In Machado's Spain, the real meal is the comida at noon, slow and hearty. At a modest provincial teacher's table, there is no separate starter-main-dessert: first comes a soup-base (sopa) or the single pot (la olla / el cocido) eaten in several 'vuelcos' (pourings), bread is everywhere and dips into everything, and the sweet—fruit, or a fried treat on special days—closes without ceremony. In the evening, the cena is light: leftovers, eggs, bread, and wine mixed with water.

Garlic, olive oil, and pimentón (smoked Spanish paprika) form the triad that perfumes the poor cuisine of the Castilian plateaus. It is the warm red of pimentón, fried for a second in hot oil with garlic, that gives soul to soups and migas—the gustatory signature of the land that Machado sang.