Carmina Useros

Carmina Useros Cortés (24 February 1928 – 23 March 2017) was a Spanish writer, ceramist, painter, and cultural manager. A researcher of the gastronomic, artisan, and cultural traditions of Albacete, she was one of the first women gastronomes in Spain.[1][2][3]

Carmina Useros
Carmina Useros with a Moorish oven
Born
Carmina Useros Cortés

(1928-02-24)24 February 1928
Albacete, Spain
Died23 March 2017(2017-03-23) (aged 89)
Albacete, Spain
Alma materComplutense University of Madrid
Occupation(s)Writer, ceramist, painter, cultural manager
SpouseManuel Belmonte González
Children
  • Carmina Belmonte
  • Elisa Belmonte

She was president and director of the Chinchilla de Montearagón National Ceramics Museum, a member of the Institute of Albacete Studies,[4] a founding member of the Castilian-Manchego Gastronomy Academy,[1] an honorary member of the Athenaeum of Albacete, a director of the Cueva de la Leña Art Gallery, and president of the Gastronomic Association that bears her name.

Biography

Carmina Useros earned a licentiate in teaching at the Normal School of Albacete. She studied Philosophy and Literature at the Complutense University of Madrid. In the 1950s she taught women to read and write. Until 1972 she cooked for the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Albacete Charitable Institution. In the 1970s, she was the only woman to sign a letter of support for the anti-Francoist Platajunta.[1]

She married the ophthalmologist Manuel Belmonte González, and in 1968 they began touring the Province of Albacete, researching and recovering its cultural heritage.[5] She drew on these experiences to write publications such as the 1971 cookbook Mil recetas de Albacete y su provincia (A Thousand Recipes of Albacete and its Province)[6] and 1973's En busca de la Artesanía de Albacete (In Search of the Crafts of Albacete).[7] The couple later expanded their travels throughout the Iberian Peninsula and the Bealearic and Canary archipelagos. The materials that made up the Belmonte-Useros collection would be the foundation of a museum of clay crafts, the National Ceramics Museum in Chinchilla de Montearagón, an enclave in which clay had been worked since the Neolithic.[8] In 1970 they restored the Agujero de Chinchilla Caves, making them an art gallery.[2]

Useros developed an intense focus on the dissemination and reading of Don Quixote, organizing the "Ruta del Quijote" in 1971. In 1995 she began a cycle of readings of Quixote held every first Sunday of the month in La Mancha's village of Casa del Olivar, offering a Quixotic food to those who attended.

Useros and Belmonte had five children – Manuel, Pilar, José Pablo, the politician Carmina Belmonte, and the soprano Elisa Belmonte.[2]

Carmina Useros died in Albacete on 23 March 2017 after a long illness.[1][3]

Carmina Useros in the museum that she created with her husband

Publications
  • Cocina de Albacete. Mil recetas de Albacete y su provincia (1971, 1992, 2001), ISBN 9788493207601
  • En busca de la Artesanía de Albacete (1973), ISBN 9788440063854
  • La Guía de la Gastronomía de La Mancha (1975), with Manuel Belmonte González
  • Fiestas populares de Albacete y su provincia (1980), ISBN 9788430031153
  • Guía de la Artesanía de Albacete (1986), with Carlos Villasante Pareja, ISBN 9788477880110[7][9]

Awards and distinctions

In 2002, Carmina Useros received the Albacetian of the Year award from the President of Castilla–La Mancha, José Bono.[10]

The novelist and gastronome Manuel Vázquez Montalbán mentions her in his novel La Rosa de Alejandría as "the excellent Carmina Useros".[11]

References
  1. "La desconocida gastrónoma que situó Albacete en el mapa" [The Unrecognized Gastronome Who Put Albacete on the Map]. La Vanguardia (in Spanish). 26 March 2017. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  2. "Carmina Useros, pasión por la alfarería y la gastronomía tradicional, una historia ligada al Museo de Cerámica Nacional de Chinchilla, colección única de alfarería popular" [Carmina Usersos, Passion for Pottery and Traditional Gastronomy, a History Linked to the National Ceramic Museum of Chinchilla, Unique Collection of Popular Pottery]. La Cerca (in Spanish). 25 December 2008. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  3. Aznar, Kiko (24 March 2017). "Muere Carmina Useros" [Carmina Useros Dies] (in Spanish). Albacete: Cadena SER. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  4. La creación del Instituto de Estudios Albacetenses y la nueva etapa de la revista 'Al-Basit' [The Creation of the Institute of Albacete Studies and the New Stage of the Magazine 'Al-Basit'] (PDF) (in Spanish). Centro de Estudios de Castilla-La Mancha. p. 11. Retrieved 26 March 2019 – via University of Castilla–La Mancha.
  5. "Manuel Belmonte González, oftalmólogo" [Manuel Belmonte González, Ophthalmologist]. El País (in Spanish). 4 October 1985. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  6. Martínez Llopis, Manuel (1995). Historia de la gastronomía española [History of Spanish Gastronomy] (in Spanish). Val de Onsera. p. 437. ISBN 9788449101151. Retrieved 26 March 2019 – via Google Books.
  7. Díaz Arenas, Ángel (15 December 2017). La nueva fisiología del gusto (según Vázquez Montalbán) [The New Physiology of Taste (According to Vázquez Montalbán)]. Editorial Verbum. pp. 62–63. ISBN 9788490745991. Retrieved 26 March 2019 – via Google Books.
  8. Hernández, Felipe Julián (1984). La Transición Política en Murcia: Crónica Del Proceso Autonómico [The Political Transition in Murcia: Chronicle of the Autonomic Process] (in Spanish). Ediciones Mediterráneo. p. 402. ISBN 9788485856398. Retrieved 26 March 2019 – via Google Books.
  9. Mendoza Díaz-Maroto, Francisco (1989). Introducción al romancero oral en la provincia de Albacete [Introduction to Oral Ballads in the Province of Albacete] (in Spanish). Institute of Albacete Studies. pp. 98, 103. ISBN 9788487136085. Retrieved 26 March 2019 – via Google Books.
  10. "José Bono entregó el premio Albaceteño del año a Carmina Useros Cortés" [José Bono Presents the Albacetian of the Year Award to Carmina Useros Cortés] (in Spanish). Government of Castilla-La Mancha. 22 February 2003. Retrieved 26 March 2019.
  11. Díaz Arenas, Angel (1995). "Platos y vinos" [Dishes and Wines]. Introducción a la lectura de la obra narrativa de Manuel Vázquez Montalbán [Introduction to the Reading of the Narrative Work of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán] (in Spanish). Edition Reichenberger. p. 95. ISBN 9783930700257. Retrieved 26 March 2019 – via Google Books.
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