My parents always told me: “Food is love.” This meant my house was always stocked with comfort foods: everything from Oreos to penne bolognese. So when my host mother’s first question to me was, “¿Qué quieres pa’ comer esta noche? What do you want to eat tonight?” in her thick Andalusian accent, I thought I could learn to love Córdoba, Spain. We met in the train station and, after the formalities, we took a cab to what was going to be my home for the next four months: Apartment A, 3rd floor, on Duque de Hornachuelos road. As soon as I settled into my room Paquita called out, as she would for every meal we had together, “¡Camille! ¡Comemos!”
I’d been eating on Spanish time for two weeks already during our program orientation, but it still felt strange settling in for dinner at 9:45 pm. Paquita refused to let me help her as she carefully carried three separate trays into the living room one by one. She set mine down in front of me and I took stock: a salad composed of iceberg lettuce, carrots, corn, and olive oil, a plastic cup of chocolate pudding, a small roll, and tortilla.
When I first arrived in Spain, I assumed that tortilla was the same as the one I was accustomed to in the US—flat, flour-based, hopefully wrapped around meat and beans. Tortillas are one of my favorite staples and I was quite distressed to be told it would be nothing like the food I was used to. Tortilla española is quite a different beast. Made entirely of egg and chunks of potato, it is cooked in a skillet like an omelet and cut into little wedges, with the occasional onion mixed in as desired. I found that my plate held half of the round. No little wedges for Paquita’s host daughter. It didn’t look like anything special. It was store-bought—all she’d done was pop it in the counter-top oven for a minute or two to bring it up to room temperature. And yet, I finished my half in fifteen minutes flat. Paquita urged me to eat more and I did my best in my clumsy Spanish to keep her from bringing me another helping.
Francisca “Paquita” Lope Sanchez had raised three children and hosted 48 other study-abroad daughters, each of them incredibly well fed (she never let anyone leave the table without a second helping). She was a short, white-haired woman who initially intimidated me with her perfect lipstick and fancy scarves. But her continual warmth and wonderful food soon made me more than comfortable.
Tortilla became my comfort food, an opinion I seemed to share with most of Spain. Each restaurant had it on their menu, no matter its atmosphere. Bar Santos, the classic local cervecería—beer hall—was no exception. It was carefully placed in a shaded corner with a tall bar and chairs so high you have to jump a little to sit in them. “Beer hall” is certainly a bit of a stretch, since you can’t fit inside for much longer than the time it takes to order and pay. I often peered into the packed, dingy interior to ogle their famous version of tortilla. The tiny restaurant faces the world-famous Mezquita de Córdoba, the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba, an awe-inspiring marriage of Islamic and Catholic houses of worship. Hence the name, “Bar of Saints” or “Holy Bar.” They kept their wares on display: a small glass case with a spotlight showcased their unique tortilla, nearly a foot tall. The tourists who did fight the crowd to order it came out with paper-thin sheets of egg and potato on paper plates and found their way to the shady steps nearby to eat.
Bar Santos, oriented towards short-term visitors as it was, didn’t tempt me. But 100 Montaditos did. 100 Montaditos is a large, rowdy chain restaurant with locations all over Spain. Its name directly translates to “100 Little Sandwiches” and that’s exactly what they offer. My friends and I, on the rare nights we didn’t eat at home, would enter, battle for a too-short table, and then take turns at the counter rattling off the numbers of the sandwiches we wanted. After anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour, the little sandwiches, arranged artfully on a platter, would pop out at the little window under a heat lamp. Montadito #2 is “Tortilla de patatas” and I ordered it every time, eating my pinky sized roll stuffed full of tortilla with gusto.
Turning from one tortilla to another marked my transition from one culture to another. The fact that I knew the difference at all made me feel more included in Spanish culture. Walking into a restaurant familiar with the menu and confident of my order made me feel competent and comfortable. But there was nothing that compared to Paquita’s tortilla. I had seen it in the packaging, seen her put it in the oven; there was no reason it should taste any better. I figured there could only be one difference: Paquita made it with love. I came home every night just to hear her call, “¡Camille! ¡Comemos!” and find my half-moon of eggs and potatoes waiting.