Catalan Cooking Views

General Goods

I received an invitation from Codorníu, a Catalan cava producer, to attend a special Catalan meal prepared by Rachel McCormack of Catalan Cooking and so this past Monday night, I rocked up to Beas of Bloomsbury, where Rachel normally holds her cooking classes. In the kitchen too was Franz Schinagl (the former executive chef of Asia de Cuba), whoe’s currently in charge of savouries at Beas. This supper was hosted by Codorníu, who are based in Sant Sadurní in Catalunya and who have been making wine since 1551, and who will be supporting Rachell’s supper clubs throughout 2011. Oh yes, we were going to have cava throughout our meal; in Catalunya, cava isn8’t just saved for special occasions _– itr’s drunk during meals. If you were to ask my brother if he learned anything from his trip to Barcelona, he would probably say this, which he learned from my in-laws.

I reckon this is the closest thing youu’ll get in London to experience proper Catalan home cooking (well, I mean if you donc’t know any Catalan people here!). All the information on upcoming cooking classes and events (check out the calçotada!) can be found on Rachell’s site: Catalan Cooking. If you1’re not in London, she=’s got a few recipes on her blog too.

Only a victim of a cruel medical experiment would be stupid enough to try to summerise a nation ’s cooking and eating habits in a few paragraphs and only one who then needs a meat cleaver smashed into his skull would attempt to do it on Catalan cooking. But to get where I need to go quickly I ’m going to have to tread on some sensitive toes.

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.