Spanish Omelette History

From this easy dish, also called potatoes omelette, the first known document that is mentioned is called " memorial de la ratonera", an anonymous document addressed to the Navarra´s courts in 1817, in this is shown how all the farmers of the region lived in misery, and in this document there is a quote, which is:

"...two or three eggs in an omelette for five or six, because our women know how to do big and fat with a few eggs mixing potatoes, bread atapurres or otherwise...".

Also, there is a leyend about a men called Empero, he invented the potatoes omelette or spanish omelette as a simple, fast and nutritive dish with wich he can satisfy the hungry of her army.

Recently the book The potato in Spain. History and agroecology of the tubercle written by Javier López linaje,  scientist at the Center for Humanities and Social Sciences,  places the origin of the Spanish omelette in the town of Villanueva de la Serena. The above book contains specific data that talks about the omelette in this town about twenty years before the first mention in the traditional legend, but such information is currently being studied by several state and local historians.

A new theory of its discovery is due to the Aragonese chef Theodore Bardají because the March 17, 1935 in the weekly is made known an original recipe of the omelette. This is what we know today as Spanish omelette with fried variant that does not beforehand the potatoes and onion. It is very possible that this is the closest source of the recipe for omelette that is cooked today.

Danilo Moncaleano

Sebastian Gomez

Cristian Duquino

Maria Alejandra Casas Prieto