Convento de San Leandro: Yemas and the Wine Cellar Legend
Why is it significant?
Facing the little square of San Ildefonso, find the plain doorway of the convent of San Leandro, a gate in a high blank wall that gives almost nothing away. Behind that wall live Augustinian nuns, and inside, set into another wall, sits a torno like the one at Santa Inés.
Key Facts
| Place | Convento de San Leandro: Yemas and the Wine Cellar Legend |
|---|---|
| Address | Plaza de San Ildefonso 1, 41003 Sevilla, Spain |
| Geo Coordinates | 37.39100, -5.98820 |
| Part of Walk | Seville Tapas and Convent Sweets: Hidden Nuns, Old Markets and the Oldest Bar in Town |
| Generated | Generated |
Facing the little square of San Ildefonso, find the plain doorway of the convent of San Leandro, a gate in a high blank wall that gives almost nothing away. Behind that wall live Augustinian nuns, and inside, set into another wall, sits a torno like the one at Santa Inés.
The community was founded in 1295 and moved to this site in 1369, which makes it one of the oldest convents in the city. San Leandro himself was a bishop of Seville in the sixth century, in the Visigothic age, long before the Moors arrived. So the name over this door reaches back almost fifteen hundred years.
And through the torno comes one thing above all: yemas de San Leandro. Little golden balls of egg yolk cooked slowly with sugar and a touch of lemon, each one wrapped in its own paper. They are rich, soft, intensely sweet, and the nuns have been making them for centuries. Order a box, and you are buying from one of the longest-running food traditions in Seville.
Why are so many convent sweets made from egg yolks? The favourite explanation in Andalusia is this: the wine makers of the region, including the sherry houses, used beaten egg whites to clarify their wine, and the leftover yolks were given to the nuns, who turned them into sweets. Historians point out that convents also received eggs as gifts and alms, so the story is probably only part of the truth. But it is a lovely piece of logic, wine and sweets as two halves of one egg.
Before you go, think about the building around you. These convents were small cities, with gardens, kitchens, orchards and cellars hidden behind blank walls, and the torno was their only shop window. Many have closed in recent decades as vocations dwindled, so every box sold helps keep one alive. Now walk south through the lanes, past the walls of the Casa de Pilatos, to Calle San José and another convent with a torno, and a story nobody expects.