We read in theNow Balearic Islands that theCaulas Cookbook: 18th-century Menorcan cuisine, published by Barcino, includes the first documented recipe for mayonnaise sauce. And in fact, one of the recipe book's introductory essays confirms its Menorcan origins. It provides "textual evidence of the exact description of the procedure." And in this procedure, it is described as an emulsion of egg yolk and olive oil with the addition of some acid, such as vinegar or lemon juice.
The Catalan culinary emergency is extremely serious. I'm coming from lunch at Bodega Sepúlveda in Barcelona. An establishment—frequented by journalists from the ARA—where they'll make you chickpeas, head and leg, tripe, bread with tomato. Is this normal? Not at all. Raman here, poke there, (bad) sushi there, Argentine empanadas there. It's not normal. We're losing a cuisine that is a story. Is it normal that in Barcelona or Tarragona (cruise ship areas) there isn't a "normal" salad, for pity's sake? Nothing but a sprout salad? No normal carrots, no celery, of course, no radish? Is it normal that there's everything sushi and no escudella? Isn't escudella delicious? What will we pass on to our children? Sushi? Ramen? My friend from the market tells me that the children who come to visit them say that tender beans are edamame. This being, such a gourmet, who cooks spherifications of garrinet on the weekend, or a pan... if every day, every day, every day in the world doesn't cook the same old thing, he's contributing to the disaster. Spherification on Sunday and no vegetables on Monday? Cooking is transmitting, and it's transmitting every day. Above all, every night.
