Catalan Cuisine Travel, Food Tours & Culinary Vacations, tour spain

Catalan cuisine is a form of cooking that still closely reflects its medieval origins. Occupied for nearly seven hundred years by the Romans, followed by several centuries of the Visigoths, and then four hundred years by the Moors, the influences were certainly varied.

The first ones brought the wine, the olives and the bread, and the Moors brought the exotic element such as saffron, oranges , dates, raisins, almonds and the combination of sweet and savory. It is
soon after the last of these occupiers left that the first known Catalan cooking manuscript, the Libre de Sent Sovi, emerged in the fourteenth century. This was to become quite an influence on Italian and French cooking of the time.

In the fifteenth century the first actual cookbook to be printed, the Libre del Coch, attributed to Roberto de Nola, was done so in Barcelona.

One must also remember that the discovery of the new continent by Columbus in 1492 brought many new fruits and vegetables to Spain and helped change the shape of spanish cuisine before the rest of Europe had the benefit of these new tastes. Today, basic Catalan cooking has not changed all that much since the days of the Libre de Sent Sovi, but thanks to some innovative chefs many new dishes have emerged, and old ones have become more colorful and subtle. This is what makes this region so interesting for a culinary vacation in Spain.

One may divide Catalan spanish cuisine into three broad categories determined by geographical location:
- An important coastal cuisine based on fresh seafood.
- An inland cuisine which often uses seafood as well.
- A mountain cuisine which generally has a smaller variety of recipes.
Each of these categories are in turn different according to whether they are prepared by the middle-class, the peasants or fishermen, or whether it is popular cuisine for festivities.Catalan cooking is based on the use of fresh elements, whether they be vegetables, meat or fish usually
purchased from the local market on the same day that they will be used. It is also a healthy cuisine as vegetables, fish, lean meats and fruit are its main ingredients, and cooking fat is almost exclusively
olive oil.

These are the produce most typically used in Catalan cuisine:

Vegetables: onions, garlic, eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms.
Fish: salt cod, monkfish, tuna, sardines, anchovies, herring, trout, squid, octopus, shrimp, prawns, mussels.
Meat: rabbit, chicken, quail, veal, lamb, pork, duck, cured pork meats and sausages, snails, tripe, liver.
Grains and legumes: rice, fava beans, lentils, chick-peas, white beans, black-eyed peas.
Other: eggs, potatoes, olives.

The most common catalan cooking techniques either use a cassola (a thick, low sided, earthenware pot), or a paella pan ( a low-sided metal pan with two handles located on opposite sides). Also very common is to cook al caliu (on hot coals), or a la Plancha (on the griddle).

Many dishes start with a sofregit, a base of mainly onion but which can also use garlic, tomatoes, peppers,- that is slowly cooked in olive oil until it is caramelized and consistent. This then forms the base upon which the remainder of the dish is built upon. Also typical of many a dish is the use of the picada. This is a mixture of garlic, olive oil, almonds and /or other nuts, fried bread, herbs and spices crushed together in a mortar and used to thicken and add flavor to the dish near the end of the cooking. The most used accompanying sauces are the famous allioli, olive oil and garlic mixed together until creamy in consistency, mayonnaise (most Catalans still make this fresh and by hand), romesco a mayonnaise consistency sauce made with olive oil, vinegar, garlic, almonds, hazelnuts, bread, tomato, parsley, nyores (a dried pepper), and samfaina, a mix of onions, garlic, tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, and peppers cooked in olive oil.

Following is a list of some of the dishes you will learn how to make during your Catalan cuisine classes: (click on pictures)