Fawlty Towers: Spanish Omelettes and Cheese Salads

Cafe Society
1

These are questions that have been nagging at me for years, based on the Fawlty Towers episode “The Hotel Inspectors.”

  1. When Mr. Hutchinson—the guest with an oddly formal and elaborate manner of speaking and slightly odd requests that Basil finds extremely irritating—orders his meal, he first asks for a Spanish omelette.

He eventually rejects the Spanish omelette because the kitchen uses frozen peas instead of fresh peas. What I know as a Spanish omelette is a type of egg-and-potato frittata.

It could have any number of other ingredients, to be chosen by the chef or the customer, and one of those could be peas. But the conversation between Fawlty and Hutchinson implies that peas are an expected and essential ingredient in a Spanish omelette.

I certainly wouldn’t walk into a restaurant thinking that the cook would know that when I ordered a Spanish omelette, I expected peas to be in it.

So, in England, if you order a Spanish omelette, do you expect that it would include peas?

  1. After he cancels the omelette, Mr. Hutchinson orders a “cheese salad.” Other than this episode, I have never heard anyone using the term “cheese salad.” I mean, I have seen many salads that include cheese of some kind as an ingredient. I’ve heard of salads with specific names—“tomato-and-mozzarella-cheese salad.” But never just a “cheese salad.”

Is “cheese salad” a commonly understood and used term in England? If you walk into a restaurant and ask for a cheese salad, will they know what you want? If you are a guest in someone’s home and your host says that the first course is a cheese salad, wil you know what you’re getting?

Does it have specific ingredients? (Say, for example, 1 part shredded iceberg lettuce, 1 part shredded cheddar, garnished with sliced onion and seasoned with salt and pepper.) Or is it just any salad that has cheese as a principal ingredient?

  1. The terminology is confusing to me. Basil is concerned with the arrival of hotel “inspectors”—which suggests to me that these are government officials charged with enforcing laws and regulations regarding hotels.

However, it seems that these “inspectors” are really working for a travelers’ guide to hotels, so in my mind they aren’t inspectors at all. They’re more accurately termed “reviewers” or something like that.

In fact, in another episode, “Basil the Rat,” the hotel is actually visited by a health inspector and cited for violations of the health code.

Is it common in England for the term “inspector” to be used loosely in this manner?

2

Ok, I’ll have a go!

The first thing to bear in mind is that Fawlty Towers was written and made between 1975 and 1979 - 40 years ago! This alone explains most of issues. In the seventies British cooking had only just started to move on from post-war boring meat (burnt to a cinder) and two veg (boiled to death). Add to that that Basil and the hotel are at best mid-market with delusions of grandeur (see the episodes A Touch of Class and the Gourmet Night :slight_smile: ) neither he nor the guests really know about food. In fact a lot of the humour is based on Basil’s small town pretensions.

As to the questions:

  1. No, even in the seventies peas were not required in a Spanish omelette even in Britain. In fact I have a 1978 recipe book with a Spanish Omelette recipe with tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and cheese - not peas!

  2. Cheese salad - it might have been on the menu at a cafe but I can’t think of it as an actual recipe. Essentially I would take it to be a basic green salad with some grated cheddar on top. Again it is John Cleese and Connie Booth having a dig at the middle class pretensions of both Basil and the customer.

  3. Inspector is still used for the reviewers paid for by hotel and restaurant guides - do a search for “Michelin Inspector”.

3

Thanks!

Yes! These questions have been in my brain for nearly that long! I think I first saw them in the mid-1980s.

Well, they both seem to be familiar with each other’s use of terminology, so that’s what I was wondering about, whether there was a common understanding of the terms in English society of the time.

So, I wonder whether there is a further joke embedded in this, that it’s strange that Hutchinson considers peas an essential ingredient.

So, essentially, “don’t forget the cheese,” eh?

Aha, definitely learned something new with this.

4

Dad used to make peas-and-cheese salad: Chunks of cheddar cheese (mild), peas (canned), and Miracle Whip mixed together.

