Maria's roasted rabbit recipe: "Wars only talk about the dead, but never about what remains"

Maria, our wise woman of today, is 89 years old, but she looks many years younger (later we will see that all the members of her family seem much, much younger). Now, she has a vision impairment, and she can barely see, but, nevertheless, she cooks. “I have always liked to cook a lot, but, of course, I have had to give up many things, because I can’t see. I have a very big floor lamp, a desk lamp, is it called? And the fico inside the pot, to see myself in it, but I don't even see myself in that one. Then, I use my nose a lot, for roasts. When I smell it, I say, "that's already roasted," and the same with embers. I used to do it very differently, I used the pot, but not anymore, because I'm afraid ofescald me, because I don't see it. And I do it as I can..., but well, I manage. And they are delighted at my place".

It prepares a roasted rabbit, which it already explains can be cooked in many ways. With mushrooms, with pears... “On the fly. I, for example, know that rabbit really likes peppers. Generally, I wouldn't put them in a roasted veal dish. They work well with rabbit. Tomato works well with it, and peppers work well with it. Rabbit, because it's a meat with little flavor, you have to marinate it... Sometimes I add sausages, which they love at home, they give it a lot of flavor...”

Ingredients for Maria's roasted rabbit:

• Leek. It can be made with onion, if you wish. Don't ask me how many. Two or three?
• Carrot
• Tomato
• Pepper
• Alls
• A rabbit. Ask the butcher to make sure it's very tender. Why? Because it takes less time to cook and I prefer it that way, frankly. Have it cut into eighths. I buy it from a butcher I really like. They held a market in Figueres, and it wasn't successful, they all closed down except for him, who is still there.
• Oil, salt, herbs
• Water
• A drop of wine

Let's start:

“We pour a good splash of oil into the pan. Rabbit needs a lot of oil. The oil is mine, from my olive trees in Terrades, but of course, at the mill they mix it with the others”.

As she talks, she picks up a methacrylate device, like a ruler, with holes. She places it on top of the stove and presses the buttons to turn on the ceramic hob, which align with the holes. It's a system devised for her by a technician from ONCE, so she could cook by herself. “At my home, they didn’t have much confidence that I could cook, and it’s true,” she says, resigned. “But this ONCE guy helped me a lot”.

We put the rabbit in the pot (we save the liver for later). “Rabbit is one of the meats that crackles the most on the heat. It always splatters. Then, once it’s roasted, it cooks very quickly. Afterwards, I will set the rabbit aside and make the braise by itself. It’s not very difficult to do. I’ve never looked up how to cook a rabbit in my life, but yesterday, because you were coming, I looked it up: less than two hours.” He brings his eyes closer to the heat. “I’ll put it on eight, because seven is too little.”

While the rabbit browns, we cut the leeks into two or three pieces. We don’t peel the tomato, but we do remove the seeds. We peel the carrot. “You don’t even need to see to peel the carrot.” We’ll throw it into the pot in not-too-small pieces, but first, we’ll remove the rabbit. Maria, who can’t tell if the rabbit is golden brown, moves the pot away from the heat and turns the meat, piece by piece.

While she’s working, she tells us she used to sing in a choir. “It’s very fun. Rehearsing, attending choir gatherings... We went to sing in Montserrat. We’ve been to many places, really... And in the end, they give you a little snack. You have a great time. Being a singer, I would have liked that, but it couldn’t be. When I was old enough to sing, it was right after the war. I was born in ’37. We didn’t go hungry. In the villages, it was difficult to go hungry. Well. There was a family that came from another village, they had two daughters my age and we helped them, yes. He used to go work the land, wherever he was hired. We had fields. Olive trees, fields to have bread later. That family, poor things, they ate... You know those broad beans they gave to the pigs? That’s what they ate. My mother would take an egg and break it for the girls. I still feel like I can see it. People who had a little land and a man to work it didn’t go hungry... We had the grandfather. Grandfather didn’t go to the war because he was too old, but he was young enough to work. My father went to war and came back sick, from the war. He was a stretcher-bearer and it affected him a lot. Of wars, they only talk about the dead, but they never talk about what’s left.

