Aroma, Taste, Hunger, Satisfaction: Gastronomy in Catalunya
This posting is dedicated to the (ideally) daily act of eating. In previous posts I have addressed some ritual aspects of food and drink and mentioned that there is a special food for nearly every Catalan festival. Leaving those dishes on the sideboard for now I will follow some other themes: local dishes, emblematic places and purveyors of food both raw and cooked, tools used in the preparation and serving of food and local food festivals. This last includes an example of eating as political critique.
Meals are organized around a work schedule that preserves the migdiada or long afternoon break. Twenty years after Spain joined the European Union, this schedule has not dissapeared as predicted. Many workers and school children go home for their main meal and restaurants are oriented to serve the most people between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon when they offer a set price menu. These usually consist of choices of a first and second course, bottle of wine, dessert and sometimes coffee. The price at more elegant places start at around 9 euros and humbler places as little as 6 euros. The same dishes and wine ordered separately in the evening might cost three to five times as much. In addition there is esmorzar (breakfast), an 11 am coffee break with a pastry or small sandwich, the main meal, dinar, an afternoon snack, berenar and an ostensibly light supper, sopar, rarely begun before 10 pm and not infrequently continuing until 1 am. Spaniards visiting the US have been reported to go to bed hungry until adjusting to the radically early US kitchen closings.
Things to Eat
Catalan townsfolk seem to retain a strong identification with the country’s rural character. This isn't hard to undertand given the vineyards and field crops surrounding Vilanova and the frequent sight of farmers driving to town in horse drawn carts to pick up supplies and visit relatives. Although one can buy all sorts of packaged and processed food, locally produced food is especially esteemed.
I can’t be exhaustive about Catalan food but the centrality of pork must be acknowledged. Every Catalan kitchen is said to have a pernil (leg of preserved ham known elsewhere as jamón or prosciutto) and fuet, a semi-dry pork sausage. Other famed sausages include Xoriço, Llonganissa and the ubiquitous botifarra, which is the standard barbecue food, features in many a hearty breakfast, and is even eaten with eggs by the "shepherds tending their flocks" in a christmas carol.
Botifarra amb bolets
Bolets, wild mushrooms, are also avidly hunted and consumed. Conill, rabbit, is eaten more frequently than chicken, often as a take away Sunday meal. One friend’s favorite dish is rabbit stewed with cargols, snails. The Catalan interior town of Lleida hosts an annual cargolada or snail feast.
Winter greens are another cult of the local country, the Garraf, including a number of indigenous varieties: brotons, espigalls, escarolla perruqueta and col paperina. Escarole is the star of Xatò, a salad so renowned Vilanova hosts an international festival dedicated to it (more photos under festival).
And finally more seafood is consumed per capita in Spain than in any other nation except Japan. Vilanova itself is one of the major fishing ports in the Mediterranean and provides the fresh catch for much of the region including Barcelona’s universe of eateries. This catch includes lluç, (hake), pop, (octopus), rap, (monkfish). xipiron, (small squid), escarmarlà, (resembles langostino but with longer claws), sipia, (cuttlefish) plus all kinds of shellfish, crustaceans and countless other fish. A lot of this is still alive and kicking when it lands in local markets.
A fried quail egg tops this tapa. Bilbao Birria, Barcelona.
Dessert options usually include fresh fruit like this melon
Octopus salad at L’Oganquït, Vilanova i la Geltrú
Carxofes, (artichokes). el Temple, Vilanova i la Geltrú.
This cruxificion scene is made entirely of chocolate. Barcelona Museu de la Xocolata
Tetilla, cheese from Galicia.
A salad of bitter greens garnished with quince paste L'Oganquit Vilanova i la Geltrú.
Balana monopolizes a bowl of black cherries
Gastronomic Atmospheres
This restaurant, Els Sentits (the senses), in Vilanova i la Geltrú opened after I gave the same title to my blog. The senses are frequently invoked both individually as taste, smell, etc and collectively, not only in gastronomic contexts but at festivals, museums, journalism, and advertising.
Balana brandishes a fork at Genito, Vilanova i la Geltrú
Angie awaits her first course at a restaurant in the nearby town of Tarragona
Balana and Saúl impatiently await the arrival of wine and cheese. Barcelona.
The streets of la Geltrú turned into an open air potluck one night of the antique neighborhood’s Festa major. Some Vilanovins such as ourselves were invited to see how the other half eats
What claims to be Barcelona's oldest cafe serves intensely rich xurros i xocolata
Nikki consults the menu at Genito, Vilanova i la Geltrú
Pushing back the chairs after dessert at els Sentits, Vilanova i la Geltrú
Purveyors
The Eiffel Tower of food markets, La Boqueria, Barcelona
This vintner and wineshop is a block from our house. Can Pujol, Vilanova i la Geltrú
Implements
Ceramic collection. Cau Ferrat, Sitges.
