My favorite Spanish dish
For dinner I made another one of my favorite dishes, the Spanish tortilla. Unlike the Mexican corn/flour tortilla, the Spanish tortilla is composed of eggs and potatoes cooked in a skillet in a cake-like formation.
And some nice Spanish guitar to go along with it:
THE INGRIDIENTS
Potatoes, eggs, butter, olive oil, garlic, chili powder, onion.
THE POTATOES
The potatoes were non-organic russet potatoes from Idaho. As such, synthetic fertilizer which used natural gas was probably used, the fuel to go into the machinery they use for harvesting the potatoes, as well as fuel for transport
THE EGGS
I used about seven eggs in this tortilla and melted about a tablespoon of butter into the eggs that I scrambled in a bowl. These eggs were also from our family friend’s farm and only necessitate the fuel needed to transport them about 15 miles.
THE BUTTER
The butter that I melted into the scrambled eggs was “natural, unsalted, Darigold butter”. It contains only cream and says that it is churned from sweet pasteurized cream. It is distributed by Darigold from Seattle, Washington and then transported down to Oregon on trucks. I imagine that it would require fuel for machines that churn the butter, package it, and the transportation to Oregon.
OLIVE OIL
The olive oil that I used was also manufactured by Trader Joe’s, in Monrovia California. So, once again, we need water to go to the factory and the olives to be shipped in from somewhere, and then shipped out once it is processed using more and more fuel!
GARLIC
The garlic I used was also from my mother’s garden so no fuel was needed to transport it, only the transportation of the water that was necessary for it to grow demanded fuel.
CHILI POWDER
The Chili powder I used was a McCormick brand chili powder. It is packaged and distributed in Maryland so if I had to guess I would say that the chilies were not from Maryland. Thus, they needed to be shipped in, ground using machinery, packaged, and shipped out, all using fossil fuels
ONION
The onion was from Walla Walla Washington and was organic so no synthetic fertilizers were used there, but transportation fuel is still needed.
REFLECTION
It is surprising how even a simple dish like this uses so much energy and fuel to make. I would also speculate that there were many more processes and fuels that went into processing this food that are not listed on the packaging. This kind of thing makes me wonder about how many places my food is really from. 100? 200? Almost every element of every item seems to come from a different place so it has to add up!