Fuente Vaqueros

Fuente Vaqueros is a farming village in the province of Granada, Spain. It lies 17 km west of the city of Granada. Its population was recorded in 2005 as 4,590. The principal crops are asparagus, olives and apples.

Fuente Vaqueros
Municipality
Flag
Coat of arms
Location of Fuente Vaqueros
Fuente Vaqueros
Location in Spain
Coordinates: 37°13′0″N 3°46′59″W
Country Spain
Autonomous community Andalusia
ProvinceGranada
ComarcaVega de Granada
Judicial districtSanta Fe
CommonwealthVega Baja de Granada
Government
 • Alcalde (Mayor)Francisco José Martín Suárez (PSOE)
Area
 • Total16.01 km2 (6.18 sq mi)
Elevation
543 m (1,781 ft)
Population
 (2018)[1]
 • Total4,387
 • Density270/km2 (710/sq mi)
Demonym(s)Fuenterino, -na
Time zoneUTC+1 (CET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+2 (CEST)
Postal code
18340
WebsiteOfficial website

The village is famous as the birthplace of the poet Federico García Lorca. His birthplace is now a museum, the Museo Casa Natal Federico García Lorca.

The municipality includes the population centers of Fuente Vaqueros, La Paz, and a small part of Pedro Ruiz, located between the municipal border of Fuente Vaqueros and Santa Fe. In addition there was the village of El Martinete, an old flour mill of which only its ruins are preserved. In this town was born the most important Spanish poet of the 20th century: Federico García Lorca, whose figure is the main tourist and cultural claim of the town.

History

Fuente Vaqueros shares history with the rest of the places of the Vega of Granada. Of probably Arab origin, it lived the splendor of the Nazarí Dynasty, until the Reconquista in 1492. It also suffered, like the other towns of the zone, the expulsion of the Moriscos and its later repopulation with settlers of other regions.

El Soto de Roma, owned by the Kings of Granada, became part of the crown royal estate after the war of Granada, as a hunting and recreation site, with dense forests and plantations. For three hundred years he was in royal hands, giving his Majesty King Carlos III to Ricardo Wall in 1756. In 1767 began the colonization of the estate. In 1777 he returned to the Crown, passing then to Manuel Godoy. Upon returning to the Crown, in 1813 the Cortes donated the estate in perpetuity to the Duke of Wellington as a reward for the services rendered during the War of Independence against the French.

In the center of this enormous estate there was an area where a lot of water accumulated, becoming a swamp sometimes due to the losses of the aquifer of la vega, there were two farms: Alquería de la Fuente and Alquería de los Vaqueros, which later would lead to Fuente Vaqueros. Until 1940 the present municipality of Fuente Vaqueros belonged to the Duke of Wellington, having its land leased to the settlers and little by little it was sold to them, that populated and gave way to the present municipality.

Cristo de la Victoria

During the War of Independence (1808–1812), in a village called Darajali, the grandparents of a neighbor of the village, better known as Enanilla de Rute, lived as landlords. One night four men knocked at the door, not knowing if they were Spanish or French, asking for wood in exchange for something they had hidden: a Christ with his cross and life size. The landlord gave them firewood and stayed with the Christ, but the house was very small and they had no place to have it, so they took it to the grain store in the village called El Trébol. The Christ spent a few weeks there, until French officers arrived in the village, occupying the wheat store. The mayor of the village, who was called Don Vidal, and his wife, Dona Vicenta, ordered the landlords who took the Christ to the store to feed the French. The officers, seeing the Christ, wanted to burn him for warmth, but the mayor avoided it, offering them firewood. The mayor Don Vidal took the Christ to his house, hiding it under the bed, where the people of the town visited him and gave him the name of Señor del tío Vidalico. When Don Vidal died, his sons donated the Christ to the village church, with the name of the Holy Christ of Victory, a name that comes from the victory of Spain to the French. The day of the Christ was the 3 of September, in the Feria Real del Ganado (days 1, 2, 3 and 4 of that month), but the parish priest of the Church, Don Eduardo Martín Granados, being the fair a pagan festival traveled to Rome (Italy), in order to register him as a patron saint of Fuente Vaqueros, and changed his day, which since the 50s became the 14th of September, the day of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

Gastronomy

The vegetables that are grown in the fertile lands of Fuente Vaqueros are the traditional dishes of the municipality. In fact, its main irrigation crop is green asparagus - which together with potatoes, spinach and peppers - is a regular component of its recipe. As dishes of vegetables stand out the leche pava, which does not carry milk but gourd, the maimones soup and the patatas en gloria, with oil and vinegar. As for the meats, stand out preparations as the collejas en ajillos, cuchifritos and the pig and its derivatives, that are cooked in the typical slaughters. The huevos a la nieve is a typical dessert, along with the wine rolls. The fruit trees, such as apple trees, plums, persimmons and pear trees that line the fields of Fuente Vaqueros, put the dessert to their menus.

References
  1. Municipal Register of Spain 2018. National Statistics Institute.
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