Green Bean

Up for review... i'd love any comments/feedback

oh and a totally vacuous profile of Adria.. 

And i love this: "molecular gastronomy does not exist" 

Catalonia is not Spain

PIC: Gastrognome

Although this region sports a donkey logo on its cars rather than the Spanish bull, It's no stubborn mule. Catalonia just recently passed a referendum to make this Mediterranean, Pyrenean North East corner of Spain independent. Its a vibrant, dynamic, multicultural, hard-working place. In seeking it's own identity Catalonia embraces a globalising world with flair, and looks ambitiously to the future.

Barcelona celebrated the referendum vote in style on the night of San Juan, an all-night midsummers beach-party. 100's of thousands of revellers danced under a firework sky until dawn on the spectacular seafront, welcoming a new season and a new freedom. The city, extensively redeveloped around the time of the 1992 Olympics is one of Europe's most popular destinations. Visitors attracted to the fine architecture, fabulous beaches and cultural vibe also enjoy a tremendous food experience. The streets and walkways of Barcelona are packed with bars and restaurants offering a phenomenal gastronomic adventure. Through the eyes of a gastronomer, exploring the region, looking into the products, finding out about and tasting dishes, the true spirit of Catalonia is revealed.

The food producers here are not hanging around, this is where you'll find state of the art olive groves and marketing initiatives that build on the cultural capital behind local cured meat products. Something about the spirit of success here combines beautifully the best of the old with that of the new. The municipal markets have been the most recent target for progressive post-modernisation. Rather than left to crumble and be re-valued and gentrified by the property market, they are the focus for local economic development. Barcelona's 39 municipal produce market buildings are systematically being transformed into dynamic artisinal yet highly competitive spaces. It seems as though the discussion that has led to the regions autonomy and development has embodied the activities of the 21^st century. Embedded in what it feels and knows from the past but playfully, confidently inviting new perspectives: be they cultural or technological. Real markets bursting with colourful fresh produce combined with innovation and creativity bring an exciting dimension to the Catalan menu.

Typical of busy, historical Mediterranean port towns, a diversity of flavours and recipes has for ever arrived with migrants and traders and invaders, established themselves and mutated into particular specialities. Look out for familiar flavours and compare the salt-cod bunyols with Venetian baccalau, the coca to the Neapolitan pizza and the picados against Genovese pesto. Not to simplify: arguably Catalan cuisine, when it sticks to its roots, has maintained into modernity perhaps most accurately its medieval use of nuts, spices and combinations of sweet and savoury. While orthodoxy has it's place, post-modern Catalonia is forging into new territory by working with its heritage and re-interpreting the ingredients and dishes to meet the needs of a new society. Tapas is a super example. It's origins simply a piece of bread to “top” an evening glass of wine; stop the flies, stave off hunger. It's complications and varieties come from all over Spain; in a particular dish, a set of flavours; meat, cheese, olives, fruit, vegetables, with or without bread. Now, it's the perfect vehicle for a chef to show off and grab the tourists in the evening into one of the thousands of tapas bars and restaurants. Tapas is a format.. a medium for culinary creativity. And neither is it frowned upon to be using thoroughly exotic ingredients and combinations so the boundary between tapas and sushi, for example, becomes blurred. For the consumer you take it as far as you want, one can be a snack with a drink, or a dozen-shared: a full degustatory menu, and typically in the same establishment.

Contemporary Catalan cuisine is not an idea without its drivers. The historical pedigree for cultural absorbency is reflected in an emergent avant guard cuisine. Chefs like Ferran Adria are “de-constructing” the language and practice of cuisine. His workspace is as much chemistry laboratory and media studio as kitchen. The motives though, for boiling local products in liquid nitrogen and de-stabilising our sense of familiarity and comfort, recognise that gastronomy belongs to everybody and a new language is required that doesn't exclude the ordinary person. Adria's polemic creates a reference point, the discourse is established as we write. But most importantly, and this is the cunning, is that it sets a practical example. “Cooking isn't art, it's cooking, “ he says, “the complicity of eating.. a food creation... engaging all the senses and the body... makes it closer to us than the arts.” What the avant gard do and say is resonating with the vibe. It's talking to the middle class plaza tables and the socialist garage-band student bars and gives the ubiquitous patatas bravas experience an irresistible vibrancy.

Innovation is one thing, but what's it all for? This is not novelty for the sake of it, it's at the core of Catalonia's uniqueness. The voice of ordinary and infinitely various people is institutionalised in Catalonia. Barcelona's redevelopment, with its magnificent buildings and public spaces values the individual as much as it gives incentive for economic investment. Celebrating and giving space to marginalised people is a way of life. As well as the living street-food culture seen with tapas, the region's sparkling wine, Cava, is a great example of this modern food culture being people-centred and lively. Elsewhere in Europe, fizzy pop producers might well construct protective legends of status and tradition around their products. Here wine-makers showing you around the disgorgement cellars won't forget the legacy and knowledge that goes into the bottle, but will sooner toast your happy visit rather than linger self-consciously on the rim of the glass. The important thing is to load the crates on the bus and get down to that beach party... That's where the life is.