The evolution of restaurant menus also tells us how we have changed.

BarcelonaCatalonia currently has more than 16,000 active restaurants. But it's estimated that over the last 60 years, there have been more than 500,000 different establishments. How many memories are encapsulated in each of them? What did we eat 30 years ago that we can't find anywhere now? What temples have they left us, even though for a time they were the place where everything happened? What wines were on the El Bulli menu, and how much did they cost when converted from pesetas to euros?

All these questions can be answered in the exhibition. Show the cards, curated by the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition (ACGN) as part of the World Region of Gastronomy initiatives, held by Catalonia this year. It can be visited free of charge at the Palau Robert until June 1. The exhibition identifies three milestones that changed the country's gastronomic landscape. First, on June 4, 1961, the Motel Empordà opened, with a new conception of traditional cuisine that transcends food. It is therefore a great merit that the restaurant, thanks to the names of Josep Mercader and Jaume Subirós, has survived to this day in top form. Its cheese and dessert cart It is already worth a visit in itself.

The second fact that conditioned Catalan cuisine in the late 70s was marked by the winds of freedom that reached us from the north. The impact of the nouvelle cuisine, by the Troisgros brothers, Paul Bocuse, and Michel Guérard, went beyond French borders and defined a style of cooking here in Catalonia as well. In the exhibition, by the way, you can see menus from all of them. In particular, a beautiful one from Les Prades by Eugénie. The third event that would change cuisine, and in this case not only in Catalonia but worldwide, was the emergence of El Bulli in 1983 with the duo of Ferran Adrià and Juli Soler at the helm. In the first room of the exhibition, you can see menus that reflect these three major changes, focusing on the concepts evolution (maintain the roots to project into the future) and disruptionThe exhibition's curator and vice president of ACGN, Joan Font, describes it with two very Catalan characteristics. We are faced with a new example of "seny y arrebato" (common sense and rapture).

In the second room ofShow the cards There's a large display of menus from legendary places. They make it clear that this is just a selection from the fantastic collection they have. "Moving away from any encyclopedic pretensions, this exhibition is a small, relaxed tribute to Catalan restaurant industry, thanking it for being able to take cooking out of the private sphere of the home and project it into the world, making it a global benchmark," explains curator Joan Font.

1,600 menus in storage

It's worth mentioning that a significant portion of the more than 1,600 menus ACGN has in storage (a good handful of which are on display at the Palau Robert) come from the personal collection of Santi Santamaria, the charismatic chef at Can Fabes who died suddenly in 2011. His restaurant's menu, of course, is also included. As are those at Agudo in Avignon, Bel-Air, Montse Guillén, Neichel, 7 Portes, and Via Veneto. Since the world doesn't end in Barcelona (although 10,000 of the 16,000 restaurants are in the capital), there's also space for the rest of the country. You'll find Big-Rock in Palamós, Boix de la Cerdaña in Martinet, Can Boix in Peramola, La Rana in Sils... It's an exhibition for nostalgia and remembrance as well. A place to reconnect with the figures of the gastronomic scene we haven't visited in a while or who are no longer with us.

For example, Carme Ruscalleda's San Pablo restaurant, which also contributed to the ACGN fund. If we look closely at a restaurant, such as Agudo de Aviñó, the restaurant run by the multifaceted Ramon Cabau and his wife, Paquita Agut, in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter, we see that not only have restaurants disappeared, but many dishes are practically no longer made. We have smoked fennel salad for 875 pesetas; natural liver galantine for 2,850 pesetas; shrimp cocktail for 1,925 pesetas; green peppercorn tournedos for 2,380 pesetas; wild boar civet for 2,250 pesetas; pheasant for 2,750 pesetas; Roman-style brains for 875 pesetas; stuffed peppers for 1,595 pesetas; Oyster soup, for 1,525 ptas.; snails with shrimp, for 1,785 ptas.; rabbit Empordà style, for 1,695 ptas.; or goose with pears, for 1,695 ptas. So this goose would cost us about 10 euros today. And the brainiacs, half that, five.

For its curator, visiting this exhibition "is a playful, friendly stroll, with no other aim than to distract oneself and have a good time, freely and without any systematic order, whether alphabetical or temporal. These cards are the ones proposed today and any other choice would be perfectly valid and appropriate." For the president of ACGN, Carles Vilarrubí, the cards are "a living memory of our tables and our celebrations" and "little treasures" and "witnesses of how we have reinvented ourselves, because Catalonia has known how to integrate tradition with innovation; it has always maintained its essence."

Let's talk about the future

Aside from recalling moments of shared happiness in restaurants or gossiping to discover the menus of those we've heard about but never been able to visit, the exhibition provokes new reflections. For example, what this selection will look like in the future. Design changes are evident. From huge menus from the beginning, handwritten texts, to other small graphic gems. In a world that is increasingly less physical and more digital, will we be able to perform this retrospective task with QR codes in a few years? For Òscar Ordeig, Regional Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food, we find ourselves in a time of change. The climate is changing, and so is geopolitics. Values that were once unquestionable are now being called into question. So Catalonia must be there: "Now the cards are being dealt again, never better said," he said at the opening of the exhibition, which he emphasized precisely reflected how well the country moves "between the local and the global." "[With gastronomy] We've gone out into the world without giving up who we are. We must have ambition," he stated.

The last room of the exhibition is where these debates and reflections, which the minister pointed out thanks to the audiovisual presentation, take place. Garlic Soup and the World to Come, which reviews the changes that Catalan cuisine has undergone and the challenges of the future. In the documentary, which can be seen in full on the ACGN website, a group of scholars determines the distinctive taste of Catalan cuisine, which defines us and sets us apart in the world. What would Catalan cuisine be like if the tomato hadn't arrived from America? Will restaurants be centers of interpretation of our food heritage and responsible for its survival? Will the Catalans of the future know how to distinguish a well-made fricandó from one that isn't? Why have we stopped eating peaches but now eat blueberries? Or the reflection of Toni Massanés, director of the Alicia Foundation: "We are no longer what we eat, we are what we post on Instagram." This observation has been clearly reflected in the restaurant offerings and in the fact that our brown-based cuisine may not have caught on as much as others.