Calle de la Tahona

A tahona was originally a flour mill whose wheel was turned not by water or wind but by a donkey or mule walking in a circle, dragging one great stone over another. In time, the word also came to name the place where bread was kneaded and baked, the local bakery. The street belongs to the old Chamartín de la Rosa, the farming village of low whitewashed houses that spread north of Madrid before the city swallowed it up. Industry arrived in the mid-19th century, and among the first businesses was a tahona, before the area filled with villas and residential estates. There is no record that Calle de la Tahona recalls a specific oven or a baker with a name. What remains is the trade: the murmur of the turning stone, the mule circling at dawn and the bread coming out of the oven.