Today, September 12th, after the Diada, is the time to continue existing. To continue existing means to continue being. To be, which is different from just being present, requires a lot of work. And the main work is to have the consciousness that the work that is needed is to do a great job so that the work does not feel like work.
Being Catalan means being rooted in a small and diverse country. So small and so diverse that it has a style of dishes we call 'mar i muntanya' (sea and mountain), a totally eccentric mix that combines meat and fish (because they are close by). The job is not to turn our backs on this country. A country that boasts the oldest recipe book in Europe and is, at this moment, one of the most changing, emerging, surprising, and excellent wine-growing areas on the planet.
If there is one thing we Catalans are, above all else, it is Mediterranean. Our way of sharing food (wine is a food) is Mediterranean. We have been making oil, bread, and wine for two thousand years and we have a language that has defined all its nuances for a thousand years. Our cuisine will save our wine, our wine will save our cuisine, our cuisine and our wine will save our language, our language will save our cuisine and our wine. I feel very sorry for all those short-sighted people who consider wine to be "elitist" (beer and whiskey apparently are not) and local vegetables "too expensive" (pizza apparently is not either). The job is to give normality, presence, and value to everything that comes from our crops, which is nowhere else but here, and to make it part of our lives. The job is to think that among the winemakers, farmers, and cooks, there are some very young and brave people, and also many old and resilient people, who are performing an essential service and will never receive a Creu de Sant Jordi. Being Catalan is nothing more than this. It is all of this. Because you only love what you know.
