Panellets

In a previous post I talked about the Castanyada and what do we eat.

Today I'm going to explain how to cook the panellets, the main version (covered with pine nuts). You need:

500 g of grated almonds
400 g of sugar
200 g of potato
50 g of pine nuts
2 eggs
Lemon skin

First you have to boil the potato in advance. Then you mix the potato with the grated almonds, sugar and lemon skin. At the beginning the mixture will be very think but thanks to the sugar it will become soft and easy to mix. Separate the egg yolks from the white. Then make balls and dip them in the egg white. This is what will stick the pine nuts to the balls. Now paint the balls with the whisked yolks and straight to the oven (200 ºC) for around 10 minutes.

Other versions of panellets are covered with almonds, chocolate or stuffed with coconut or quince.

Simple!

Esmorzar

Esmorzar means breakfast and it should be as in the picture above.

Unfortunately I never have a proper breakfast unless I have a free day. It is because I sleep as much as I can and it is quite hard to get up. It is not healthy, it is not good at all, but I am doing my best to change my habits.

In the picture you can see what I had today: pa am tomàquet (toasts with rubbed tomato and olive oil), fuet (cured pork meat I will talk about someday), a cup of tea (in a stolen starbucks mug), orange juice, mandarins (one of my favorite winter fruit), a Greek yogurt and the newspaper. What else?

Fires de Girona - Barraques

Next Wednesday is Sant Narcís, Girona's patron saint and therefore since last Friday and until next Sunday there are a lot of activities going on in the city.

Last Sunday there was castellers in front of the town hall. Also there is a street market with many castanyes stalls in the old town and many other activities. The most important for young people is "barraques" (literally means stalls). There is a place near the Devesa park (the biggest park in Girona) where every single night there is live music. For people living near the area is hell but for the rest is great. All the area is surrounded by stalls where people can buy drinks and sandwiches the whole night long. Most of stalls are organized by different associations in Girona: the rugby team, the biology students union, the deaf organization and so on. A great chance of making a lot of money to survive until next year.

There is one thing you should know: to avoid problems with glasses and with trash when you first ask for a drink you have to buy a plastic glass (picture above) that you should re-use. So for your second drink you ask them to fill it up. You can of course throw it away and buy a new one but what's the point then? The plastic glass is refundable so if you dump it you will get the feeling that you are throwing money but you know there is always someone collecting them so it is like a donation ;-)

Barraques is a cool place if you plan to get pissed and/or if you know a lot of people of Girona and surroundings. It is the place you are going to find all the people you have met in your life: school mates, neighbors, ex-colleagues, family, your boss, that guy you know but don't know why and you don't remember his name, the butcher, the ex-girlfriend that cheated on you, that university class mate you always hated and so on. So quite good fun. What people in Girona tends to do is to pretend everybody is like a best-friend and that you miss all that people and you are really interested in what's about their life now. Bullshit. I don't know in your places but here many people is faking all the time. Of course if you adopt a Dr House behavior you will not forget that night because people is so unused to hear truth you will laugh for the rest of your life when remembering their faces. I'm exaggerating. It is indeed a good place to find a lot of people you are still interested in but you have not had the chance to contact them. If you know a lot of people you can spend the whole night greeting people and chatting which is great.

The drinks you can order there are: water and soft-drinks, draft beer (one or two brands) and cubates (spirits: rum, whiskey, gin or vodka mixed with cola, orange, lemon...). This are the typical drinks available in any single bar or club. The problem with cubates in this kind of stalls is that you never know if the spirit is the original one or a cheaper version so you might have a nice headache the day after. By the way, be careful with cubates because the amount of spirit is considerably higher that in the rest of the world. I've seen in many countries when you ask for example for a Jack&Coke that they just put 20 ml of Jack Daniels. Here the proportion is around 50% so 100 ml of spirit: 5 times more than what foreigners are used to. This for 5 euros in the stalls and between 5 and 10 in a pub or club. I am just discovering that there is so much to explain about drinks here... it deserves a single post.

Two other traditional drinks are sangria and kalimotxo. Everybody knows sangria and I guess it is considered as the most common party drink in Spain although it is not. Sangria is a mixture of red wine and spirits and the secret ingredient: a lot of sugar. Easy to drink and terrible the day after. Kalimotxo is a drink for young people (low budget) and it is original from the Basque country. It is a mixture of the cheapest red wine you can find and cola. In some places they use lemon instead of cola but it is indeed the same crap. A cheap way to get pissed.

