Torrijas —and Spain’s love affair with bread
It is the Easter season, and my favorite treat is torrijas! They can be enjoyed at any time of year, but In Spain they are traditionally eaten during Holy Week and Easter.
But what are torrijas, you ask? They’re a delicious sweet bread treat, and even though I hate to make the following comparison, this is how I explain what they are here in America when asked: torrijas are the Spanish version of the French toast. Yeah, I know, who knows what came first, the torrijas or the French toast, right? But French toast is popular in America, so that is my best way to explain torrijas.
Cristo de la Palma during the Holy Week Processions (Onteniente, Spain)
Holy Thursday Procession, Maritime Holy Week in Valencia (Spain)
The recipe I’m sharing today, cod with asparagus and preserved lemons, is very appropriate for this time of year. Cod is a kind of fish long associated with Lent in Spain. Lent is now over, and you may not know that even though Easter Sunday has passed as well, we are still in the Easter season, which will last until the feast of the Pentecost, the Sunday about fifty days later.
What you may know is that we are also in the season of asparagus, one of the first spring time vegetables, so cod with asparagus should be on the menu.
After a few years of very good intentions, finally 2022 sees the recipe for roscón de Reyes, Kings cake, on the blog. Not that I haven’t been making it! But I am not a great planner of the recipes that I will post on Mama Ía blog and the Christmas hustle and bustle always caught up with me.
It happens every year around Christmas time: I buy too much turrón, Spanish nougat. And every year I tell myself that next year I won’t buy as much, but invariably, I do it again. Not that I don’t buy many other Christmas sweets, and make them, too, of course. But turrón is closest to my heart. I talked about Christmas nostalgia in other