Remembering Clara Maria González de Amezúa
Earlier in August, I was planning to write my monthly Substack article about ways to make traveling more pleasant, even when faced with the worst of situations.
However, on August 16th, the world of gastronomy lost a very special person – Clara Maria González de Amezúa – and my travel tips went out the window. So, this Substack, instead, celebrates Clara Maria for all that she was and all that she did. To say she is special is an understatement.
She was most of all special to her family – eight children and many grandchildren – and the people she worked with. The notice of her death (below) was posted on the Instagram page of Alambique, the store and school she founded in Madrid. I couldn’t say it better, and you will certainly get a sense of her passion, impact and import.
Mother, grandmother, friend, traveler, businesswoman and tireless ambassador of Spanish gastronomy.
At the end of the 60s, she went to visit her friends Elisabeth David and Julia Child, who took her to visit kitchen and kitchen utensil stores that had not yet arrived in Spain. Shortly after, with determination, she decided to turn her passion into her profession, and created, together with four partners, the utensils’ store with cooking school Alambique, the first store of its kind in Spain.
Clara María, with her charisma, her inexhaustible creativity and her knowledge of several languages, became an ambassador of Spanish gastronomy. For many years she worked tirelessly making Spanish olive oil known throughout the world, and led by the most representative chefs of our cuisine.
She has been awarded multiple awards, including the National Gastronomy Award twice and the “Silver Spoon” Award in the United States for her work promoting Spanish gastronomy.
Her legacy is a celebration of Spanish cuisine, its history and its evolution. Clara Maria has dedicated her life to the dissemination of Spanish cuisine with intelligence and passion and leaves an indelible human and professional mark on Spanish culinary culture.
This beautiful posting gives you all the high-level details. Just as important is Clara Maria as a friend and colleague. For me, Clara Maria was so very present – extremely elegant and kind, helpful and extraordinarily generous at so many times and in all sorts of circumstances.
When I was hired by Oldways in 1992, my first assignment was to help organize an International Symposium in Barcelona, Sevilla and Madrid featuring attendees that were 100 of the Who’s Who in Food and Wine. Clara Maria was, of course, one of those attendees – speaking on panels about Spanish cooking and gastronomy. To me, however, she was much more – she was a lifeline. Clara Maria would meet us for sherry and Spanish potato chips and nuts in the bar of the Villa Magna Hotel, guiding us with suggestions and providing introductions to this or that person who could make things happen. She also took me to Alambique and helped me pick out gorgeous green glasses that I still use today.
As I was organizing an Oldways Culinaria in Madrid more than 20 years later, I visited Clara Maria at home along with her (and my) close friends Fausto and Mar Luchetti. Upon hearing our plans for the Culinaria week – which involved a cooking class and lunch for 30 people by her daughter, Gabriela, and an Alambique cooking class organized by her daughter, Maria – Clara Maria said, “I would like to have the group come to my house for tapas.” And we did. Clara Maria hosted our group of 30 in her house, on the terrace and in the garden, on a late Friday afternoon.
It was what we call a “pinch-me” moment.
In 2017, a group of six or eight Americans were in Madrid before going on to Granada and Sevilla for an Oldways Culinaria. Once again, Clara Maria invited us all to her house, this time for an elegant family lunch. More than special.
I love Madrid and visit as often as I can. Fausto and Mar Luchetti, as generous as Clara Maria, often host lunches and dinners that include Clara Maria, or with Fausto and Mar, we visit Clara Maria. Even this past February, as her health was declining, she was inviting us to lunch later in the week.
After she died, her daughters Gabriela and Maria wrote, “We are all very sad but luckily, she left in peace surrounded by all of us and our children who adore her. She always taught very important lessons with her enormous generosity.”
I read in a Spanish newspaper article about her that “the adjective that has been repeated most in recent hours to define Clara María González de Amezúa is that of Great Lady.” That she was. I’d love to be like her when I grow up.
It was lovely to learn about Clara Maria's life and the genesis of Alambique. I can see, feel and taste the casual but impactful conversations over sherry and Spanish potato chips and nuts in the bar of the Villa Magna Hotel. Though she was selected as one of the 100 of the Who’s Who in Food and Wine, it sounds like Clara Maria was truly one of a kind and a beautiful force.