This article looks at the Regional Cuisine from various areas of the Iberian Peninsula currently available in Barcelona restaurants. Does is still make sense to talk about regional cuisine in the globalised context of the 21^st Century where travel and the movement of goods and people are changing our habits so radically?

Right now in our markets we can buy products from all around the world. If our own cultural identity is to be maintained it will be due to the efforts of chefs and their willingness. Why is Catalan food attractive and different? If we become part of the global food phenomenon then we loose our personality.  We are open to products and techniques from everywhere but with the firm conviction of not loosing our cultural essence that celebrates our cuisine which is a very strong one. It’s a school of cooking that can be traced back to the Greeks, Romans and Arabs and therefore is a complex and varied cuisine, it’s also a reflection of the economic importance of Catalonia during the medieval era, cooking always reflects a region’s influence. One of the world’s oldest recipe books is Catalan, it records a refined and sophisticated cuisine, our modern cuisine is based on this foundation together with the genius of our local fishermen and farmers.   

You are self taught and your cooking is very much associated with your family roots in Catalonia, with its traditions and the raw ingredients sourced from both the Mediterranean and the Maresme. In the same way as you have adapted these techniques and traditions to haute-cuisine is the possibility of influencing non-professional attitudes to cooking and food something that you are interested in?

Right from the very beginning we started to publish recipes as much from a professional point of view in order to abstract and translate that cooking to a domestic context and make it practical even down to cutting down on the number of utensils. Our involvement with this world is important and has been ongoing for some time now. Professional cooking develops through publishing and we feed off one another, it comes to the domestic kitchen in a simplified state but inspires curiosity to know more at the same time. TV nowadays is a great tool even for kids. Kids these days even know chef’s names which never was the case before.

Do you think that Catalan cuisine has played a role in the definition of the Catalan identity over the centuries and how would you define that role?

I always say that by studying a culture’s cooking we can learn a lot about its history. One can see the traces of all the different cultures that have added to Catalan cuisine, Catalonia is located in a highly strategic place. Vines, wheat, oils and salted fish and meats all arrived through here. Cooking is an important part of understanding and respecting a territory. Now we are witnessing an increasing respect and conservation of organic produce which is in reality the ‘garden of life.’

In the context of the Iberian Peninsula what other regions do you admire and what if any has been the influence of these schools of cooking on your own career and approach to cooking?

I’m basically interested in the everything, I think the more you know the more you understand and protect your own environment. The Basque chefs have influenced me greatly which before our own Catalan cuisine understood how to modernise and energise as well as promote itself. Perhaps it was the catalyst to modernise Catalan cuisine. I admire seafood and how it’s treated in Galicia or the way food is fried in the south of Spain. One always has to be attentive. Since 2004 Japanese cuisine has been a source of inspiration since the copy of Sant Pau restaurant is up and running, sometimes I have to isolate myself in order to avoid absorbing too many techniques and ingredients. Cannelloni to take an example, one of the most celebrated dishes in Barcelona came here about one hundred years ago to the bourgeois hotels of the city brought by Italian chefs, at the time is was highly innovative and new nowadays it’s as if it was always around we don’t always have this background information.

Moments. Hotel Mandarín Oriental.

Passeig de Gràcia 38-40. T. 93 151 87 81. 

 

www.mandarinoriental.es