The Ragazza doesn’t live on Italian food alone, especially considering that these days I spend more time in Barcelona and its surroundings than in Rome. Two days a week, I have to spend almost two dead hours in the old center of Barcelona, from the time I leave work until the fancy-schmancy professional cooking course I attend begins. I usually look for a hole-in-the-wall to take shelter in and eat and drink what is called a treat, because although I like to walk, in the end I no longer know where to go and I’m afraid that one of these days the “mossos” will stop me and interrogate me, suspecting that, as beautiful as Santa Maria del Mar is, circling it 50 times in a row hides some strange intention on my part. Since I’m not much of a sweets person, it’s usually a savory tapa or something similar. La Barceloneta is very close to the school and the other day I dropped by there, for a change, because I was craving a classic from the neighborhood, a Bomba de la Barceloneta. Since I was alone, while I was admiring that lustrous potato ball with a surprise inside, I was making comments to myself and suddenly I thought that I would like someone to tell me which of the legendary places in the area cooks the best bombas. Anyway, since I haven’t found anyone who does it quite to my taste, I will do it for myself, here on the blog and for whoever might be interested.
I have surely chosen the bomba among the 10,000 tapas that I adore, to try to free myself from some of these classic Freudian traumas. I close my eyes and imagine one of my relatives scolding me more or less like this: “the girl has had to order junk again! A damn bomba! It will ruin your appetite! With fresh and good fish here… It’s just that you can’t be taken anywhere…, and on top of that, spicy! You’ll see, what a sting, when you go to the …” Well, those things that I know that, although said in a somewhat too energetic way, came from good intentions. Seriously, I have a special affection for bombas, because I am a big fan of traditional cooking and, especially of humble dishes that even today people consider second-rate, poor-man’s food, and that, just as I am, dazzle me more if they are well made and I believe they have the same dignity as any galactic experiment from a fancy restaurant. Besides the fact that, wow, it’s a very complete invention! Many elements come into play if you want to find the perfect balance in a bomba! The play of contrasts of textures and flavors of a poor little potato ball can give so much satisfaction!
What is a Bomba de la Barceloneta? The bomba or bombeta of La Barceloneta, to simplify, would be a large, round potato croquette, filled with minced meat and covered with aioli and spicy sauce. There are various variants and, although everyone agrees that it must be spicy, since one of the hypotheses of the origin of its name is that they baptized it that way because a customer, upon eating it, exclaimed that it was a bomb, due to the spiciness, the fact that many people are not very fond of cayenne has made some places put the sauce on the side or directly only include a testimonial little bit of spice in the meat inside, so as not to offend the palate of those who go around with a yogurt in their pocket as a taste-bud-saving antidote.
Many people say that the first Bomba de la Barceloneta came from the legendary Cova Fumada. In this establishment, the customer I was talking about baptized the invention generically. Likewise, there were three versions with super politically incorrect names to designate the 3 variants, depending on the degree of spiciness. I will not say the names, precisely so as not to offend anyone. Others say that the bombas already existed in other parts of the peninsula, but since I want to focus on Barcelona-Barceloneta, I am more interested in knowing who was the first in this geographical point.
That said, I will do a super complete review of all the bombas I stuff myself with. I will include the price of the bomba and a brief comment about the place.
The first is the Bomba from “La Peninsular” (Read)