How to combat ceviche and cheesecake fever: arguments to defend Catalan cuisine

BarcelonaVindication can be achieved from many perspectives, including humor. That's why chef Jordi Vilà, along with his creative team, created the Self-defense manual for Catalan cuisine. It consists of a poster that, like an auca and inspired by martial arts, shows how to combat the arguments of the misinformed who believe that pasta has more history in Italy than in Catalonia or that pickles like the one in ceviche They have come to us from the other side of the Atlantic when they already appear in the Sent Soví's Book 400 years ago.

In this poster, you'll find the definitive arguments for defending Catalan cuisine "with honor, elegance, and glory" and, we might add, with knowledge of the facts. To give you an example: with a kind of flying kick, we find The Cheesecake Hit, with an illustration by Joan Manel. It calls for us to liberate ourselves and make American cheesecake a delicacy for the 4th of July, its official day. For the rest of the year? Honey and cottage cheese, Swiss roll, cake, white food, wind fritters, pajamas, or carquiñoles. And so on, up to nine items we can defend with grace and force. And other keys to winning the battle, like The pasta defense, The ramen twist, The fork touch, The coz ceviche either The anti-umami jab.

The Catalans too

What has led the chef to pursue this initiative—which will soon be published in a book—is the feeling that Catalan cuisine is in overtime. "We're not living in a time of change, we're living in a change of era," he says. And he focuses the debate: "I love the ceviche, which is super traditional somewhere in the world. Let's eat it when we go there. And when someone here is Peruvian and opens a Peruvian restaurant, I celebrate it too. But the normal thing would be that in Barcelona, ​​for every place where they have ramen, there would be ten where you can eat escalivada, escudella, and snails. And this isn't the case. We must shake the tree," says the chef.

Vilà is very clear that defending what is ours, what defines us, doesn't mean buying into certain narratives. "If there is talent and there is something good from abroad, use it, we Catalans have always done that. It's not an approach from an exclusive point of view. It's not 'Catalans first,' but 'Catalans too.'"

Since a sense of humor is the hallmark of the poster, while the poster was being presented, it was proposed that schools should be served very poor-quality sushi. That way, children won't want any more. And it was pointed out that the main problem is that people don't cook at home, which is the umbilical cord to a place's culinary tradition. Now we limit ourselves to reheating food, and large-scale industry wouldn't exactly be a great friend of Catalan cuisine.

"If we go to Sicily, we want to eat Sicilian cuisine," explains Vilà, adding that by defending Catalan cuisine, we also defend Sicilian cuisine in Sicily and Asturian cuisine in Asturias. If anyone wants to join this self-defense movement, they can buy the poster for 15 euros, the T-shirt (they've made two models) for 20 euros, or the mug for 12 euros. And for those who want everything, they can get all three items for 40 euros. You'll find them at Va de Cuina stores and at Vivanda, Alkimia, and Alkostat restaurants.