Salvador Dali y Cusi was Dali’s father. He came from Cadaqués, which is a fishing town. Young Salvador Dali was spoilt by his parents, and always got what he wanted. There were very few exceptions; one of these was access to the kitchen. Dali said, “When I was six, it was a sin for me to eat food of any kind in the kitchen.” Salvador would wait for moments when he could sneak over to the kitchen. “And while the maids stood by and screamed with delight I would snatch a piece of raw meat or a broiled mushroom on which I would nearly choke but which, to me, had the marvellous flavour, the intoxicating quality, that only fear and guilt can impart. Aside from being forbidden the kitchen, I was allowed to do anything I pleased. I wet my bed until I was eight for the sheer fun of it. I was the absolute monarch of the house. Nothing was good enough for me.
“My brother died at the age of seven from an attack of meningitis, three years before I was born. His death plunged my father and mother into depths of despair; they found consolation only upon my arrival into the world. My brother and I resembled each other like two drops of water… like myself he had the unmistakeable facial morphology of a genius. He gave signs of alarming precocity… my brother was probably a first version of myself, but conceived too much in the absolute.”