A CATALAN WEDDING BANQUET

I tried very hard to create an authentic Catalan menu for the nuptials at the Palau Moxo in Barcelona. It took considerable planning and not being a native speaker, it wasnt so easy to get my ideas across. Strangely the caterers found it hard to understand us wanting to put on a feast of traditional paisos catalans dishes. But a lot of reading and several visits later, we came to a successful conclusion. The sight of fifty happy wedding guests seems evidence enough.

Catalan cuisine marries ancient Roman and Moorish influences and its more modern Castilian and French influences. But it is identifiably its own. The combination of complex cooking and overwhelmingly simple ingredients makes it unique. Of course it's availability of local ingredients that makes this cuisine so varied and tasteful. From the bountiful game, seafood, fish and meat to the vegetable farms, orchards, orange groves, rice paddys and vineyards, Catalonia is a veritable garden of Eden. A visit to any of the famous food markets of Barcelona like La Boqueria or Sant Antoni will testify to that.

But the cooking borrows none of the fussiness of its close neighbour France. In fact it has even been described as having the ‘brown food problem' looking fairly uniform brown whatever the dish. This may be true of the look of many recipes but not the flavours and textures which are strong and clear, often drawn out using unusual friendships in the pot like fruit and meat, game with vinagrette, fish and honey. In these dishes more complex cooking methods and specific cooking vessels make it more about substance than style. This belies the effort and skill that goes into so many of the dishes. Sometimes the best paellas (originally a Valencian dish) might not appear glamorous but the coaxing flavours of meat and fish broths and seafood, chicken and sweet peas merge unlike anything else. A good paella is a golden secret.

And there are always surprising dishes in store. Salted fish like bacalao and anxoves dominate delicate salads like xatonada and escalivada. Unusual sauces accompany like romesco made with almonds, tomatoes and peppers and the ubiquitous allioli (perfect with everything) – a garlic and oil mayonnaise. But it's also a Ceres basket of seemingly easy ideas, making choosing food from a menu deceptively easy. Go for things like the baby squid chipirones and white beans alubias and faves a la butifarra a salad with black pudding with broad beans.

Of course, I am over-simplifying but all in Catalan cuisine is less obvious than it's Gallic counterpart, it's not so fine but it has a robust elegance. A couple of books in English will help you in the discovery. The standard is Colman Andrews Catalan Cuisine and Barcelona in the ‘Authentic Recipes' series from Bonnier Books with the usual salivating pictures from Jason Lowe is my latest addition.

The best thing about Catalan food is that there is so much of it about. What I mean is that, this is a nation of eating out, restaurants – good ones – abound. So you dont have to cook. Just eat.

TENDER WORDS

Tender (2009) tells the story of Nigel Slater's love affair with his garden in Islington and the many seedlings he has raised in his box-hedged vegetable patches. It’s a magnificent volume, like a medieval knightly treatise with pictures of his Eden, its produce and many of the recipes he has created from them.

23 May, 2010

FOOD FROM THE HEART

Cooking is a basic human instinct. We’ve been eating, chopping, shaping, flavouring, enticing ingredients into something delicious since time began. But as the way many of us live has changed, the basic skills we require to cook, are no longer valued and it’s often easier to let others take control of what we eat.

21 April, 2010

IN A RIGHT FISH STEW

This week we had sustainable fish stew. It’s a quick and easy way to feed a gang of hungries on a Friday night and doesn’t need much else but some good bread and wine. Like all stews, you need balance, rich liquid and a range of potent flavours steaming from your pot.

15 March, 2010