"The first man who dared to eat an oyster was brave"
Jonathan Swift
Introduction
Cooking, as we know it today, would not be possible without recipes. Without the oral or written transmission of these recipes, our cuisine would be very different indeed. It is therefore vital that we pause, slow down in this fast-paced 21st century and put on the brakes to reflect. Reflect on what we eat today, what we ate yesterday, and what we intend to eat this weekend. Because although it is as ingrained as breathing, many of the recipes we cook are directly or indirectly connected with our past and our History. And this podcast is about connecting the present with the past to look forward with perspective. Let's begin!
There are recipes that twenty years ago we could not even imagine. An example of this is the seaweed bread, recently developed by Ángel León on the coast of Cádiz. On the same coast, the team led by Darío Bernal-Casasola and Víctor Palacios Macía, from the University of Cádiz, have worked to recover through archaeology the famous Garum that was so prized in Roman times. Although we want to present several dishes that are typical Spanish staples of our Mediterranean diet, today we will only speak about one: the potato omelette.
Origin of the potato omelette:
To pinpoint the exact date of the emergence of the potato omelette is a feat too large for this modest article. Therefore, here we will only unravel some mysteries about its origin.
And to delve into the potato omelette, we must consider two important issues. The first is the reference to potatoes. Do not forget that cultivated potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) were introduced in the Iberian Peninsula as a result of commercial contact with America, specifically South America and more precisely the Andean highlands. Since mid-16th century Spain was the only European country in contact with this region, it would be the first to receive the potato. The tuber arrived through Seville and spread across Europe initially as botanical curiosity or ornamental use and later for food purposes. One of the earliest documented uses for food occurred in Italy in 1588 but not for humans, rather for livestock. Another example is the incorporation of potatoes into French cuisine which had to wait until botanist, agronomist, and military pharmacist Antoine Augustin Parmentier mid-18th century (Bartolomé García et al., 2014, pp. 192–199).
The other term used, that of tortilla, reminds us according to the Royal Spanish Academy it is a diminutive of the word torta which can be defined as: 1. f. Dough made from flour with other ingredients in round form cooked over low heat or 2. f. Any mass reduced to the shape of a cake.
With this definition of torta or tortilla, we may wonder where did the flour go in our potato omelette?
To answer this question, it is best to know its origin and thus solve our mystery. We must go back to the winter of 1798. Because yes, while in Paris the period known as the French Revolution (1789-1799) was concluding, Spain was recovering once again from droughts that made life on the peninsula even more difficult (Centro de Estudios Hidrográficos, 2013, p. 91). And as a result of so much drought and consequently food scarcity (cereals especially), some scholars proposed finding a substitute. The element that came to proclaim itself as a substitute for cereals was none other than the potato. To this end, at the initiative of the Extremaduran don Manuel de Godoy y Álvarez de Faria, Prime Minister of Carlos IV, in 1797 the publication "Seminario de agricultura y artes dirigido a los párrocos" was edited (Díaz, 2018, pp. 281–282). This work aimed to extend among farmers practical knowledge. Among these pieces of knowledge, many formulas were transmitted for obtaining potato bread, with the most accepted being that provided by the priest from Linares de Riofrío in Salamanca. It is at this point when Jose Tena Godoy and his friends, on that night of 1798 took three pounds of fine potatoes, peeled them, and mixed them with water, salt, and two pounds of wheat flour. With this they made two thin tortillas and wanted to see how it would come out if they fried in oil. As the dough rose, the women, including don Jose's wife doña Valentina Campos Malfeito, proposed mixing the dough with eggs, thus giving rise from then on to the concept of the potato omelette (Martín Nieto, 2018, pp. 281–282).
Over time this recipe lost flour as an ingredient and emerged the heated debate about whether or not to include onions. And you, what do you prefer?
Bibliography
Bartolomé García, T., Coleto Martínez, J. M., & Velázquez Otero, R. (2014). Historias de plantas I: la historia de la patata. La Agricultura y La Ganadería Extremeñas, 191–205.
Martín Nieto, D. (2018). Genealogía del ilustrado villanovense José de Tena Godoy y Malfeito, el creador de la tortilla de patatas. X Encuentros de Estudios Comarcales Vegas Altas, La Serena y La Siberia: Dedicados a Domenico Caracciolo (Malpartida de La Serena 1715-Nápoles 1789) y La Ilustración En Extremadura. X Encuentros de estudios comarcales Vegas Altas, La Serena y La Siberia, Malpartida de la Serena.
Comments