● Panellets – they exist in Valladolid and other places of Castile with the name of empiñonadas. In Andalusia, the piñonates are very similar.
● Orelletes – Also present in Castile as orejeulas and acute regions of France as oreillettes or bugnes. Its name and its shape changes in each region.
● Cargols a la llauna – snails are common in France, where they are prepared without sauce, only filled with butter, garlic and parsley.
● Arrop (arruix) or mostillo – sweet pastries based on must, they must be of Arab origin and are eaten in La Mancha, Murcia and Aragon.
● Llet merengada – cold and flavored milk, sometimes thick as in the case of Turkish Ayran, it is common in the Mediterranean to drink it against dehydration in the summer, as it refreshes and replenishes the lost nutrients. In Catalan Countries, it appears as cream or rice with milk, merengada has cinnamon and lemon flavour. It is sold in lletries or granjas, orxateria and ice cream parlors.
● Wine of Catalonia, Wine of the Valencian Country, and Wine of Roussillon – Wine is a worldwide product with some early presence in the Mediterranean.
● Mayonnaise – present throughout the world. There is a doubt if it comes from Maó or Mayenne, France.
● Chocolatada – present in Spain. In Italy the melted chocolate is also made although it is more liquid.
● Embotits: secallona, fuet, botifarra, botifarró, carn-i-xulla, bull and girella (this last one is common, also, in the Aragonese Ribagorça).
● Salads: Esqueixada or Esgarrat; Xató, escarole salad, crashed cod and romesco sauce; Empedrat, bean salad, diced tomato, tuna and olives; Catalan salad with very fresh lettuce and fine slices of the best local sausages.
● Rice: Rice with crust, rice with beans and turnips, arròs a banda, baked rice, arròs a la bruta, casserole rice, arroz caldoso, black rice, dark rice in the Empordà way, rice Parellada or a la gandula, cod rice, rabbit rice. However, in other cuisines there are similar dishes to casserole rice, such as risotto in Italy.
● Meat: Trinxat, chopped cabbage sauté on a pan with sausage or bacon; Liver with onions, it is a version of traditional Central European dish with added garlic; Fricandó, perhaps started as a variation of the Occitan one, but these are two very different dishes, Catalan uses meat cut into very thin sheets and not a large piece of whole meat, for example; rabbit with allioli; or chicken with lobster, prawn or shrimp; rabbit or chicken with chocolate, sometimes also with dried apricots, prunes and pine nuts; etc
● Fish: Cod with samfaina, or cod with tomato, or with peppers or onions. Although all these dishes always have onion, tomato, pepper, etc.
● Desserts: Menjablanc (en. blancmange) – although the recipe appears historically in many parts of Europe; mató de monja or de Pedralbes; pears of Lleida.
● Sweet pastries: Fartons de Alboraia, Horta Nord; Xuixo inspired by French, original from Girona; Casques typical of the Kings Day in the Valencian Community and Mallorca.
● Fricandó, perhaps started as a version of Occitan one, but they are two different dishes, the Catalan one, for example, uses meat cut into very thin sheets and not a large piece of whole meat
Catalan cuisine and, by extension, the culinary tradition of the Catalan Countries, is a kitchen rooted in the use of local and seasonal products. Consequently, there is an outstanding regionalization according to the type of land: coastal or mountainous.
● The coastal regions base their gastronomy on seafood, fish, rice, vegetables, such as tomatoes, aubergines and peppers – legumes and citrus fruits. Instead, meat and poultry – almost always chicken and pork – are often limited as mere condiment.
In spite of the abundance of embotits, the fact is that neither meat nor fish are almost never presented as the main elements of the coastal and lowland dishes. This could be due to the relatively high cost of meat and fish that makes it necessary to combine it with cereals, rice and bread that give weight to food. It is a custom that helped to limit fat content in Catalan cuisine. The importance of these considerations should not be underestimated, since it is the origin of the farmer’s or fisherman’s household who has most marked the catalan cuisine.
Nutrition● The lowland regions, halfway between the mountains and the sea, generally follow the coastal pattern but with an increase of casserole dishes and more use of legumes. Meat, usually pork, often replaces the fish.
● The high mountain regions, on the other hand, seem to dispense with fish and seafood, and the use of rice is also less common. Instead, the use of meat, poultry, game, cereal, legumes, vegetables such as potatoes, carrots and onions, mushrooms and fruits of the forest increases considerably. Lamb and sausages are abundant. Gironella, a typical lamb embotit in the Pyrenees, breaks the typical use of pork prevailing in the lowlands.