Next to barraques there is a fair. Although it might sound as good fun I don't like it at all. You know, I just can't trust a roller coaster mounted by gypsies in few hours. OK, they have to fulfill some regulations but since I was a child I have always heard about accidents going on in this precarious machines. So I prefer not no gamble with my life and keep my feet on the ground.

In this link you can check what is going on, where and when.

Glass picture found here.

Cafè Le Bistrot

Last Wednesday I went for dinner to this restaurant in Girona old town. It is an amazing place with a lot of story.

I have never been there for lunch but as far as I know they serve a really good menu del dia. The reason is because being in the old town means that you have to park so far away and walk, and if you have a short lunch break as I do I cannot go there in a week day. Anyway I’ve been there several times for dinner and it is good. At night they serve salads and “torrades” (literally means toasts), something similar to pizza but instead of normal pizza bread they use a slice of round bread. My favourite one is “la variada” with onion, cheese, tomato, tuna, ham, anchovies and black olives. It is a light dinner but is ok and the price is also good. The other day we paid 14 euros each and we had one “torrada”, a beer, some water and a lovely piece of chocolate cake.

The local is very well decorated as you can see in the following picture:



The only problem is, as usual, that is very noisy. If the place is full you can hardly speak with your partners. Some people likes this but I don’t. Otherwise you can eat outside, they have a little terrace but those tables are always taken. In summer that’s the best place because in the inside it is so hot.

So if you are in the old town looking for a good place to eat that’s a good choice although there are so many choices there. But consider that is cheap and the food is simple and nice, something strange in the old town where the vast majority of restaurants are more like the blanc restaurant with sophisticated food, huge plates but few good-looking-but-you-don’t-know-what-is-it-food on them.

Picture by pquero.

Contact:
Pujada de Sant Domènech 4, Girona
+34 972 218 803

Mató

I've previously written about mató in this post but I could have not expected so many people landing here looking for “mel i mató” in google.

So I want to explain more about this product because it is something you cannot cook, you buy it and you mix it with honey, sugar, ratafia or other things.

In this article they talk about the story of mató but many things are wrong because for example recuit and mató are different things. But anyway it is interesting. The article says that mató has been a traditional dessert since the middle age because it was already in the first Catalan cookbook: “El llibre de Sent Soví” from the XIV century.

It is a product produced all over Catalonia but the most important place is the Montserrat mountain. On the top of the mountain there is a monastery and a daily market of home made mató producers originally from the village of Marganell, a tiny town of 248 inhabitants, that have been producing and selling mató for 6 centuries. Among them it was even relatives from me (my family owned a masia there).


Montserrat


Monastery

Here some pictures to see what mató is:





Pictures by in prise of sardines, clkao, pasión por el macro and SBA73.

Pa amb tomàquet

This is absolutely the most important food in Catalonia. It is not a dish itself but is always there to join you along the trip.

Pa amb tomàquet means literally “bread with tomato” and this is what it is. First you need Spanish bread which is not like Italian or French. We have this long baguette style but normally you use round bread like this one painted by Dalí.



You have to slice the bread and toast it, better with fire instead of a toaster. Then you can optionally rub some garlic on it but then you might have bad breath like with allioli. After, you rub tomatoes on the bread. It is important to RUB it, not to crush them and then put it on the bread. This is something they do in restaurants and it is disgusting because you put so much water from the tomato on the bread and it becomes too soft. Then you put oil and salt and that’s it. Perfect to accompany many other foods I will explain soon.

What I’ve heard about the origin of this is: in the old times people were cooking or buying bread not every day, because they were poor, so the day after it was hard. They started toasting hard bread to make it crunchy and rubbing tomato to make it softer. Then they were able to eat it.

I just love it.

Picture by ianqui found in this flickr pool.

Cal Pinxo

Yesterday I went to this restaurant in Barcelona called Cal Pinxo. Cal Pinxo means "house of Pinxo" as explained here.

It is in the barceloneta neighbourhood, one of the most touristic neighbourhoods in Barcelona because of its own personality. I personally don’t like it but I understand it is attractive for foreigners.

