Ugh, the Terror of Waking Up to Realize You Slept Through Breakfast
Ugh, the Terror of Waking Up to Realize You Slept Through Breakfast
Molletes in Seville
It’s our last morning in Sevilla, and I am jolted awake in a panic by my partner’s hands gripping my sides. Within minutes, I’ve thrown on my wrinkled clothes from last night and can hear the door slamming behind us. This urgency is not because we are late for our bus to Granada—that stress will come later, in a few hours. We’ve almost slept through our last chance for molletes.
A flaky flatbread found across Spain’s Andalusian region, the mollete is an exercise in simplicity. After receiving a quick, searing kiss from the oven, the bread is bathed in raw garlic and garbed lightly with olive oil. Ascetics can opt for this bare-bones set-up; a slightly more substantial version might include tomato slices. Breakfast gluttons looking to indulge themselves during a day’s early hours can pile on additional layers of jamón or cheese.
During our stay, we had already tasted molletes with tomato once, on a whim, and they were heaven. So, the day before, we stopped in at a café near the cathedral just after the stroke of noon, hoping for a second helping. But the mustachioed counterman could only give a half-hearted apology. Molletes were a breakfast option, he said, and they were done serving them that day. He recommended hard-crusted bocadillos as an alternative. They tasted like a consolation prize.
So we are running from the apartment to avoid a repeat of this disappointment, and have found ourselves at the window counter of a sleepy watering hole called Casa Diego. Inside, a gaunt man in white pants and a collared shirt is alone, silently nursing his caña of beer, illuminated by the neon glow of a slot machine. After we find out that we can order molletes today, the counterman, perplexed by my partner’s excited state, signals for her to join me at a patio table. Relax, they’ll bring the food to you, he explains.
Sitting down at the table, we settle into the timeless pace of life on the square, watching others unmoved by urgencies of the day. When the molletes arrive—this time with jamón and tomato—we bite into them. Although they taste good, the cravings persist. Something is off—we’ve gone too far.
The jamón’s taste is overpowering the tomato, my partner says. She begins removing the cured meat, to eat separately, and I follow her lead. The fruit’s simple brightness is all the bread really needs, we realize.