"Great chefs would kill to have invented bread with tomato."

BarcelonaAt a congress dedicated to the future of Catalan cuisine, the most cited book is 700 years old and is the Feel SovietFor three days, at the Gastronomic Forum in Barcelona, ​​veteran chefs like Josep Lladonosa, young chefs and Brand-new chefs of the year like Jeffrey Ruiz and Helena Termes Academics like Toni Massanés have referred to them. There aren't many culinary cultures that have such an ancient document to draw upon. To know where we need to go, we need to know where we come from, of course. What a shame that Paco Solé Parellada and Antoni Riera passed away this year and couldn't participate in the debate.

Let's start with the diagnosis: how bad (or good) is Catalan cuisine? Or, to put it in the words of Massanés, director of the Alícia Foundation, "Are we dead or are we the atomic bomb?" There hasn't been a consensus on a shared diagnosis, beyond the obvious: people are cooking less and less at home. Perhaps there will be more success with the newly coined term "new Catalan cuisine" to group together the young chefs who are stirring things up and innovating based on tradition. Fortunately, we already have many examples. Marc Pérez, from Sosenga; Oriol Casals, from Theoretical Taverna, either Ángel Esteve, from SixthWill the concept catch on? That depends on whether society buys into it. If it does, it will achieve one of the few successes that Ferran Adrià and the El Bulli team didn't manage to attain: having a name that defines them.

In fact, the El Bulli chef began the three days of debate by asserting his position:Am I to blame for the lack of Catalan cuisine? "For the last 30 years, I've been blamed for all the misfortunes of this country." According to him, we are experiencing a great moment in the restoration of our cuisine, something that couldn't be said "in the 90s." Maria Nicolau responded to this by saying that if they had heard her, "Gaig or Subirós would be in trouble." The Augusta Guide was presented, with 270 Catalan restaurants. They are divided into three categories: traditional cuisine, popular traditional cuisine, and the brand-new category of new Catalan cuisine.

At iPhone speed

But what is Catalan cuisine and what isn't? "Before, popular cuisine and traditional cuisine were very similar because of the speed of information. Now information doesn't travel by mule, it travels by iPhone. And our phones don't show us the cherry trees outside our homes. The landscape is global," said Toni Massanés. We've gone from "we are what we eat" to "we are what we post." And at lightning speed. An example of a successful product? Dubai chocolate took months to go from social media to supermarkets worldwide. Could we achieve this with a Catalan culinary product?

"The greatest creativity lies in traditional cuisine, but these aren't grand processes, they're small processes that end up achieving big changes. Great chefs would kill to have invented bread with tomato," Massanés stated. For chef Jordi Vilà, Catalan cuisine has always been new, always following the pulse of its time. "Hispania and Agudo in Avignon were also examples of new Catalan cuisine," he stated. Joan Roca, for his part, said that "it's wonderful that this year's congress has been dedicated to Catalan cuisine and that we are all reflecting, from our own perspectives, on what Catalan cuisine should be and what we understand it to be." "We have a territory with a cuisine, a culture, and a language, and we should be proud of it and share it with the world. At El Celler de Can Roca, we have never stopped doing so. One of our sources of inspiration has always been tradition and memory," he added.

Now, if we want a place on the global stage, will we have to make concessions? Should we modify Catalan cuisine to make it more Instagrammable? Should we simplify it to present it around the world? Should we train artificial intelligence? Words like survival, battle or, directly, war"We can win the weekend and holiday food war. But not the weekday one. You can't save Catalan cuisine during the week," said Nicolau.

While there's no certainty about the future, the congress halls were full of companies offering their prepared products to restaurateurs—the so-called fifth-range products. There were also chefs complaining about not being included in the presentations, since they feel part of the new Catalan cuisine movement. The new term must have something going for it, then, if someone is demanding to be invited. Finally, the director of the Catalan Tourism Agency, Arantxa Clavera, stated that Catalonia's status as a World Region of Gastronomy, which it holds until 2025, will be extended "until March or June." We'll keep you posted.