The location is amazing, in front of the beach. You can choose between eating inside or in the terrace. Yesterday it was very windy and cloudy so the terrace was not an option so we ate inside. Our table was in the second floor and I was sitting next to the window so I could see the people walking on the sand, the surfers trying to stand on the low waves we have here and the south part of the beach where they are building a quite high building that reminds me the Dubai’s Burj Al Arab.

The place itself is very nice and decorated with modern sailor motifs. The staff is not very friendly but at least they are Spanish, something strange in Barcelona where almost all the waiters are foreigners.

The only thing I did not like was that it was so noisy inside. It is normal because we are noisy people and the room was full (at least 50 people) but I don’t like it. I don’t like not hearing the people who is seating out of a 1 meter range around you. Also it makes me have headache and I don’t feel comfortable with headache. I am not an expert in acoustics but I’ve been in places where even if it is crowded and the people is noisy you can still keep a normal conversation with all the people in your table, at least with the 6 or 8 persons around your seat.

Almost everything they serve is seafood. Seafood is expensive and some specialities are considered a luxury so the price is not cheap. The way this kind of places work is the following: you have to order several starters of seafood to share: croquetes (seafood croquettes), bunyols de bacallà (codfish fritters), calamars a la romana (calamari), tallarines (clams) and so on. Then as main fish you have the chance to order some kind of cooked or grilled fish but most people orders paella, arròs negre or fideuá for everybody. I think paella is the most known Spanish dish so it does not deserve an explanation. Arròs negre means black rice and is similar to paella but the colour is black because it is cooked with calamari ink. Fideuá is also similar to paella but instead of rice you use short and thin noodles. Fideuá and black rice are always served with allioli.

The problem in this kind of restaurants is that if you are a lot of people and they prepare a big paella (or arròs negre or fideuá) for everybody it might not be the same. They put less seafood and it is also harder to cook so it does not taste the same than if you order for 2 or 4 people. This is what happened yesterday and although it was good you leave the place with the feeling they had tricked you.

Average price is around 50 euros although it can easily increase depending what you order.
My personal opinion is that it is OK. The food is good and the location is great. The food might be great (according to the price you pay) as well if you are few people but I can’t assure that because my only experience is with a big group.

Picture by Funky Chucker.

Castanyada

Castanyada is a popular holiday in Catalonia celebrated the night before November 1st, the day of the dead. Is our version of Halloween.

Castanyada comes from the word “castanya”, chestnut in English. This day there are shops in the street roasting chestnuts as in the above picture. Traditionally an old lady is cooking them and serves them rolled with a newspaper sheet. They are very hot and are great because at the end of October is when the temperature starts decreasing although is still not officially winter. Also the weekend before is when they change the time, we go back one hour and suddenly is dark before 6 when the day after it was still sunny at that time. Everything combined makes this weekend very special because so many things are changing. Additionally in Girona coincides with Sant Narcís feast (October 29th) so everybody's got holidays.



Also people cooks this little balls covered with pine seeds called panellets. This balls are made of almonds and sugar and this specific version is covered with pine seeds but there are a lot of versions, all of them very high in calories. Panellets are really tasty and although you can buy them in every single bakery people normally cooks them at home because it is much cheaper. The traditional drink is now “moscatell” a delicious sweet wine that deserves a single post.

The story says that on All Saint's eve (I think this is how the day of the dead is called in English) people were ringing the churches bells the whole night long so they were eating panellets to get enough energy to ring them until next morning. Now this is automatic and people gets a couple of extra pounds.

Pictures by kabissa and alessandrocoiro.

UPDATED: PANELLETS RECIPE HERE.

Castellers

3 de 9 amb folre i manilles

Castellers means Human Castles. Human castles are made by hundreds of people reaching up to 10 floors without any mechanical help, just with the power of their arms, legs and backs.

The origin of this tradition is religious. In the XVIII century people were finishing religious processions by raising a human tower of three or four people. After some time, the human castles started to gain relevance and became something different of the religious procession, especially in the Tarragona area.
The first documented human castle was in the year 1770 in the town of L’Arboç and it was a 6 floors castle.

People that make castles are organized in “colles”, groups of people from the same town. They were competing to build the highest and most complicated castle and this is why they started improving the way to build them.

Unfortunately at the end of the XIX century the popularity of human castles decreased. It is said that is because they built a train line between the Tarragona area and the city of Barcelona, separated only by 100 km, and many people moved from the fields to the city looking forward to have a better life.

