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Olla podrida is a Spanish stew made from pork and beans and an inconsistant 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 ingrediants seperated - meats from the rest and/or liquids from solids.
History
Olla podrida is a popular dish in Spain, especially Castile, and dates back to the Middle Ages.
After the French arrived, they fell in love with the recipe for olla podrida and imported it into their country as potpourri. Like olla podrida, it contains a wide variety of ingredients, and the word took on in French the metaphorical sense of a mixture of diverse things.
In the 19th century it also acquired (also in France) the meaning of a musical composition formed from fragments or themes from diverse works. And it was precisely with this musical meaning that France returned to Spain a French-style olla podrida, with the word "potpourri." It is said that "the orchestra interpreted a potpourri of..." because it sounds better than saying "interpreted an olla podrida (rotten stew) of..." Such is the most frequent use of "potpourri," that however can be used to allude to any mixture of diverse things.
The name translates literally to "rotten pot," leading to theories that the stew incorporated old bits of meat which were starting to "go off."
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..."