It should be noted that the contemporary era has contributed to partly blur these distinctions. The generalization of certain dishes such as paella or fish suquet has brought rice and fish to areas of the interior that never used them before. Also, mushrooms and sausages from the Pyrenees reached markets all over the coast where they were not commonly eaten before. On the other hand, modernity has labeled “typical” dishes that were previously considered foreign, innovative or only regional, and introduced many new culinary features, previously unknown and now strongly rooted in the culture, such as the cannelloni eaten on St. Stephen’s day.
However, this duality of the sea and the mountains, often close to each other, is responsible for the most remarkable element of Catalan cuisine, dishes that mix fish and meat, called “from the sea and the mountain”, such as coca with fish and llonganissa. Equally interesting are the dishes of the West that mix meat and fruit.
The variety is inherent in home cuisine that is still alive and going strong. If the stereotype says that the coast is frying and the interior roasts, in the Catalan Communities,, both coastal and inland, almost all cooking techniques are used: the bullit is boiled, the ollada is slow cooked, the samfaina is gentle fried, the frit is fried, the rice is cooked in the oven or on the stove, the escalivada is roasted.
If we look for a unifying element, it is clearly the connection it has to the Mediterranean diet. It is a cuisine very faithful to the typical Mediterranean ingredients – rice, olive oil, vegetables, legumes, fruit, cereals, fish, meat and poultry, with a preference for fresh products of the season. The most popular preserves are the anchovies in salt, cod and embotits. If the Occitan and Italian cuisines include elements that are not really Mediterranean such as cream, fresh cream and butter, these condiments are almost totally absent from home cooking of the Catalan Countries, where olive oil has an absolute preference over butter, with the exception of l ‘Alt Pirineu. Another notable absence is that of cheeses. There are only six renowned cheeses, that of Maó, Cerdanya and Alt Urgell, Llenguat and Tupí del Pallars, Tovalló typical of Valencia and the surrounding area and the mató or brossat that is common everywhere, compared to the hundreds offered in Italy and Occitania. The consumption of milk and dairy products is not very strong outside the Pyrenees.
Another unifying and typical element of the Catalan gastronomy is the picada (which is a type of sauce). A fish soup can be from any country in the Mediterranean, but if it has picada it is a Catalan recipe.
Another unifying and typical element of the Catalan gastronomy is the picada (which is a type of sauce). A fish soup can be from any country in the Mediterranean, but if it has picada it is a Catalan recipe.
Talking about typical dishes, they are usually described in motifs, since the names, ingredients and ways to prepare each dish vary from region to region. Only the most modern cuisine, which undoes the bond between food and land, is able to create a truly homogenous cuisine. Instead, it is in the huge variety of recipes available for coca that one can find the richness of Catalan cuisine.
● Ferran Adrià, chef of El Bulli, the best restaurant in the world, closed in 2011. His cuisine is based on the traditional flavours of traditional Catalan cuisine but joined with new techniques, such as deconstruction, foams made with siphon, spherification, and new ways of presentation. He is the first cook in the world to speak of creation and creative cuisine.
● Carme Ruscalleda i Serra, chef from the restaurants of Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mar and in Tokyo. She is the only one in Spain to achieve five stars of the Michelin Guide and has also written books with simple Catalan recipes that have been translated into four languages. Carme Ruscalleda incorporates new techniques and products, like jellyfish, into traditional Catalan cuisine and uses Mediterranean herbs in many ways.
● Joan Roca, chef of El Celler de Can Roca in Girona, considered fifth best in the world. He unveils traditional Catalan cuisine, bringing to it new old techniques such as distillation of food (which in fact was already used in the Middle Ages) and perfuming (which is based on something as old as adding a branch of rosemary or other grass while braising to perfume the meat).
● Santi Santamaria, owner of the restaurant El Racó de Can Fabes is, like Ferran Adrià or Carme Ruscalleda, a regular member of the mass media. He advocated preservation of tradition and had differences with Ferran Adrià because of their various views of the kitchen. He died in February 2011.
● Josep Lladonosa i Giró, a researcher of traditional Catalan cuisine, he has recovered old recipes, especially the recipes of rice dishes, which he has collected in a book translated into English, French and German. For fifty years he was a chef of the emblematic restaurant of Barcelona, Set Portes.
● Águeda Vadell Pons, a chef in a restaurant Ca n’Aguedet of Es Mercadal, one of the most emblematic and considered one of the best in Menorca, she collaborates in the compilation and dissemination of traditional Menorcan recipes.
Some researchers and popularizers of recipes and culinary culture are Ferran Agulló, Josep Lladonosa i Giró, Nèstor Luján Fernández, Eliana Thibaut and Comalada, Jaume Fàbrega, Xavier Domingo, Luis Bettonica, etc.
Some masters of Catalan cuisine in the mass media, who have popularized recipes and preparation techniques in many homes in the 20th and 21st centuries, are, for example, Mireia Carbó, Grandma Remei, etc.