The Pantry at the Prado

A 1602 still life by Juan Sánchez Cotán, and a day in Toledo hunting for the quince and partridge he painted. Anyone who loves markets knows you go early. That’s when everything is freshest, the aisles are quiet, and you can ask which cut your recipe needs or which vegetables will thicken your soup. So I took the first train from Madrid to Toledo. It’s a Saturday morning at Toledo’s municipal market. There are four stalls, plus a small supermarket wedged in beside them: a charcutería, a florist, what looks like a forgotten fishmonger, and the one I came for, a greengrocer. It turns out there was no reason to come this early. Quince is in season, the man behind the counter tells me, but he doesn’t stock it anymore. Nobody buys it fresh. He picks up the phone and calls two other greengrocers in town. Neither has it. If my single-minded focus on quince sounds strange, it has a source: the paintings of Juan Sánchez Cotán, who hung apples and partridges on strings as if they were relics. I’m hunting for the world inside a bodegón, the Spanish still life. One of them, at the Prado in Madrid, is this week’s One Great Thing, well worth the early alarm and the train ride it sent me on. Continue reading Access this and all our other premium articles by joining our membership program. Plans start at $6.50 per month and include twice-weekly digital features, access to in-person events, and more.