 Of all the regional cuisines in the Peninsula, Catalan
cooking is without doubt the most sophisticated, complete
and richest apart from possessing most historical evidence.
It is, in short, a privileged cuisine, because it developed
at crossroads that have connected it throughout history
with many other countries, such as France and Italy.
Its main dishes rely on four basic sauces: sofrito, samfaina,
picada and ali-oli, and of the four, special mention
must be made of the second, because it is strictly Catalan
and used with a wide variety of dishes. It is a half-cooked
mixture of tomato, pepper and aubergine.
Sofrito, on the other hand, is rather widespread in Spanish
cooking. It is a fried sauce made with garlic, onion,
tomato and parsley. Picada has the special Catalan touch
and is added to the simplest dishes so that they never
become monotonous routine. It contains garlic, parsley,
toasted almonds and chopped pine seeds. Ali-oli is an
admirable dressing which probably dates from the times
of the Romans and is made with olive oil and garlic,
which are mixed very patiently in a mortar until they
turn into a creamy paste which is ideal for meat and
fish.
The traveller will discover a variety of rice dishes
in Catalonia, as well as meat dishes, particularly poultry,
and the famous Girona veal; not to mention rock fish,
which is prepared very tastily and with a lot of imagination.
The visitor will also find a surprisingly rich collection
of sausages, including butifarra which is roasted or
fried with mongetes -white beans- to make a modest but
tasty dish, one of the most typical in the land. Vic
is the capital of sausages, especially of salchichón
and the typical fuet. And accompanying this dish is another
very traditional treat: bread with tomato in a Catalan
version, ie, rubbing the tomato into the bread and adding
olive oil and salt. A slice of ham, an omelette or whatever
else is available may be put on top. The wines in the
area are also magnificent, and worthy of special mention
are those of El Priorato, which are very special, thick
and mild reds not easily found outside Catalonia. El
porrón or glass jug is also very popular in Catalonia:
the wine is poured from the glass jug with the spout
held high. More common is the leather wineskin, which
is equally appropriate for the liquid, but drinking from
the porrón seems to give the wine a different
taste.
Girona
Of all Catalonia, Girona really has the best cuisine.
It covers part of the Pyrenees and part of the Mediterranean
and has carefully preserved its cooking traditions. The
area inland is called Ampurdán and has the best
dishes of feathered animals. It is the area of the largest
turkeys, geese, ducks and poultry stuffed with complicated,
unforgettable mixtures of pears, turnips, apples, olives...
It is also especially famous for its Christmas turkey,
stuffed with sausages, butifarras, raisins and pine nuts.
Game also abounds in the recipes, and rabbits are prepared
with fine herbs, hare with chestnuts, partridge in accordance
with a recipe originating from Olesa. Here we find a
cuisine which likes to mix flavours, sweet and salty
or fish and meat. In this sense, it may be said that
it has the most unusual dish in the whole Spanish cookery
book, which is nevertheless magnificent: the little known
Mar y cel (lit.: sea and heaven), which contains nothing
less than sausages, rabbit, shrimp and angler and is
prepared in Estartit. And finally there is another famous
Costa Brava dish: chicken with lobster.
In the chapter about fish, Girona, with the rest of the
Costa Brava, stands out among all the Catalan areas for
its magnificent suquets, a fishermen''s dish which contains
different rock fish boiled in a thick broth and an equally
thick sofrito. The thick, magnificent angler soup must
also be mentioned, as well as the lobster which is the
best in the region and is prepared with roasted almonds
and garlic and then served with ali-oli...
Barcelona
Barcelona is a city which has a long tradition in the
art of cooking. It reached its greatest splendour in
this sense in the 19th century, when some of its many
restaurants were counted among the bestin Europe.
Of the most important dishes special mention should be
made of the escudelia i cam d''olla, which wag eaten
almost daily until the thirties. Today it can hardly
be found in the local restaurants. However, it is still
number one of the typical Catalan dishes.
Escudella is the Catalan version of the chickpea stew
called cocido. It is based on the same principle of cooking
meat and vegetables together. There are two separate
courses, that is, two dishes: one, a soup with small
noodles and rice, and then meat, served with the vegetables.
It does not include chorizo or morcilla like other Spanish
stews, but the white and black butifarra, and the famous
pilota, a ball made of meat, parsley, bread crumbs and
egg. This stew probably has more ingredients than any
other stew in the whole country: beef, hen, bacon, pig''s
ear, pig''s trotters and lean pork, white and black butifarra,
ham bone, marrow bone, chickpeas, beans, potatoes, cauliflower,
egg, turnip, carrot, garlic, flour, pepper, cinnamon
and parsley.
The people of Barcelona have also invented tasty noodles,
ie, fideos a la cazuela, one of the most popular dishes
of the region. As is customary in this area, the dish
includes an ample selection of spare ribs, sausages,
butifarra, ham and bacon as well as sofrito which, as
usual, consists of onion, pepper and tomato.
Together with the escudella and butifarra with beans,
which we mentioned in the introduction, the third most
typical Catalan stew is the one with broad beans (habas
a ta catalana). It is prepared with a lot of herbs and
spices (thyme, rosemary, mint, cinnamon and bay leaf),
broad beans which are the favourite vegetable in the
area, and butifarra.
As for desserts, Catalan cream is excellent. It resembles
custard and is covered with a layer of caramel. However,
the most traditional sweets are the ones prepared all
through the year for the different holidays, such as
pa de pessic, las coques de la noche de San Juan, los
panellets of almond and pine seeds in the month of November...
and at any time of the year, el mel i mató with
requesón, a soft, white cheese.
Sant Sadorni d''Anoia is the production centre of the
famous cavas, the sparkling wines.
Lleida
Lleida cooking resembles the mountain cuisine, with hearty
dishes in which game and excellent trout abound. And
in order to enjoy them at their best, one should select
one of the little food-serving places in the Pyrenees,
with an expert cook. And reserve the meal in advance.
Thus, there is a chance of trying la cassolada, a potato
and vegetable stew with bacon and ribs; or lamb''s head
and legs with girella, or lamb''s feet with turnips,
and above all the excellent hare and chamois civets.
In this region rice dishes are frequently prepared with
rabbit, cod and pork. They are always served with a lot
of broth. The most typical sausages of the region are
la girella and los xolis.
Tarragona
This province is noted for such dishes as rabbit with
garlic and tuna boiled with potatoes, bull de atún,
marrow and snails, balls of cod and cod fritters, and
a great speciality: los calçots which are sweet,
tender onions, ie, the shoots of an old onion. This dish
is served in Valls and throughout the area around Poblet
and Santes Creus under the name of calçotada.
It is a typical and exotic dish, because the onions,
freshly picked, are roasted on a tile, on which they
are served accompanied by an olive oil and almond sauce.
However, most important of the Tarragona cuisine are
the rice dishes and a really splendid sauce. Among the
rice dishes, el rossejat is a particularly popular one
all along the East Coast and is especially typical of
fishermen. Then there is black rice with sepia and el
arroz aban
© 2002-2006, Spain
Tourism
© 2002-2006, Spain
Tourism
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