What is boroña? Well, it's more than just bread. It's a ritual. A cornbread —yes, made from the corn that came from America and took root here as if it had always been native, like a returning emigrant who made his fortune— kneaded with water and salt, baked slowly, and filled, on special occasions, with cured meats: chorizo, bacon, pancetta… and traditionally baked all night, well wrapped in chestnut leaves and topped with cabbage leaves… It was made "without filling" for everyday use or "filled" for Easter Sunday.
The important thing is to use a quality filling and cook it slowly in the oven or over a wood fire.
It shouldn't be confused with its Galician cousin, the bolla de millo, nor with any other flimsy, unpretentious substitute. Asturian boroña is coarser, more substantial . It doesn't aim to flatter, but to fill. Its origins are only vaguely known —like those of good proverbs—but it's a well-established tradition that it was already being baked in times of scarcity, when wheat was a luxury reserved for masses and notary documents. Corn, on the other hand, thrived in poverty and grew well in the meadows overlooking the Sueve or the Aramo mountains.
Boroña, moreover, has the virtue of lasting. What's more, some say it's better reheated, with the fat having settled, as if time improves it—something that can't be said of many loves or most politicians. It's eaten at celebrations, especially at Easter—Resurrection Sunday at the end of Lent —when the villages come alive and the houses smell of real hearths. There's no rural celebration without boroña, and no boroña without its altar-like place: it's placed in the center of the table as one used to place one's grandfather—with respect and a certain quiet veneration.
Today some restaurants serve it with contrived glamour, but authentic boroña is the kind you eat at an aunt's house in Bimenes, or in the meadow after a pilgrimage with bagpipes. It may not be sophisticated, but it has soul. And as my Uncle Severino, who ate boroña even during Lent, used to say: "This is what sustained us when there was nothing, and what brings us joy when there's everything . "
Pregnant boroña recipe
Boroña, a cornbread that evokes memories, is a humble treasure of Asturian cuisine. It nourished generations with… Read more
Text: © Ramón Molleda for asturias.com
