"Catalan cuisine is in retreat, and it's a disgrace for us and especially for foreigners."

PalafrugellThe first book published by the writer Josep Pla, Things seen, has been reissued exactly as the author originally wrote it, and we can read one of the phrases that captured how the author heard himself when thinking about Catalan cuisine: "It's in retreat." A friend had told him the phrase, but he argued it with more lines: "It's a misfortune for us and above all a misfortune for foreigners, who never know and will never know what they have missed." Josep Pla emphasized the sadness he felt about the situation, because in ancient times, "the classic books on French cooking and gastronomy were full of Catalan recipes and dishes, which were highly celebrated and loved by all people of taste."

To delve even deeper into this first work, the Josep Pla Foundation, in Palafrugell, has organized an exhibition that can be visited until April 4th and is curated by the writer Joan Safont. Entering the first floor of the Foundation, you can see the original texts of Things seen; the sketches of the drawings by the cartoonist Josep Martinell, who collaborated on the bibliophile edition of the book (1949), as well as postcards, diaries, maps, guidebooks, and many other objects that have a special meaning in relation to the book's chapters. In fact, Things seen It was so important that the writer Josep Carner said that the book "had to be received with twenty-one pipes."

In Pla's first book, Catalan cuisine occupies two eclectic chapters, located within the section Intermezzo, as a pause between other chapters dedicated to the landscape and the biographies of personalities of the time, the little men. In a certain way, we could say that the kitchen was in the middle of his life, he dedicated many lines to it, which he integrated into the two volumes ofWhat we have eaten. Be that as it may, in the two chapters Pla reviews dishes he considers essential, such as drowned beans or fava beans Catalan style, which in spring fill the streets and squares of Catalonia with a particularly fragrant scent of thyme and rosemary. He also devotes lines to cod, nido (the legendary dish of the Empordà), made with cod guts and fish, and white rice. Specifically, regarding white rice, he says that in our world it has very little importance, but that "that doesn't mean we can't fail to recognize that when well balanced with more presentable and influential ingredients, it is something discreet and indisputable."

Catalan cuisine, evaporation

To continue, the author describes Catalan cuisine based on the cooking technique of the best or first-class dish, as he said: "Evaporation cooking has first-class dishes in Catalonia, such as pot roast." Now, in 1925, the author maintained that "the dish is a bit of a cala baixa." And he believed this was due to the influence of other cuisines, such as English, due to the preference for steak and potatoes. He continued, writing that Catalan cuisine has many sauces and gravies, "which is somewhat feudal, of the feudal aristocracy." He continued with the stew, which "is found in all countries that have had a strong peasantry and nobility." This is where we find the German stew (goulash), the Danubian stew (paprika), and the French stew.

In any case, Josep Pla maintained in 1925 that there were no restaurants: "The day someone in Barcelona decides to open a Catalan restaurant that respects the cuisine, the rights, and the appetites of its customers, they will become a millionaire in no time, and a pantheon of Solomonic grandeur will be created."

A hundred years have passed since then. The exhibition at the Josep Pla Foundation shows, with the author's preserved objects, how time has passed, but many of the author's reflections are still relevant. Perhaps someone would argue with him about whether Catalan cuisine is in retreat or staunchly fighting to survive. And still another would argue with him about whether there are no Catalan restaurants in Barcelona, ​​​​and the rest of Catalonia. Now, whether there are enough Catalan restaurants is another story.

When the writer from Palafrugell began writing, he didn't debut with a novel, and probably didn't because the genre was in crisis at the beginning of the 20th century. He debuted with a personal style, somewhere between chronicle and fiction, which was once promised by three publishers: Ventura Gassol, Joan Estelrich, and Ignasi Armengou. Finally, it was Armengou who managed to publish his book, and he founded the publishing house Diana to publish it. Two years later, Pla had already published three more books: Russia, Magic Lantern and Relations. In the 1920s, writing about Catalan cuisine was quite unusual, as the exhibition curator, Joan Safont, assures us. Pla did so in 1925. And a few years later, in 1928, the Girona journalist Ferran Agulló (who created the concept of the "Costa Brava") published the Catalan cuisine book.

When Josep Pla debuted as a writer, he not only innovated in the literary genre but also literaryized Catalan cuisine with his reflections and comparisons with the cuisines of other worlds.