The Catalan of La Boquería

1. Sant Jordi has not yet arrived, and the Liceu has already closed its dance season. The four shows this year have received applause and good reviews but, as taste is subjective, they have fallen short of expectations at the time of subscribing. They are good shows –of course– but they haven't stirred our souls in the slightest. They haven't even moved us. I admit that I arrived in a bad mood for the last performance, Nijinsky's. Given that the performance –two and a half hours long– started at half past seven, we decided to grab a bite near the Liceu before the show. The idea, initially, was for a quick, stand-up sandwich. We were looking for a clean, decent place that wasn't a rip-off. After all, with a Rambla under construction that made it difficult to pass, we thought that the pre-prepared trays we saw from the street –labeled in the establishment as "montaditos" and "tapas"– would be a decent option for a two-bite meal. When we entered, they were already surprised that we were locals. Before we sat down, seeing that they weren't going to rip us off, they warned us that we could only pay with bills there. What a surprise! We left with a nagging suspicion and looked for another option.

2. I was too lazy to go to the bar in the Hall of Mirrors at the Liceu, because of the queue that forms, and because the quality/price/pleasure/size ratio of the sandwiches is usually a losing bet. We remembered that, to get from the Gardunya parking lot to La Rambla, we had crossed La Boqueria and seen a ham stall –hanging and packaged– that looked good. We retraced our steps among the fruit stalls –chopped, peeled, with a fork– and ordered two baguettes of acorn-fed ham. The vendor, upon hearing us ask in Catalan, made his surprise evident and looked us up and down. "At seven in the evening, are we the first Catalans of the day?" I asked him. His answer, which seemed exaggerated to me, was: "I would say the first of the week... I would even say so far this month". I tried to get him to elaborate a bit more, about the origin of his customers. "Here they speak to us in Italian, Russian, or Chinese... All sorts. But it's been a long time since I've heard Catalan". While he was charging us –only four euros for each baguette– a family from Turin ordered three more sandwiches, with prosciutto without tomato.

3. Ours is an anecdote of bread with oil, never better said. Sociolinguistically it has no statistical value. I am not saying anything that we did not know about an area that is a magnet for tourism of all kinds of sandals and pockets. It is chilling, yes, the confirmation of how La Boqueria has become a theme park for fools and has been losing its primary role, of supplying food to the people of a neighborhood that is already difficult to recognize. It is bad that this trend is irreversible. With language, on the other hand, not all is lost. The day after this experience, first thing in the morning, Basté woke us up with the EGM results. Between RAC 1 and Catalunya Ràdio alone, there are 1,800,000 Catalans every day who devour radio in Catalan. Rosalía, for having spoken in Catalan at the four concerts in Barcelona, for having confessed the BadGyal in the language of both, for having subtitled all her songs in our language, they call her the name of the pig on social media. A good sign. And now Sant Jordi is coming. On the list of bestsellers in Catalan, it is unlikely that a Dicker or a Uclés translated into our language will make it. At the top of the fiction ranking there will be a Regina, a Carles, an Eva, a Gil, an Empar, an Agnès whom we enjoy as we read them. It will be a success that will justify the theses of Òscar Andreu, who climbed to the podium of non-fiction, with the necessary manifesto in defense of Catalan.