Just before the Spanish civil war, the popularity increased again. However during the Franco dictatorship (the military that won the war) it was hard to continue with the tradition because almost everything related to the Catalan culture was forbidden. Even speaking Catalan was not allowed. So everything related to Catalonia could end up with death penalty or jail. But this is another story I will tell another day.

The motto of the castellers is “Força, Equilibri, Valor i Seny”, so “Strength, Balance, Courage and Sense” and these should represent the features of a good human castle maker. Strength because you really need to be strong to hold in your back a tower risen by several people. Originally castellers were farmers, people from the country side so they were really tough and strong because at that time almost everything was made manually. Balance because it is absolutely necessary to keep the tower balanced and trust all the partners of the colla. Courage is specially stated for the kids, whom climb until the top to crown the castle. Sense because you need to plan and execute the castle very well because to reach success the effort of the whole colla is needed.

Clothes

All the people wears the same traditional clothes with one exception, the colour of the shirt that is different for every colla.

The shirt is long-sleeved and the shield of the colla must be sew in the chest where the heart is. Trousers are always white and hard enough to allow people pulling from it when climbing. A black wide belt must be rolled around the waist three or four times, to support the back and allow the people grabbing it when climbing. Only people in the bottom use traditional shoes, the climbers go barefoot. Red scarf with white dots to avoid your hair bother other people and also avoid people stretching them. Kids also wear helmets since last year one girl died.


Pinya

The castle itself has several parts:

·Pinya: Means pine. It is the base of the castle, the part that will hold the castle. Depending on your role in the base you will get a special name: baix (base), contrafort (buttress), primera mà (first hand), segona mà (second hand), lateral, vent (wind), agulla (needle), crossa (crutch), and so on. The pinya is also to absorb the impacts when people fall so instead of crushing their skulls with the ground they crash them with other skulls.
·Tronc: Means trunk. The visible part of the castle. The number of floors and the number of people per floor determines the name of the castle and its difficulty. The trunk is formed by: baixos (ground floor), segons (second floor), terços (third floor) and so on.
·Pom de dalt: Means top branch. The last three floors of the castle. They have always the same composition: dosos, acotxador and enxaneta. Dosos are two persons, acotxador is a kid crouched over those two persons and enxaneta is another kid that crowns the castle standing up on the acotxador. Enxaneta should do “l’aleta” (raise an arm) to say that the castle is finished.
·Folre: Means lining. It is a group of people over the pinya. To hold the segons in difficult castles.
·Manilles: Another group of people over the folre, and therefore over the pinya too. To hold the terços in difficult castles.
·Puntals: Means props. A third group of people over the manilles. To hold high and difficult castles.

To raise a castle the first thing the colla has to do is to make the pinya. After the segons climb the pinya. When everything is balanced, the terços climb over the segons. Then the colla chief decides if it is stable enough to continue the construction. If it is then the music starts. The music is produced by a traditional instrument called gralla and it is useful for the people in the pinya to know what is going on over their shoulders.

Name of the castles and difficulty


Pilar

The name is always like this: “number” + “word de (means of)” + “number”. First the number of people in each floor and second is the number of floors. So “3 de 6” is a 6 floors castle with 3 persons per floor. The name of each floor is as follows: ground floor is the pinya, second floor is segons, third floor is terços, fourth is dosos, fifth is acotxador and sixth is enxaneta.

After the name normally you say if the castle has folre, manilles or puntals. So a castle could be 3 de 6 or 3 de 6 amb folre (with folre) if it has folre. A castle of 1 person per floor is called “pilar”.

Some castles also have special names: cathedral (5 de 8), etc.

The difficulty depends on the number of floors and if the trunk is reinforced with folre, manilles or puntals. Every single castle has a certain number of points and there is a competition along the year.


Fent llenya... huge fall

There are 4 ways of finishing a castle:

1) Intent desmuntat means dismantled try. If the enxaneta decides to not crown the castle and the castle is dismounted with order. This is something I really like: there are a lot of people but a 7 years old kid can decide to not finish the castle if, when climbing, decides that the castle is not going to stand.
2) Intent means try. The castle falls before finishing it (not with order).
3) Carregat: means mounted. If after the enxaneta crowns it by doing the aleta the castle falls.
4) Descarregat: means dismounted. If the castle has been successfully mounted and successfully dismounted.

