History
Olla podrida is a popular dish. The name, as currently written, translates literally to "rotten pot". This etymology is sustained by a footnote to a 1849 edition of Don Quixote signed by "Arr" (credited as numerary member of the Real Academia in the front page) stating:
" it makes a stock as full of substance as aromatic, and maybe because of that it was ironically called 'olla podrida'. It could be named so, Covarrubias says, as long as it is so slowly cooked that what is inside almost melts and results like fruit after too much ripening."
Another etymology, generally accepted, is that the name of the dish comes from olla poderida, referred to the "powerfulness" of the ingredients. The e was eventually dropped in the evolution of the language. The dictionary of the Spanish Real Academia Autoridades of 1737 supports this theory, in page 34, column 2:
"Covarr gives its etymology and, citing Andreas Bacio, says that 'podrida' is the same as 'poderida' or 'poderosa'. Lat 'Ollaris farrago' ".
In Don Quixote (Part II published in 1615), Cervantes has the simple-minded and exceedingly droll Sancho Panza, who is said to be neither a glutton nor a drunkard, 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..."
On 5 April 1669, English diarist Samuel Pepys wrote about having dined an olio or olla podrida, which he apparently enjoyed a lot:
To the Mulberry garden, where Sheres is to treat us with a Spanish Olio by a cook of his acquaintance that is there, that was with my Lord in Spain: and without any other company, he did do it, and mighty nobly; and the Olio was indeed a noble dish, such as I never saw better, or any more of
The dish was even popular enough in 17th century England to appear in Robert May's Accomplish't Cook, published in 1660. It was mentioned by Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796) in his Address to a Haggis under the name olio:
Is there that o're his French ragout
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi' perfect scunner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?
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