malagan gastronomy. It is a traditional recipe, although full of modernity by using a fruit as an important part of its ingredients. The cod salad with oranges appears reflected for the first time in 1931 in the book La Cocina Original de España by chef José Gómez González, although its origin dates back to the Arab period.

It is one of the oldest cold soups in Spain, since similar recipes appear in Roman cuisine (where they speak of a mixture of bread soaked with vinegar and almonds). It is a humble and nutritious dish that served as sustenance for the men who worked in the grape harvest in the countryside. It is closely linked to the Axarquía area and in towns like Almáchar they celebrate a festival to vindicate its value.

Fernando Rueda considers that this dish forms part of the "superb and magnificent trio of salads" that the coast offers along with the Malaga salad and the roasted pepper salad. It is a dish linked to men of the sea, which was prepared with those fish (or parts of them) that had no commercial value - generally hake. As an alternative, it was also prepared with octopus dried in the sun or boiled, since it was also considered of little value.

A variety of thick gazpacho, typical of the towns in the Antequera region that takes its name from the instrument with which it was worked in the dornillo or mortar. It is a fresh and very nutritious dish with clear Moorish antecedents in the use and form of the ingredients. It began being prepared without tomato; an ingredient that was added after the conquest of the Americas.

Without a doubt one of the classics of summer in Malaga. Its simple name evokes beach bars, espetos, clams... Any of these dishes could undoubtedly be on this list. The 'ensalá de pimientos asaos', as you really have to order it, was a common dish in the bodegas, where they were roasted with vine shoots. For decades it was a delicacy that was mixed with a pan of chanquetes (tiny immature fish now prohibited) freshly grilled over hot coals.