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Updated: June 5, 2025
The thing took accordingly. No poor, simple, virtuous body was ever cajoled by the attentions of an electioneering politician with more ease than Aunt Chloe was won over by Master Sam's suavities; and if he had been the prodigal son himself, he could not have been overwhelmed with more maternal bountifulness; and he soon found himself seated, happy and glorious, over a large tin pan, containing a sort of olla podrida of all that had appeared on the table for two or three days past.
The olla podrida, and its constant attendant, the tomato sauce, were intolerable, but the wine was very well for a midshipman.
Sancho Panza never ate his olla podrida with more relish. Success to mine host of the jolly inn of Nantua! Then we thunderbolted along again, shot through a grim fortress, crossed a boundary line, and were in Switzerland. Vive Switzerland! land of Alps, glaciers, and freemen! As evening drew on, a wind sprang up, and a storm seemed gathering on the Jura.
The perfect decorum of these places, and their immunity from offence in any, emboldened the Marches to experiment in Spanish restaurants, where red pepper and beans insisted in every dinner, and where once they chanced upon a night of 'olla podrida', with such appeals to March's memory of a boyish ambition to taste the dish that he became poetic and then pensive over its cabbage and carrots, peas and bacon.
Then we went to the French Cathedral, which is, I believe, the great gun of ecclesiastical North America, but it hung fire with me. It was large, but not great. There was no unity. It was not impressive. It was running over with frippery, olla podrida cropping out everywhere. It confused you. It distracted you. It wearied you. You sighed for somewhat simple, quiet, restful.
Could not Miss Elizabeth have guessed pshaw! what an ass he was, how was she to know? that a motley and miscellaneous collection of people was his distinct aversion! A rustic Olla podrida, an Omnium-gatherum was not to his taste. It was his last evening too, and he would have to make himself pleasant to strangers. He knew what these impromptu garden-parties meant.
If you do not like the Fijian national dish, national in more than one sense, have the dear sons of Nature, as Carlyle probably would call them, not the right to reply, "We do not like your sauerkraut, if you are a German; your polenta, if you are an Italian; your olla podrida, if you are a Spaniard; nor your grit, if you are a Dane; your bacon and greasy greens, if you are a Southerner; nor your baked beans, if you are a Northerner; nor any other stuff called national dishes, all of which are vile, except English roast beef and plum-pudding, and Neapolitan maccaroni."
His 'Physiologic du Goût' "that olla podrida which defies analysis," as Balzac calls it belongs, like Walton's 'Compleat Angler', or White's 'Selborne', among those unique gems of literature, too rare in any age, which owe their subtle and imperishable charm primarily to the author's own delightful personality.
But all this time the devil a thing drinkable was there before we males, but goblets of pure cold water. Bang's "mucho mucho" even failed him, for he had only in his modesty got a thimbleful of brandy to qualify the olla podrida.
There Russell beheld a tempting repast, whose savory steam penetrated through his nostrils to that heart of hearts that corcordium which lieth behind all sense, filling it with wild longings. He saw roast capons, obtained from Heaven knows where; rich odoriferous olla podrida, and various kinds of game.
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