Potatoes and Eggs, Period
My family’s version of the tortilla española
When I visited Spain for the first time in 1996, it was on a post-graduation backpacking trip with college friends, and I wasn’t a fraction of the eater — adventurous, ambitious, all-encompassing — that I am today. Croquetas, paella, pan con tomate, and patatas bravas: yes. Bacalao, tinned fish, olives, and jamón ibérico, which is one of my favorite things now: no. During that trip, however, as we danced and drank our way from one tapas bar to the next in cities like Sevilla, Madrid, Barcelona, Logroño, and Pamplona, I took comfort in the humble tortilla española.
See, in my half-Italian household, a regular staple was potatoes and eggs. Straight up. We didn’t call it a (potato and onion) frittata, like I had for brunch at the country home of another college friend years later. And we certainly didn’t call it tortilla española, as I delightedly experienced in eatery after eatery in Spain. We just called it what it was: plain old potatoes and eggs.
My sister and I loved potatoes and eggs. Everyone in our family made them, and each family member made them a little differently. Grandma Anna was heavy on the…
