Anguish as a Form of Resistance: Ignacio Doménech’s Cocina de Recursos (Deseo mi comida) in Civil War Spain

Abstract

In 1940, Cocina de recursos (Deseo mi comida) was published in Spain by Ignacio Doménech, one of the most prestigious Spanish chefs before the Civil War. Doménech worked with the great Auguste Escoffier at the legendary Savoy Hotel in London before his return to Spain for work in his own food book company. This autobiographical cookbook carries a profound sense of suffering and resistance, not only because of the hardships the author endured during the war but also, as María Paz Moreno (2012) suggests, through a reading between the lines that reveals the book’s underlying message at the time of its publication, during the post-war period.