Not that he was English. But when I read ‘cheese salad’ I got an image of chunks of cheese mixed with a dressing.

5

Yeah, that kind of thing was also among the possibilities I considered.

6

I found a recipe for cheese salad that’s analogous to tuna salad, potato salad, macaroni salad, chicken salad, etc - chopped up cheese with mayonnaise mixed in. The recipe identifies this as a Russian food item.

eta: This leads to the related question. Which one was invented first? Chicken salad or egg salad?

7

I was going to mention this. My ex, who is from Siberia, makes this for every New Year’s celebration. It’s found on Russian menus quite often and is very tasty. How far it’s penetrated into Western Europe, I can’t say.

The cheese is grated, not chopped, BTW.

I would expect there to be some variation in Spanish omelettes, too.

8

In Europe, I’ve also had “meat salads,” which were strips of roast beef, ham, and (I think) chicken, garnished with strips of cheese (different varieties) and some leafy greens. If there was any dressing, it was served on the side as a dip. Very substantial.

9

I recall that in the movie A Merry War (1997)—based on George Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying—Richard E. Grant and Helena Bonham Carter go to a restaurant too expensive for their budget and order a “cold beef salad.”

It’s a fantastic movie, by the way.

10

So it’s a multi-layered joke? I’ve wondered for decades too. (Obviously less actively than the OP! :D)

Officious Patron orders a Spanish Omelet, that being perhaps a dish he has heard named someplace. Basil’s chef, being Basil’s chef, prepares something that only tangentially approaches the standard recipe. The Patron, knowing no more about omelets than the chef but still being a pretentious ass, decides to complain about it anyway. Thus he declares the peas to be, not an unfamiliar, unneeded, and unwanted variation on the recipe, but objectionable for being frozen. And, remaining the buffoon, demands for replacement something that doesn’t actually exist in common English culinary fare. Which Basil fawningly agrees to provide.

Somehow I can see John Cleese’s mind working that way.

11

Makes perfect sense. IIRC, Basil assumes Officious Patron is a hotel inspector and tries to go out of his way to please.

12

Well … This might be close, but isn’t on the nose. Hutchinson asked whether the peas were fresh before the cook made the omelette.

Sigh … I might as well go back and watch it now:

Basil’s next thought is interrupted before he finishes, but it seems like he’s about to say that they have been serving Spanish omelettes for a long time and no one else has ever complained about the quality of the peas.

This conversation seems to suggest to me that both Basil and Hutchinson view peas as a standard ingredient in a Spanish omelette.

Although …

I suppose that the menu might have listed all the vegetables in the omelette, and that’s how Hutchinson latched onto the peas, but that would mean that he’s lying when he says “I always feel that the pas are an integral part of the overall flavor.”

As pretentious and weird as Hutchinson is, I don’t get the impression that he’s making shit up though. It seems to me that his odd preferences are genuine.

13

According to Wiki, there is a variation that is called tortilla paisana that has red peppers and peas in it. Probably native to Barcelona. :wink:

14

In reading the script I heard the voices distinctly in my head. I like it when that happens. :slight_smile:

“Is not rat, is Hamster!”

15

Filigree!

16

The only cheese salad I’ve encountered is a sort of paste/dip made by combining cheese with butter or mayo and mixing well, served with chips or crackers.

17

This recipe looks a lot like pimento cheese spread, a staple in the south. Whole Foods has a version with jalapenos instead of pimentos that’s very good.

It’s really sad when a product with the word “cheese” prominently in the name has to emphasize that is made with REAL cheese. And note that “made with cheese” isn’t precisely the same thing as “made OUT OF cheese.”

18

Did that movie have a scene in a wood?

19

I wonder, have you by any chance ever tried a Ritz salad?

20

If I recall correctly, right after they left the restaurant, they had sex in the woods.

Of course! Apples, grapefruit, and potatoes in a mayonnaise sauce!