TORTA TAPAS

A Spanish (but also an Italian and Portuguese) word with a wide array of culinary meanings. It originated in different regional variants of flatbread, of which the torta de gazpacho and torta cenceñaare still surviving in certain areas of central Spain. Tortas are also mentioned in Leviticus 24:5-9, in the Spanish translation of the Bible. Presently, however, the word torta is also applied to different kinds of bread and pastry products according to the region.

Historically the difference between torta and bread was its round and flat shape, as well as the absence of yeast in its preparation. The well-known word tortilla, used mainly in Mexico (not in Spain, though), means a “small torta”, while tortada means “big torta”. In most regions a torta was traditionally considered an inferior form of bread, as the well known Spanish aphorism expresses:

A falta de pan buenas son tortas. Where there is no bread tortas are all right.