Andrews - Catalan cuisine : Europes last great culinary secret

Copyright 1988 by Colman Andrews
Illustrations 1988 by Lauren Jarrett

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Andrews, Colman.
Catalan cuisine / Colman Andrews.1st Collier Books ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-02-009075-7
1. Cookery, SpanishCatalonian style. I. Title.
TX723.5.S7A62 1991 91-43644 CIP
641.5946'7dc20

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First Collier Books Edition 1992

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

F OR L ESLIE ,
malgrat tot

A book of this kinda mix of history, anecdote, observation, and culinary formulasis by definition not so much written as it is compiled, and I must sincerely thank all those who have helped me so generously and enthusiastically in my job of compilationinviting me into their homes (and kitchens), sharing recipes and lore with me, answering my many questions (and sometimes posing better ones on my behalf), and in general making my work both easier and more happily complex.

Most of all, I must express my gratitude to Jean Leon, of Beverly Hills and Pla del Peneds, restaurateur and winegrower, who gave me summer quarters in the middle of his vineyards and whose introductions seemed to open Barcelona to meand certainly brought me many good new friends and able teachers; to Agust and Llusa Jauss, serious connoisseurs and perfect hosts, who became nothing less than my guardian angels in Barcelona (and whose splendid little private library of food and wine books, incidentally, gave me access to many treasures I might not otherwise have found); to Luis Tellechea, another gracious host and guardian, who was my first guide to the Costa Brava and the Vail d'Aran and my best guide, over many a bottle and many a meal, to the wines of Catalonia; to Luis Bettnica, who patiently explained the basics to me and pointed me in all the right directions; to Jaume Subirs of the Hotel Ampurdn in Figueres, who gave me his time and his best recipes (and those of his illustrious father-in-law, the late Josep Mercader) without demur, and who helped me get so many details right, and to Linda Zimmerman in Los Angeles, who went to great lengths to find out how the Catalans cook and why, and then not just to test most of the recipes herein but to question, adapt, improve, and sometimes all but reinvent them, and to give them coherent form.

Others whose help was indispensable to me include Lloren Torrado (the Baedeker of La Boqueria), Anna Sol (who taught me more Catalan than she realizes), Pascual Iranzo, Manuel Pags, Nstor and Tin Lujn, Climent Mayns and Gloria Blanco, Llus and Lola Cruanyas, and the late Ramon Cabau, all in Barcelona; Carles Cams, Joaquim Vich, Jos R. Gispert, and Rossend Colom and Pau Carb (the bakers of Pia del Peneds), in various other corners of Catalonia, Bernard and Sabine Daur and Eliane Thibaut-Comelade in the Roussillon; Lloren and Fusca Millo in Valencia; Pablo Llull, Bartolom Esteva, and Jaime Mesquida on the island of Majorca; Ugo Saccardi and Moreno Cecchini in Alghero; Alan Davidson of World's End, London; and especially Paula Wolfert in New York, who offered much wise counsel and confided some of her best kitchen secrets, and Charles Perry in Los Angeles, who granted me constant access, at the ring of a telephone, to his encyclopedic knowledge of both language and food history.

My thanks are due as well, for both recipes and advice, to scores of chefs and restaurateurs in Catalonia, the Roussillon, Valencia and its region, and the Balearic Islands (besides those mentioned above)among them Josep Juli, Rosa Grau and Javier Garca-Ruano, Reynaldo and Juli Serrat, Antonio Ferrer, Josep Esteve, Ramon Parellada, Joan Figueres, Francina Magran, Jaume and Josep Font, Josep Maria and Maria-Dolores Boix, Carles Llavi, Joaquim Sanals Pi, Paquita and Lolita Reixach, Josep Maria Morell, Maria-Teresa Cornet and Ramon Llus, Angela Aunos Paba and Rosa Paba Jacquet, Emilio Sanllehy Meya, Antonio and Josep Borrs, Antonio and Simn Toms, Pascual Campos, Ely Buxeda and Jean-Marie Patrouix, and M. Arnaudies and Pierre Girons.

And my thanks to Jordi Marquet, Pierre Torrs, Loretta Cervi, Darrell Corti, Montse Guilln, Marimar Torrs, Emilio Nuez, and Antoni Artigau, all of them invaluable sources of information and assistance...

to Manuel Ravents, Maria-Dolores Sanvisens, Isabel Monteagudo, Dorothy Faltn, Joan and Rosa-Mara Villanueva, Francesc Ribo and Angela Azpiroz, Ronald and Lori Calnan, Joan Domnech, "Charlie" Ristol, Gaspi and Tere Aznar, Emil Teixidor, Roberto Mazzella, Mario Consorte, Santiago Costa and Mara-Luisa Albacar of the Barcelona Tourist Board, Alvaro Renedo and Aurora Nuez of the Tourist Office of Spain in Los Angeles and Jos-Lus Estevez of the New York branch, Michael Roberts, Juan Jos Alvarez, Roberto Hernandez, Pedro de Oleza, Jon Sheppod, Claude Segal, Mary Lyons, Stan Cox, Sr., John Stachowiak, the Tarragona Rotary Club, and the management and staff of the Hotel Coln in Barcelona (especially Elisio Gretz and loan Domingo), for their many kindnesses great and small...

to Llus Llach and Maria del Mar Bonet, whom I know only through their music, for having helped to set the scene so often...

to Joanna Krotz and Dorothy Kalins for letting me write about Catalan cuisine in the first place in Metropolitan Home; to Barbara Lowenstein and Susan Ginsburg for making it possible for me to expand that first article into the book at hand; to Judy Kern for the fine-tuning; and to Ann Finlayson for the very smart and thorough copy-editting...

and to Alice Waters, Jonathan Waxman, Bradley Ogden, Mark Miller, Lydia Shire, Ruth Reichl, and (again) Charles Perry, for that week in Barcelona.

Finally, I must thank the late Jaume Ciurana and his wife, Maria-Dolores, who were my first friends in Catalonia. Ciurana, who knew Catalan gastronomyCatalan everythingimmensely well, and who literally wrote the book on the region's wines and olive oils, was kind enough to take an interest in my project and to help me in every way he could. I hope that he would not have been disappointed in the result.

Any errors, misinterpretations, mistranslations, or indefensible oversimplifications in the pages that follow are my own, of course, and occur despite the best efforts of those named above.

Many personal and place names in Catalan-speaking regions have both Catalan and Castilian (i.e., "Spanish") formsor, in the Roussillon, Catalan and Frenchones. Sometimes the differences between the two are minor. In Catalan, for instance, one might visit the resort town of Roses in the province of Girona, while in Castilian it would be Rosas in the province of Gerona; the Castilian "Lus" merely picks up an extra "1" to become "Llus" in Catalan, "Juan" softens into "Joan" (pronounced