The _olla_ is only well made in Andalucia, and there alone in careful, well-appointed houses; it is called a _puchero_ in the rest of Spain, where it is but a poor affair, made of dry beef, or rather cow, boiled with _garbanzos_ or chick peas, and a few sausages. These _garbanzos_ are the vegetable, the potato of the land; and their use argues a low state of horticultural knowledge. The taste for them was introduced by the Carthaginians--the _puls punica_, which (like the _fides punica_, an especial ingredient in all Spanish governments and finance) afforded such merriment to Plautus, that he introduced the chick-pea eating Pœnus, pultiphagonides, speaking Punic, just as Shakspere did the toasted-cheese eating Welshman talking Welsh. These garbanzos require much soaking, being otherwise hard as bullets; indeed, a lively Frenchman, after what he calls an apology for a dinner, compared them, in his empty stomach, as he was jumbled away in the dilly, to peas rattling in a child’s drum. The veritable _olla_--the ancient time-honoured _olla podrida_, or pot pourri--the epithet is now obsolete--is difficult to be made: a tolerable one is never to be eaten out of Spain, since it requires many Spanish things to concoct it, and much care; the cook must throw his whole soul into the pan, or rather pot; it may be made in one, but two are better. They must be of earthenware; for, like the French _pot au feu_, the dish is good for nothing when made in an iron or copper vessel; take therefore two, and put them on their separate stoves with water. [Sidenote: THE OLLA PODRIDA.] Place into No. 1, _Garbanzos_, which have been placed to soak over-night. Add a good piece of beef, a chicken, a large piece of bacon; let it boil once and quickly; then let it simmer: it requires four or five hours to be well done. Meanwhile place into No. 2, with water, whatever vegetables are to be had: lettuces, cabbage, a slice of gourd, of beef, carrots, beans, celery, endive, onions and garlic, long peppers. These must be previously well washed and cut, as if they were destined to make a salad; then add red sausages, or “_chorizos_;” half a salted pig’s face, which should have been soaked over-night. When all is sufficiently boiled, strain off the water, and throw it away. Remember constantly to skim the scum of both saucepans. When all this is sufficiently dressed, take a large dish, lay in the bottom the vegetables, the beef in the centre, flanked by the bacon, chicken, and pig’s face. The sausages should be arranged around, en couronne; pour over some of the soup of No. 1, and serve hot, as Horace did: “Uncta satis--ponuntur oluscula lardo.” No violets come up to the perfume which a coming olla casts before it; the mouth-watering bystanders sigh, as they see and smell the rich freight steaming away from them. [Sidenote: BACON.]