"If the Holy Grail existed, it should be a lot."

Girona"How can I give up an object that fascinated Picasso?" asks Salvador Garcia-Arbós (Besalú, 1962) as he strolls through the center of Girona, greeting a host of people who know him. A restless journalist who has played every role, Garcia-Arbós has now embarked on a crusade, accompanied by good allies, to recover the porrón. "We must reclaim, in a casual way, what we are. The porrón is friendly, ecumenical, fun," he argues.

Garcia-Arbós has just published Galactic history of the porrón, a book published by Vibop, which is part of the magnificent collection of books related to the world of wine. For the journalist, however, what interests him most about the porrón isn't so much what's inside: "I'm interested in everything that surrounds the porrón. The fact that it serves to unite people. The gesture of passing the porrón. I'm interested in everything that happens around it, everything that has been there and everything that has come to me. I would put horchata and milk in it, because it reminded him of drinking directly from a cow's teat," explains Garcia-Arbós, claiming that few things can compete with an outdoor dinner while passing a porrón. The book is nothing less than a kind of manifesto in defense of the Catalan porrón.

In his book, Garcia-Arbós has searched through archives and books. He's also worked hard in his diary, as the Besalú-based journalist is one of those who knows people everywhere, not just within the gastronomic sector. The result is that now every day his phone screen lights up with acquaintances sending him new discoveries related to the porrón. "I knew Picasso had made drawings of porróns, but more Picasso-esque porróns keep appearing. The other day someone sent me photos of porróns from museums in the United States. The porrón fascinated Dalí, Miró, Brossa... we have a Spanish still life by the Mexican Diego Rivera, who we know painted it in Catalonia, because you can see a porrón and a bottle of Anís del Mono. Josep Pla wrote about porrones. I went to the Agnès Varda exhibition at the CCCB: and what did I find? A porrón. Matisse made it. I found a photo of Carmen Amaya using it," he comments. At the famous El Internacional restaurant in New York, Montse Guillén served porrones that celebrities like Basquiat, Warhol, and Grace Jones would have enjoyed in the 1980s. What has fascinated Garcia-Arbós most, however, is Picasso's close relationship with porrones! You don't want to drink from a porrón, don't. But let it be on the table. We must reclaim it even if you don't use them."

Liberal porrones and Carlist porrones

Not everyone has fallen in love with the porrón, of course. In 2017, Miquel Berga, while recalling the Battle of the Ebro during the Civil War, wrote a book about George Orwell, whose life and miracles he knows. It was revealed that the Briton refused to drink from the porróns at the front or rear. "It seems that since he wasn't familiar with them, they reminded him of the shape of those jars they gave the wounded to urinate in at field hospitals. Especially when they were filled with white wine. And he developed a mania for them. A grave mistake, he, who was a communist. There's nothing more communist than a porrón, which equalizes and unites us all." preppy", jokes the author of the book commissioned by Montserrat Serra i Arenas. "I'd been mulling it over for a while, almost unintentionally, like crazy. Years ago we made a blunder at the Toy Museum of Catalonia, in Figueres, which was called You don't play with the jug, which revolved around the titives"I had read Joan Amades' books about porrones and drinking from a galet. I gave a talk there, at the museum. Blanca Serra Rosa, who owns a clay souvenir shop in Figueres, spoke. She told me that she came to the French porrones a lot. And with what she told me, I was learning. I differentiated between hand-blown porrones and industrial ones, which are worthless. The hand-blown ones are the good ones. In fact, historically, when you bought a porrón, they had a small, closed mouthpiece, because that was where the glass ended. And you, when you bought it, decided where they cut it to make the spout wider or narrower, depending on your tastes," says Garcia-Arbós. And since the porrón was very popular during the 19th century, if you had a porrón with a wide mouthpiece, it was said to be a liberal porrón—more conservative or more progressive, more or less republican.

"I learned a lot from Blanca. She showed me catalogs and took me to a kind of Sistine Chapel of the porrón, where there were around 3,000. As a result, I was invited to give a talk in Cassà de la Selva, at the Tap and Cork Fair, where I discovered that a mayor of Cassà from the late 19th century was the one who patented the gallet, the cork spout used to cover oil cans and also used on porróns. In Cassà, we gave talks about drinking from a galet, but everything allowed me to learn about the porrón," he explains. And that's how he ended up becoming an expert on the art of the porrón. "We have to reclaim it. I differentiate between Catalanism and Catalanism. We have to differentiate between vulgar Catalanism and not being ashamed of being from where we are, without falling into chauvinism," argues Garcia-Arbós.

Learning from the Italians

In the book, Garcia-Arbós explores everything surrounding the porrón, such as the competitions titives or expressions like to pass the bottle, as the presidents of Barça did during the Franco regime. Or the mysterious origins of an object documented in Catalonia 500 years ago. The oldest would be the porrón from the pharmacy of the monastery of Santa Maria de Poblet, from the 14th century. The first documents that make it clear that it should be made of glass are later, from the 19th century. The porrón appears in travel texts by English and French writers from the 17th and 18th centuries, as a unit of measurement and in fables. But its origin itself remains mysterious. "Drinking from a galet has always been done, all over the world. And similar objects in the porrón have existed in other places," says Garcia-Arbós. In fact, Joan Amades found, a century ago, a Genoese postcard showing a fisherman with a kind of barretina and a kind of porrón, with the legend The bevitore in the pirone. This pirone Genoese would be the Catalan porrón. "Catalonia and Liguria have always been united. Historically, from Cadaqués or Barcelona, ​​​​people went to Genoa, since it was a straight line," explains Garcia-Arbós, who envies the Italians "who do know how to claim and defend their traditions. Here, especially after 1992, things... tions to be considered reactionary. Reactionaries appropriate many symbols and it's a mistake. Nor did it help that the sale of bulk wine stopped," argues a man who has his own particular Holy Trinity of kitchen objects: "Three monstrous pieces: the porrón, the Marquina oil can and the celebra.

Garcia-Arbós claims that the porrón should be Carlist, to better enjoy the wine. "If the beam is thick, you won't taste it," he says. And that way you also save more, in fact, as Joaquim Riera wrote in the Renaissance in 1871: "The use of the porrón proves the moderate drinking habits and the economic genius of the Catalans.Drinking from a porrón allowed you to enjoy wine and spend less, a fact that sparks debate among today's leading wine experts. "Porrón, eh?" he argues. And beyond whether it should have a wide spout or not, he advocates for its use. "It's been vindicated more than used, lately," he explains.

"The porrón fascinated everyone," he concludes. In fact, García-Arbós doesn't hesitate to imagine the Holy Grail as a fear. "It must have been a porrón or a wineskin," he says, somewhat provocatively, remembering that the Last Supper, after all, was nothing more than a conversation after dinner. It would make sense, if it were a divine porrón.