See how the rabbit jumps? Soon I will be able to take out some pieces.

The father returned touched, but his suffering was continuous. All these people from the wars, who are left without legs, without arms and, above all, with their heads so touched... To the young people? What would he tell them? To think carefullywhat they vote. I have lived it and I have not lived it. Today I heard, and that's why I prefer not to listen to the news, that they are against Catalan again. It's puppets, what we are doing. Young people now have a lot of freedom. They will find out when they don't have it. I won't see it. It's that you don't know who to vote for. I had an ideal, but they took it away from me”.

We remove the rabbit from the pot and set it aside. Now we add the lard, in the same oil. "I put salt on the lard, not on the rabbit, because I think the meat shrinks. The garlic, some people put the whole head in. I crush them. I've gotten into the habit of doing it this way. Isn't it the same if I take out the trash? It's the way to do it right. You'll cut it if it's not right.”

And he takes the bucket, brings it to the marble and throws the vegetable remains into it. As he does so, I think of those Catalan speakers who might perhaps say some barbarism, such as "trash”, but who have a very rich vocabulary and a perfect language. The opposite happens with other speakers, who will say “escombraries” or even “brossa”, but who will not use any pronoun. Maria's language is full of nuances. While she cooks, we do this very Catalan thing of talking about cooking.

“The kitchen, since so many new things come out and it seems to us that the from outside is better... and I admit that chefs have to do new things, very beautiful, a few little things on a small plate, they are good... But Catalan cuisine is disappearing. In the city you would find roast veal. Not in restaurants with such a name anymore. What is done and looks very good is cuttlefish meatballs. Which I add broth to with a little water”.

He approaches the pot and adds: “I don't know how the stew is. The heaviest part is this. And it's heavy because I can't see it well.” Once the stew is tender, he adds the liver. “Because everything fries, but the liver fries even more. I'll add a little more oil. If you cook the rabbit too fast, it gets tough. And it burns. Terrades' cooking is difficult for me. My granddaughter is here, everyone does things their own way, they have to take things out of the fridge for me or I throw them away... I have a few things here. I always keep them where I have poso. No one touches them.”

This way of speaking, “where I put them them” amazes me. It's as if the language invented a pronoun – a weaker one – to emphasize place.

“I do gymnastics. Lots of stretching. Those who are younger (for example, those who are seventy years old) stretch on the floor and I don't do that anymore.” She shows us how she maintains her balance. “Not being able to see restricts me a lot. Since I do gymnastics in a place where dance is done, there's a mirror, and when they ask me, “Shall we cover you?”, and I say no, you can go ahead, because I can't see myself.”

We take out the liver, so it doesn't get too roasted. “A rabbit, if you want to know, no more than three people will be able to eat. Then I'll add the wine, a small glass. I don't like it when the roast isn't very piled up. Another thing is a small dish. I'll cover it with water, and an hour and a half or two...

This dish, when you're not here, I work on it. I'm not in front of the pot. Now I'll leave it, so the wine evaporates. If you had vegetable broth, chicken broth... But I always add water. Except for things with fish... The problem I have, with my eyesight, is cutting. If I make a roast, one makes a finger, the other gets chopped up. I don't know if you like pepper very much.”

Maria has always been a great reader and now uses ONCE audiobooks. “The thing is they have few Catalan books. They send it to you recorded, people reading, very well recorded. I really like reading and one thing is reading and another is having it read to you. I have really enjoyed traveling. The last trip I took was to Norway, I haven't taken any others, yet... I've been everywhere. To Russia, which I had always wanted to. It came to me from the post-war period. The neighbors used to come and talk about Russia. And they would say: “Don't shout...!””, by the fire. And I was left with wanting to go to Russia. Do you know what I have left to do? Go where the pyramids are, to Egypt. I would have liked that. And no, I didn't read big novels. I've read a lot. At home everyone reads a lot, Júlia too, my granddaughter, and they do that, a book club.”

Maria's rabbit makes our mouths water and her story moves us. A grandmother who is an example, who makes us think about seizing the moment, enjoying the world.