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Recent scholarly contributions have significantly broadened our understanding of the food cultures of early modern Iberia. While the circulation of foodstuffs, their consumption and preparation practices have been prominently addressed, the human agents behind food remain largely in the shadow. This article moves away from the emphasis on food and focuses on cooks and cooking labor. Specifically, it focuses on pícaros, marginal members of the staff who perform ill-regarded tasks (i.e., chopping, cleaning) that are nonetheless essential to the operation of the kitchen. While the relationship between the picaresque genre and hunger is a common topos in critical literature, the role of cooking practices has not merited equal attention. This essay places pícaros at the heart of the culinary culture of their time, not as perpetually hungry characters but as kitchen workers. Drawing from Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache and La vida y hechos de Estebanillo González, in dialogue with archival sources and cookbooks, this article argues that pícaros are key to understanding an increasingly sharp division of labor and the emergent professionalization of cooking.
