The potato buns that make Plasencia unique

Its history is linked to that of Bernarda Martín –it is not for nothing that she is known as ‘la bollera’– and today her potato buns are a hallmark of the city, something that makes it unique because only here are they made and sold. . They are the buns that have been part of baptismal, communion and wedding banquets for decades, fairs, neighborhood festivals, Holy Week, the Health branch, the Tuesday market.

Bernarda Martín started selling them when she was just a girl and has continued to do so throughout her life. Also when it was neither her hands nor her mother’s that made them. In fact, the history of Plasencia potato buns has been written for more than two decades thanks to Isabel Fernández.

“Although without Bernarda it would not have been possible,” he makes clear. “Not only because she has helped me sell them for a long time, but because she was the one who encouraged me along with my sister, who is her daughter-in-law, to take charge of making her.” That was her 28 years ago. Since then it is Isabel who keeps the secret of the potato buns.

“I can say that they have potatoes, flour, yeast, salt and water and even there,” he says. «Because then there is the secret ingredient, the mystery that Bernarda says, and that I will not say, of course».

Isabel Fernández met him when she took the baton from ‘la bollera’. She then rented a place, which now belongs to her and is in Manuel Bermejo (former Matías Montero), very close to the San Lázaro bridge, and with a recipe in hand, she began making the potato buns.

“Many people have asked me and ask me to give them the recipe, to say what the secret ingredient is, but I will only tell whoever takes my witness when I retire,” he says. “Because I hope to be able to give it, possibly to a granddaughter of Bernarda, so that this tradition, which began after the war, remains united to the family.” Until then, Isabel will be the one in the kitchen of her store in Manuel Bermejo to continue making the potato buns.

“Completely handmade, because I am the one who makes the dough, which is complicated and you have to stretch it well, and it does not always turn out the same because the quantities are not measured, it is done by eye,” he details. «Once stretched, already in the shape of the bun, it is fried in very hot oil; then the buns are removed, rest a bit and covered with sugar». From there directly to the basket and for sale. “Because the potato bun is what it has, you have to eat it freshly made, it doesn’t last for days like other sweets.”

After the break that the pandemic has brought to everything and everyone, Isabel has resumed making and selling at the Tuesday market. “Now is the only day I make them, between 300 and 400 every Tuesday, and my husband sells them in the Plaza Mayor.”

To fixed customers of all life above all. “I have many, who come every Tuesday for the potato buns, three for 1.50 euros.” Clients for whom, in some cases, «I have made the buns for their baptism, for their communion and for their wedding, because the truth is that they like them; the ones I make on Tuesdays are all sold”.

But he also “made them, now I don’t know yet, for Holy Week and the Health branch, and for fairs and also for the summer; during July and August I am in the park of the Island».

The potato buns, however, are not the only ones that Isabel makes and sells, although “they are the only ones exclusive to Plasencia, those that are made and sold here and cannot be found anywhere else.” She also makes, “in the same way, in an artisanal way and with natural products”, florets, pestiños, reeds, roses and huesillos.

But it is Bernarda Martín’s buns that continue to make a difference in the business today. Thanks to a woman, acknowledges Isabel, who popularized them and linked Plasencia forever. Reason why ‘la bollera’ has received various tributes from her city. She was one of the first people from Placentia recognized on International Women’s Day for a life of work and effort and selfless help to society. Mother of four children and grandmother of nine grandchildren, creator of many regional costumes and one of the most active carnival-goers for years, Bernarda Martín will remain forever linked to Plasencia because Juan Vázquez Street will be dedicated to her. Her name is one of the last six to be incorporated this year into the Placentino street map.

“It is the recognition that a fighting woman deserves who, among many other achievements, when she inherited the recipe for potato buns, managed to turn them into a hallmark of the city,” in the words of the mayor, Fernando Pizarro. A sign that continues today thanks to Isabel Fernández.