Seasonal Culinary Inspiration: Saint Teresa’s Bread (Pan de Santa Teresa)

Recipe from the book *A Continual Feast*, Evelyn Birge Vitz. In this book, the author presents Teresa of Ávila as a figure full of contrasts. She was a Spanish mystic known for her ecstasies and visions, but also a woman of action who reformed the Carmelite Order and founded a new branch. She had little formal education and wrote only out of obedience, yet she is counted among the great writers of the Spanish Golden Age. Her visions made her a suspect of heresy, and yet she became the first woman to be proclaimed a Doctor of the Church. The text describes her as warm, witty, and remarkably courageous. It mentions a prelate so impressed that he deemed her worthy of wearing a beard, and the English poet Richard Crashaw, who saw in her both the eagle and the dove.

The author goes on to explain that several dishes are traditionally associated with her memory, including St. Thérèse’s bread and egg yolks, which she may have cooked herself. Even as the head of her order, she would help out in the kitchen. To nuns from noble families who were reluctant to learn, she is said to have replied, “The Lord is also to be found among the cooking pots!” Since her order abstained from meat, the sisters had to use their imagination to make bread and eggs—their staple foods—appetizing.