Torrija, the Easter recipe with the most versions around the world

Humble and useful, this is torrija, a typical recipe from Easter in Spainwhich can boast of having a huge family spread all over the world because its ingredients, bread, milk and eggs, They have been found, historically, in almost all cultures.

Like any popular recipe, talking about the origin, place and day of birth of torrija is at least complicated, and even more so when it comes to a preparation that comes from taking advantage of stale bread to convert it, after soaking it in milk or wine, into a dough. fluffy

The first documented appearance of torrija appears during the 4th and 5th centuries, when the Roman gourmet Marco Gavio Apicio reflected in his work a very similar product, despite dispensing with the egg as an ingredient and being submerged only in milk.

A snack that, before becoming a popular dessert that is already consumed at any time of the year, experts point out that its association with Holy Week is due to the use of leftover bread at a time when eating meat was not allowed.

And it is precisely the simplicity of its ingredients that works the magic that they can be found in many pastry shops around the world, as is happening these days in Madrid’s Formentor, who after winning the award for Best Traditional Torrija in Madrid 2024, makes Their factory produces about 7,000 units a day, according to what they said.

Torrija in Spain

Although torrija is the most common name in Spain, in the region of Galicia or on the island of Menorca they are also known as ‘delivery torras’ either ‘sopes from Menorca’respectively, since this recipe was considered a high-energy snack for the sick or pregnant women.

Other Spanish autonomous communities such as Cantabria and the Basque Country, in the north, share the name ‘toast’ when talking about torrijas, but it is in the former where this is a Christmas recipe, and not for Easter.

Doña Torrija’s foreign cousins

Although with some variations in its preparation, this bread bathed in milk and covered in egg to be fried and covered with sugar, also has countrymen outside of Spain, as happens in France, where their version of torrija is ‘pain perdú’ (bread lost).

In Portugal and Brazil, for their part, they choose to call them ‘rabanadas’ either calving fatigue‘ (also referring to its energy boost function).

From British lands comes the ‘eggy bread’a salty version of our illustrious torrija, or the ‘poor knights of Windsor’, which is almost identical to the Spanish recipe.

In Germany, Denmark or Sweden they have the ‘arme ritter’, that, like many torrijas recipes, they use brioche bread; and in Russia they have the ‘grenki’another version that they eat, above all, for breakfast.

The list of relatives continues in Switzerland with their ‘fotzelschnitten’ or in the Netherlands with their ‘wentelteefjes’, which, like in the rest of European countries, are not related to Easter, but rather to breakfasts and snacks.

In the United States we find the famous ‘French toast’ that immortalized a well-known scene from ‘Kramer against Kramer’, a torrija where butter predominates.

The variants of Latin America

In El Salvador, and other Latin countries like Mexico, the difference is only found in one letter, the e, because here they are called ‘torrejas’, and they are also eaten during Holy Week. Additionally, this version changes the final sugar to honey or molasses.

Another way to name the protagonist of this chronicle in countries like Chile, Ecuador, Peru or Colombia is ‘French toast’.

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