The culture of tapas is well known around the world, and very popular in Barcelona, the city with most tourists in Spain. But Catalan cuisine has much more to offer in terms of food heritage, as Xavier Medina, UNESCO Chair on Food, Culture and Development at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), explains in this interview.
Catalan Cuisine
“In Catalonia, domestic cooking is always the base. Even the most revolutionary chefs agree of that that. All innovation starts from there”. Xavier Medina, UNESCO Chair on Food, Culture and Development at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) in Barcelona, is adamant about the role of the dishes that constitute the core of Catalan culinary customs. As a matter of fact, he points to them as an important element in identifying food heritage, the topic we were discussing in the framework of the Fulbright Specialist grant that had taken me to Barcelona.
Barcelona and the Catalan cuisine
The city – more than Catalonia, the region of which it is the capital – has achieved worldwide recognition for innovation and creativity in gastronomy, especially in the domain of fine dining. However, famous chefs such as Ferran Adrià and the Roca brothers are not necessarily identified with Catalan cuisine, even among the most knowledgeable foodies.
The recognition of Catalan cuisine
For Medina, the reason for this lack of recognition is that Catalan cuisine is hidden by the perception of Spanish cuisine abroad, the images of which are prevalent in the collective imagination. Moreover, when Catalan cooks work abroad, they present themselves as Spanish. “The majority of people do not really know where is Catalonia and they do not care,” states Medina.
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