Tombatruites Making a truita (trooEETeh) de patates (Spanish omelette) is dead easy. You fry the diced potatoes in olive oil till soft. You beat the eggs in a bowl, with salt. You add the eggs to the pan and cook the mixture on one side. And then you flip it over – and end up with a half-cooked mess splattered all over the hob, the floor, and your shoes, and hot oil dripping down your
Sant Jordi Over the years, I’ve written about Sant Jordi many times, so this is a mash-up of several oldish pieces. El dia de Sant Jordi is a standout day in Catalonia, a not-to-be missed blend of fun and romance, culture and the hard-headed business sense that is said to be so typical of the Catalans. Sant Jordi (St George) is the patron saint of Catalonia and his day, 23 April, which is also the
Ratafia It really was difficult to decide what to post for R. Top of the list was Reus, the city, basically so I could give its pronunciation (having heard it mangled so often): RAYoos. Then there’s rambla… rauxa… the Two Rogers (Roger de Llúria and Roger de Flor)… Anyway, yesterday I was watching our latest celebrity hipster TV chef make pigs trotters – not my favourite dish to be honest – when he said, with
Quatre gats When I first came to Barcelona, when Spain was still a police state, I taught English at a school in a stately building on Rambla Catalunya, on the floor above what was then the Moroccan Consulate. One evening we heard a commotion outside and stepped out onto the narrow balcony: a handful of demonstrators were straggling down the central walkway, waving Polisario placards (the movement for the liberation of Spanish Sahara). They stopped
Pirineus From north to south, from east to west, the Catalans do mountains big time, and Els Pirineus (pronounced PeereeNAYoos) are the biggest of the lot. You probably know that they form a formidable natural barrier between France and Spain, and are jammed with ski slopes, hiking routes, all manner of sports and outdoor activities, mountain lakes, horses, natural parks, Romanesque churches tucked away in tiny villages… But do you know how they
Oli d’oliva Liquid gold… healthy Mediterranean diet… absolutely delicious. And the Catalans do no less than five Denominació d’Origen Protegida extra virgin olive oils: Les Garrigues, Siurana, Baix Ebre-Montsià, Terra Alta, and l’Empordà. Nothing more to say except the over-the-top ‘I would die without it.’ Oliveres mil.lenàries Some of the oldest olive trees in the world live in Catalonia, in the south of Tarragona province near the Riu Ebre. A couple of years ago, researchers
If you love being made to jump out of your skin while strolling peacefully through your local square, if dosing your dog with valium is your thing, or locking yourself in with all the windows closed on a hot summer night, then you will positively adore the Nit de Sant Joan – St John’s Night – a.k.a. Nit de Foc or Night of Fire. This festival marks the summer solstice and is celebrated throughout Catalonia
Mar i muntanya ‘Sea and mountain’ is a type of dish that combines ingredients typical of mountain areas (meat, sausages, game etc) with fish and seafood, as in arrós mar i muntanya For example: pollastre amb llagosta – chicken with lobster pollastre amb escamarlans – chicken with crawfish calamars farcits de carn – squid stuffed with meat rap amb cansalada – monkfish with bacon galtes de porc amb sípia – pork cheeks with cuttlefish Also,
Llobregat “The land of seven harvests” was how the agricultural area of the Delta del Llobregat (lyoobrehGATT) south-west of Barcelona was known historically, thanks to its great fertility, plentiful water and mild climate. Now, this area, the Baix (Bash = Lower) Llobregat, is mostly an ugly and cluttered sprawl given over to industrial estates and transport infrastructure like Barcelona’s port and airport, and urban development (several towns bear the name: San Boi de Llobregat, Cornellà
Catalans don’t really do K. It’s the 11th letter of the Catalan alphabet but is only used in words of foreign origin, from kafkià to kuwaitià. According to the rule book, the k- sound before –i and –e is represented in written Catalan by qu- as in quilogram, quilòmetre, quilovat, etc, but these weights and measures are often written with the more familiar international k. Oh, and Catalan Wikipedia is Viquipèdia. You may also see