Cesar Bonilla
It was revenge. Every guilty pleasure begins for such a reason. In 1853, to the cook George "Crum" Speck it occurs to you to do the very thin potatoes, churruscadas with sunflower oil Y stuffed with lots of salt to annoy a client who always complained to him. But he loved them. And he asked for another , and another, and they became so famous that they ended up being called Saratoga Chips because it was the place where they were made. And for Crum, who had borrowed his father's nickname when he raced as a jockey, the move turned out bittersweet.
Eight decades later, in 1932 , thousands of kilometers away, in Ferrol, Salvador Bonilla left the Navy Y he would start making churros and fries . With olive oil. As expensive as he was, everyone told him it wouldn't last long. But Salvador was always different . Brother of a very large family -there were 17- and with a dozen suits and dozens of ties in the closet, gallant and jovial like no other, he sets up a churrería before the boom . He becomes so famous that later he came a hotel on the pier that he ceased to be because 'hotel' was an English word and had to be changed to Bonilla House . And a summer cafe in Canton with 150 tables and musical bands to liven up the evenings. The coffee bar Alameda.
Churrería of the Rúa Real de Bonilla in sight
They arrived in the city of Coruña in 1949 with one hand in front and one behind, opening the first churreria Bonilla in the 138 Orzán Street . And César, his son, had the idea that they could distribute them throughout the city. He had a friend in The Artistic -which was a can factory - who offered to make him a few cans of the " oil companies ", those of 24 liter capacity , which were the ones used to store fat from ships. And César, who carried the sailor and adventurous spirit of his father, said yes. The first distribution of potato chips with olive oil in cans in the world was born but he didn't know.
They attached four labels made at the Roel printing house and they were returnable. They came to have more than 300 cans throughout the city . Cesar took them on a bicycle at the beginning of everything. Then on a Guzzi motorcycle and then on a Vespa. They were fried overnight, packed and delivered in the morning . They were not enough. On their bikes, the sides of the crankcase always ended up peeling.
But in 1958 his father, savior , said that the project that had given him so much joy was over, that the accounts were not coming out, that potatoes did not give money . That perhaps those doomsayers were right. And the pioneer seafaring adventure lay fallow for 30 years . Until César couldn't take it anymore and he got rid of his spine by setting up a factory in 1988 in Arteixo, in the Sabón industrial estate . And since then he hasn't stopped frying them and seasoning them with sea salt -the trick so they don't get wet-. Though Cesar Bonilla is already retired, he keeps going to try the potatoes every morning after his breakfast in his churrería . He has come to reject huge batches of potatoes because they did not meet the required quality. He has been doing it for a lifetime.
The Bonilla factory in sight
Those of us who are from the generation of ET Y Dirty Dancing We did not imagine that something as common as Bonilla potatoes can be in movies that win an Oscar because for us the memory is in the bars and cafes and seeing my mother order a beer and a juice for the child and that they put a bowl of potatoes.
Now that it is almost an object of worship , from gourmet collector, from debate to the best vermouth accompaniment; now that we know that Boris Johnson had a tin can in his office while he was Mayor of London or that in South Korea it is the most prized snack in the country, now that we know all that, it is also good to know where the things we like come from. That this adventure began because Salvador Bonilla wanted to differentiate himself and César Bonilla he wanted to make it possible for everyone.
the classic can