What is the reason for the huge success of Pallars soup on social media?

Senterada (Pallars Jussà)When the water is piping hot, add three handfuls of thyme (called timonetes in Pallars). On a plate, add the thinly sliced bread, a raw egg, oil, salt, and pepper. After the plant has been boiling for three minutes, add the water, cover, and let it sit for a while before serving. This is the traditional recipe for timonetes soup from Pallars. It seems to hold no secrets.

The elderly Angela Ferrer Palacín, known as AAngeleta has inadvertently made this soup go viral on Instagram.She was born in Avellanos, a small village in Sarroca de Bellera (Pallars Jussà), and was invited by the rural inn Casa Leonardo de Senterada to star in a video in which she cooks this traditional dish and promotes its properties. "This soup cures everything," says Angeleta, who is 87 years old.

What is the reason for the great success of this video?

A world of madmen

Perhaps the secret behind the soup video on Instagram is arbitrary, controlled by algorithms, or rather, an absurd coincidence of timing. In fact, Mireia Font, the owner of Casa Leonardo, has republished the famous video on TikTok to reach a younger audienceBut it hasn't had nearly the same impact. "I don't know the secret to going viral on social media," Mireia admits. "People today are very mentally ill," Angeleta herself states. This is possibly the most lucid explanation for the media boom this soup has brought with it.

Or perhaps the secret lies behind Angeleta's character. She claims that her healthy longevity is due to her daily consumption of herbal teas. She discovered them many years ago thanks to theAlbert Rami, a popular herbalist from Lleida, who taught him the characteristics of the most popular ones that grow in the mountains. Elderberry, mallow, shepherd's chilies (in the mountains they call them enjoy) and, obviously, the rudders. He has grown these and many other plants throughout his life, especially when he took his sheep out to graze, a trade he took up in Avellanos after twenty years living in France.

Angeleta, a unique case

Angeleta is a unique case in Pallars. She was born at the end of the Civil War, when her father, committed to the Republican cause, had already gone into exile in France. She grew up in the village, but at 18, she decided to pack her bags and visit her father in Nancy, in northern Lorraine, France. And she stayed there. She learned French and ended up working in a maternity ward, where she cared for thousands of young midwives. She cared for them, assisted them, and, of course, cooked.

One summer, while visiting Avellanos, she met a young man from Pallarés who captivated her, and her life took another turn. She married, had two children, and after five years, separated from her husband. We could say it was the first divorce that the residents of the Lleida Pyrenees witnessed in those early years of democracy. Something exceptional, as she was. Her long experience in France had transformed her into a modern woman, who wore miniskirts, drove a car, and frequented the region's cafés. Freshly divorced and intent on supporting the family alone, she decided to recover her uncle's flock. She learned to garden and slaughtered the sheep with her own hands. Working alongside her mother, she learned to cook the finest dishes. Her specialty is still rice with rabbit. "But her omelet with rabbits is also delicious," says her daughter Cristina.

He has always received visits from old French friends and has dedicated much of his life to reading. "Only history books, because fiction doesn't interest me," he explains. Nowadays, he's taken to using his cell phone. "There are very interesting things on the internet," he says.

A century-old inn

Perhaps the secret to the soup's success on social media is behind the camera. The video was recorded by Mireia Font, during a journalistic work by two correspondents from the North American network NPRThe timonete soup had been chosen as one of the twelve best in the world.

Mireia is the current promoternow Casa Leonardo, a century-old guesthouse in Senterada founded in 1913. It is a A business that a hundred years ago was a place of intense activity thanks to the construction of hydroelectric plants along the Flamisell River. Leonardo Vidal, originally from Gerri de la Sal, was the founder of this business, established within a huge house that provided shelter to thousands of workers and passers-by for decades. In 1977, the inn closed its doors, but Mireia, a Leonardo's cleaner, an archaeologist by training and eager to settle in the valley, restarted the project in 2001.

She still retains some of her grandparents' furniture and decor, including a wood-heated stove. There she prepares dinners only for the house's guests, but every day she also offers cold breakfasts for everyone with cured meats and cheeses, jams, and pastries from the region. "We cook according to the seasons; our dishes are a reflection of the moment," explains Mireia. Wild herbs are the star in spring, orchard fruits in summer, mushrooms in autumn, and stews in winter.

Return to childhood

In short, Mireia is a staunch advocate of regenerative tourism, one that reclaims the land and calls for calm. A calm that likely inspired the success of Angeleta's video. "Society today is very stressed, it feeds on pre-made things, and when you offer them the most natural, you unlock them, you return them to childhood, to a time when everything was simpler," Mireia explains. "I think the world, if it has a future, must return to these things," she concludes. In well-made tortillas, in salads with fresh produce, in flavorful tomatoes, in wood-fired bread...

Now Mireia is taking advantage of Angeleta's wave of popularity to make some vvideos that promote the traditions and essence of Pallars"As long as she's okay with it and has a good time doing it, we'll try to make an honest profit out of it all," he argues. It's a call for healthy eating and the circular economy. "I didn't invent garlic soup," he jokes, "but rather I'm recovering the work of our grandparents, of doing things with common sense, reusing the resources of the land, trying to leave the land better than we found it."

For this reason, Casa Leonardo is one of the main instigadoras of the Senterada community garden, one isA 3,000-square-meter restored country estate owned by some 200 members, where they collectively grow seasonal gardens, especially starting in spring. Peppers, cabbages, tomatoes, potatoes, calçots, and even a coop with laying hens are planted. Eggs and vegetables are distributed among the members as production progresses.

Carlos Mauricio, a retired banker from Gelida, is the one who takes care of him for most of the year. "It's the result of the desire to do different things and, above all, to observe nature, about which we know very little and understand nothing," he explains. Nature provides the basic ingredients for the diet of Casa Leonardo's clients and many other families in Pallars. Honey, wines, mushrooms, cured meats, and cheeses. How the from Puigcerver, one of the first goat cheeses with an organic label in Catalonia.The idea of Albert Turch, a young physical education graduate who decided to change his career and return to the family estate to continue the family's cheesemaking tradition. For over thirty years, he has been promoting the shift toward organic production to differentiate himself in an increasingly competitive market. "I practically didn't change the way my parents made cheese their whole lives," he says. From the milking to the workshop, and from there, to the table. Their cheeses are distributed directly to the consumer, without intermediaries.