Music


Gralla

As said before, the music is used to know the evolution of the castle when mounting or dismounting it. There is one song that is played while the castle is mounted and another song that starts after the enxaneta does the aleta (castle successfully mounted).

Competition


Diada castellera

The competition is like a league of football. Every certain time there is a meeting of the colles (teams) in the main square of a town. The day gets the name of “diada castellera” (day of the human castles). Then every colla has to build three castles and one pilar. Every castle and pilar get points depending on the difficulty and also if it has been mounted or not.

These are some of the most important diades (date, place): Saint John (June 24th, Valls), Saint Mercè (nearest Sunday to Saint Mercè day, Barcelona), Saint Tecla (September 23rd, Tarragona), Saint Fèlix (August 30th, Vilafranca del Penedès), Saint Úrsula (First Sunday after October 21st, Valls), Diada dels minions (third Sunday of November, Terrassa) and the most important celebrated every 2 years: Human Castles Contest (First Sunday of October of pair years, Tarragona).

Restaurants 101

Although this post is valid for any kind of restaurant in Catalonia I am focusing it in traditional restaurants. Traditional restaurants are normally masies, located in the sorroundings of towns. You must get there by car and you will be able to park it there for free.

Before going to the restaurant make sure it is open. Most of them close one or two days per week. Mainly mondays and tuesdays but it is much safer to call before. Also you could make a reservation because depending on the place you will hardly get a table if it is a busy day as saturday or sunday.

After you sort all that out and you end up sitting in a table the waiter will bring you the menu. If it is a week day you can ask for the menu del dia, otherwise you will be given the regular menu.

Almost all the menus are organized as follows:

1) Starters
2) Main dish

The main dish is always meat or fish so starters is all the rest. Additionaly in the menu they stick a piece of paper with the season dishes.

The waiter will also give you a wine list and unless you know which wine you want the best is to ask for the house wine which normaly is fine and might be served in a porró (will explain this in another post), the traditional way of drinking wine.

So the waiter will come and ask for the starters and then the main dish. Everybody here ask for one of each. This is quite obvious but in many countries people only eats one dish.

After they will ask for the wine and he will leave. While waiting for the starters they might bring something to nibble such as olives or cold meat. They will also bring bread, olive oil, vinager, salt and pepper. Everything is free. Well, let's say it is included in the price and they will bring it anyway even if you don't want to. The waiter will bring the wine as well.

Here it is not normal at all to ask for spirits before eating. You can ask for a beer but if you ask for a whisky or something like this they will have to ask twice to check if they have heard well.

It will take a little time until they bring the starters, maybe 10 minutes. Until all the people in the table finishes the waiter should not remove anything from the table. When everybody is finished they will take everything out except the glasses so they will bring another set of cutlery. In some restaurants they have special forks and knives for fish or meat.

Then they will bring the main dish, of course.

When everybody is over they will take everything out as well and the waiter will ask you if you want the desserts menu. Then you have to order and after dessert you can order the coffee and/or spirits.

The order is always the same and everybody does the same: starter, main, dessert and coffee. Spirits is not as usual but it is not strage either.

After everything you can remain seated as much as you want, even ask for another round of coffee or spirits. This until you ask for the check. They might not be polite at all or looking forward to use your table for other people or close the restaurant and bring you the check without asking for it. Anyway they can't force you to leave so relax.

You can pay everywhere with cash or credit card. It is obvious but in many countries this is not possible, and I don't talk about third world, for example in Germany they may not accept credit cards.

Tips: there is no rule. In normal conditions you leave the coins of the change, a couple of euros. But of course you can leave more (I would say more than 5 euros is very strange in normal restaurants) and of course you can leave nothing. They will not complain. This is not like in the USA where you are forced to leave a lot of money and if this does not reach what is commonly accepted the waiter will not even say good bye. Here tips are just a detail and waiters do not depend on this.

Time: working days people have lunch between 13:00 and 15:00, finishing before 17:00. Weekends is different and a normal time is between 14:30 and 15:30. It is very easy to stay in the restaurant until 17:00 or 18:00. So a lot of time. At night it is normal to have dinner at 21:00 on week days and around 22:00 on weekends. This might be strange for foreigners but this is how it is. So please do not have lunch at 12:00 or dinner at 19:00. It is so strange!