Olla podrida
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Robert Burton's ingenious treatise is a curiously wrought-out design. There are idle students and cavillers, who have advertised Burton as the creator of a peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" --Anatomy of Bibliomania (1930) by Holbrook Jackson |
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Olla podrida is a Spanish stew made from pork and beans and an inconsistent wide variety of other meats and vegetables depending on the recipe used. The meal is traditionally prepared in a clay pot over several hours. It is eaten as a main course; sometimes as a single dish and sometimes with ingredients separated - meats from the rest and/or liquids from solids.
History
Olla podrida is a popular dish. The name, as currently written, translates literally to "rotten pot". This etymology is sustained by a footnote to a 1849 edition of Don Quixote signed by "Arr[ieta]" (credited as numerary member of the Real Academia in the front page) stating that"[...] it makes a stock as full of substance as aromatic, and maybe because of that it was ironically called 'olla podrida'. It could be named so, Covarrubias says, as long as it is so slowly cooked that what is inside almost melts and results like fruit after too much ripening."
Another etymology, generally accepted, is that the name of the dish comes from olla poderida, referred to the "powerfulness" of the ingredients. The e was eventually dropped in the evolution of the language. The dictionary of the Spanish Real Academia Autoridades of 1737 supports this theory, in page 34, column 2:
"Covarr[ubias] gives its etymology and, citing Andreas Bacio, says that 'podrida' is the same as 'poderida' or 'poderosa'. Lat[in] 'Ollaris farrago' [...]" .
In Don Quixote -- first published in 1605 -- Cervantes has the gluttonous Sancho Panza say these words:
"This plate that is steaming in front of me appears to me to be olla podrida, because of the diversity of ingredients that there are in some ollas podridas, I won't be able to stop running into some that is to me of taste and benefit..."
See also