Tastavins. Museu del Vi, Vilafranca del Penedès.
18th Century chocolate cup saucer. Can Papiol, Vilanova i la Geltrú.
Wine pitchers. Museu del Vi, Vilafranca del Penedès.
Kitchen with colored tiles or rajoles. Cau Ferrat, Sitges.
Porrons are wine pitchers with spouts designed to dispense a stream of wine directly to the mouth. Museu del Vi, Vilafranca del Penedès..
Food Festivals
La Xatonada is a festival dedicated to making and eating Xatò, the salad of the Garraf. It is said to embrace both mountain and sea containing escarole, olives, salt cod, anchovies and a sauce made from nyora peppers, ground hazelnuts, olive oil and garlic.
A large helping of xatò.
La Xatonada is held in the trainyard of Vilanova's train museum which houses the most extensive collection of steam engines in Europe. .
The ingredients of xatò.
La Festa de la Vedella is only six years old. It was founded in response to alarm about mad cow disease. The Vilanovins refused to run with the herd and responded by roasted whole cows on the beach and eating them.
A whole cow roasts on a wood fire.
This fountain in the nearby town of Prades is filled with cava during their festa major.
During Carnaval Vilanova's market stalls are decorated and become part of the festival infrastructure
Imaginary cuisine. As enchanted pastry chefs add ingredients to the caldron that will give birth to Caramel, the children's carnival king, they add a Vilanovin herring to balance all the sugar and spice.
Meals are organized around a work schedule that preserves the migdiada or long afternoon break. Twenty years after Spain joined the European Union, this schedule has not dissapeared as predicted. Many workers and school children go home for their main meal and restaurants are oriented to serve the most people between 2:00 and 4:00 in the afternoon when they offer a set price menu. These usually consist of choices of a first and second course, bottle of wine, dessert and sometimes coffee. The price at more elegant places start at around 9 euros and humbler places as little as 6 euros. The same dishes and wine ordered separately in the evening might cost three to five times as much. In addition there is esmorzar (breakfast), an 11 am coffee break with a pastry or small sandwich, the main meal, dinar, an afternoon snack, berenar and an ostensibly light supper, sopar, rarely begun before 10 pm and not infrequently continuing until 1 am. Spaniards visiting the US have been reported to go to bed hungry until adjusting to the radically early US kitchen closings.
Things to Eat
Catalan townsfolk seem to retain a strong identification with the country’s rural character. This isn't hard to undertand given the vineyards and field crops surrounding Vilanova and the frequent sight of farmers driving to town in horse drawn carts to pick up supplies and visit relatives. Although one can buy all sorts of packaged and processed food, locally produced food is especially esteemed.
I can’t be exhaustive about Catalan food but the centrality of pork must be acknowledged. Every Catalan kitchen is said to have a pernil (leg of preserved ham known elsewhere as jamón or prosciutto) and fuet, a semi-dry pork sausage. Other famed sausages include Xoriço, Llonganissa and the ubiquitous botifarra, which is the standard barbecue food, features in many a hearty breakfast, and is even eaten with eggs by the "shepherds tending their flocks" in a christmas carol.
Bolets, wild mushrooms, are also avidly hunted and consumed. Conill, rabbit, is eaten more frequently than chicken, often as a take away Sunday meal. One friend’s favorite dish is rabbit stewed with cargols, snails. The Catalan interior town of Lleida hosts an annual cargolada or snail feast.
Winter greens are another cult of the local country, the Garraf, including a number of indigenous varieties: brotons, espigalls, escarolla perruqueta and col paperina. Escarole is the star of Xatò, a salad so renowned Vilanova hosts an international festival dedicated to it (more photos under festival).
And finally more seafood is consumed per capita in Spain than in any other nation except Japan. Vilanova itself is one of the major fishing ports in the Mediterranean and provides the fresh catch for much of the region including Barcelona’s universe of eateries. This catch includes lluç, (hake), pop, (octopus), rap, (monkfish). xipiron, (small squid), escarmarlà, (resembles langostino but with longer claws), sipia, (cuttlefish) plus all kinds of shellfish, crustaceans and countless other fish. A lot of this is still alive and kicking when it lands in local markets.
Gastronomic Atmospheres
Purveyors
Implements
Food Festivals
La Xatonada is a festival dedicated to making and eating Xatò, the salad of the Garraf. It is said to embrace both mountain and sea containing escarole, olives, salt cod, anchovies and a sauce made from nyora peppers, ground hazelnuts, olive oil and garlic.
La Festa de la Vedella is only six years old. It was founded in response to alarm about mad cow disease. The Vilanovins refused to run with the herd and responded by roasted whole cows on the beach and eating them.
posted by Brad at 5:24 AM
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