It is Friday at noon, and the shade of the mulberry trees of La Terrassa de l’Hostal La Gavina, in s'Agaró, becomes a climatic refuge. A moment of calm from the heat while the sun, scorching, is seen from afar, with the sea in the background. We are in one of the restaurants of one of the hotels in the centenary urbanization, where you can eat whether you are staying there or not. In fact, the barrier separating Sant Pol beach from the urbanization can be crossed on foot and by car if you say you are going to eat at the restaurant. Once inside, everything changes. There is tranquility, space to park, and silence, as if the beaches of Sant Pol and sa Conca, two myths of the Costa Brava, were in another world, even though they are right next to it.On the menu there are dishes to share: coca bread with extra virgin olive oil; squid; Palamós prawns; low-temperature roasted aubergine, and more. I choose the escalivada with Kalamata olives, which is cut into thin strips, and is a success in taste and presentation. For the main course, among hamburgers, biquinis and free-range chicken sandwiches, hard-boiled egg, lettuce and fried bacon, I opt for sea bass with vegetables. There were also mini pizzas and, even better, cold soups, which are always a hit in summer: gazpacho, fish soup with croutons, vichyssoise.

Maria Rosa welcomes us to her home in Tossa de Mar, which is full of tourists, accompanied by her family, children, and grandchildren, who will stay to enjoy her meal. “I'll make you noodles, because they are my grandchildren's favorite dish. They are not noodles in a casserole, they are noodles with fish.” noodles in a casserole, they are noodles with fish”.

La Gracieta is the new restaurant of the Juncà brothers Joan, Isabel and Jordi, who have just opened on the road to Vall de Bianya, which connects Ripollès with Garrotxa. The establishment is very close to their restaurant Ca l’Enric (one Michelin star) and l’Hostal, and when you take the turn-off from the road, there is a clearing where you can park well. “In the region, there is a great tradition of hearty breakfasts, and La Gracieta, the owner of the restaurant, who lives upstairs, proposed that we take over the premises,” explain Joan and Jordi just as they are putting the finishing touches on before opening the restaurant. The siblings believe that taking over La Gracieta is a gift: “We are returning to our family origins, to a bar, where our parents started, and which Joan, the eldest brother, remembers. I, who am seventeen years younger, didn't experience it,” explains Jordi Juncà, the chef.

Sometimes it seems that to taste the authentic essence of traditional Catalan cuisine you would have to move away from Barcelona, where many criticize that the recipe book of the Catalan Countries has lost ground against brunch, poke bowls, street food and many other proposals from everywhere and nowhere aimed at tourists. But, as usually happens with all generalizations, where reproaches are made loudly and virtues are said in whispers, this image is biased and ignores all those oases in the Catalan capital that still fight and defend Catalan gastronomy.

I interview the chef Santi Colominas (Argentona, 1973) on a summer morning, a few hours before the first lunch shift starts, at 1 p.m. The restaurant Toc al Mar celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year since it opened in a small fisherman's house during an economic crisis. Santi had spent summers in Tamariu, and when he was offered the proposal, he accepted. For the first three years, he combined Toc al Mar with the restaurant Toc de Barcelona, which was located on Girona street. They were very intense years, with two young children he had together with the head of service and partner, Sandra Baliarda (1972, Badalona). Today, their children have already confessed that they like and are enthusiastic about the hospitality world. They have the succession secured.

The chef Moha Quach, from El Terrat de Tarragona restaurant and Revelation Award of the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition, has cleaned for the second time graffiti that appeared on one of his restaurant's signs. A year ago, the word Vox was painted on the sign indicating that the restaurant adheres to the Slow Food movement, which was difficult to remove; the second time, a week ago, on the sign indicating it has a Repsol Sun. “Repsol has just sent me a new plaque so I can remove the old one, which again had the word Vox on it,” explains Quach.

Maria, our wise woman of today, is 89 years old, but she looks many years younger (later we will see that all the members of her family seem much, much younger). Now, she has a vision impairment, and she can barely see, but, nevertheless, she cooks. “I have always liked to cook a lot, but, of course, I have had to give up many things, because I can’t see. I have a very big floor lamp, a desk lamp, is it called? And the fico inside the pot, to see myself in it, but I don't even see myself in that one. Then, I use my nose a lot, for roasts. When I smell it, I say, "that's already roasted," and the same with embers. I used to do it very differently, I used the pot, but not anymore, because I'm afraid ofescald me, because I don't see it. And I do it as I can..., but well, I manage. And they are delighted at my place".

Melero was interviewed by restaurateurs from the Sagrada Família area. They complained that they had to close for the Pope's visit and now have to do it again for the cycling tour. A representative from La Piazzenza spoke, which is that place – I've had many pleasant meals there – where you can eat a pizza, a salad, or a Spanish omelette... The owner of a burger joint also spoke. They all pay very high rent, for being where they are, and a day without invoicing harms them. It's understandable.

Today's SÀvia cuisine recipe is a coca de llardons, the cake for Saint John's Eve, that any incompetent person like the one speaking to you can make. It's a “dish” from my mother-in-law, Malagan by birth, Catalan by adoption, who cooks very interesting dishes based on both worlds: The “cod salad with orange”, “sardines on a skewer”, “salmorejo” from her native Andalusia, but also fricandó, meatballs with cuttlefish, or this coca de llardons from her adult Catalonia. My mother-in-law was one of the grandmothers who never missed an independence demonstration. She always says that she “misses those years” and that “now we are as if asleep”.

The Pedralbes Palace was dressed up to award the distinctions with which the Catalan Academy of Gastronomy and Nutrition (ACGN) each year rewards the talent of our land. More than 550 people gathered and enjoyed a dinner together offered by chefs Romain Fornell and Òscar Manresa.

I interview the sisters Rosita (Santa Coloma de Queralt, 1943) and Nati Camps Franquesa (Santa Coloma, 1947) at the Hostal Colomí in Santa Coloma de Queralt after a meal in which they have shown me that, together with Pep (Santa Coloma, 1974), Rosita's son, they are unbeatable. The restaurant room, full, Nati, in front of the grill, Pep, carrying dishes up and down, and Rosita doing the numbers, who adds at a speed that the MareNostrum supercomputer would envy. "No calculator adds as quickly as my mother," Pep tells me, who calls out the dishes he has served at the tables for her to calculate. When I started writing about gastronomy, twenty-five years ago, the Camps sisters were a benchmark for well-made Catalan cuisine, for local produce, for the seasons. Today it is still like that, and they deserve to be recognized. Why is it so hard in this country to give deserved recognition?

The Almarí restaurant, located within the Cala del Pi hotel, in the town of Platja d'Aro, wants to make lovers of pasta, vegetables, rice dishes, fish, and meat happy. For the former, rigatoni stuffed with oxtail under a langoustine topping. A memorable, indulgent dish, with a generous portion, one of those that makes a celebration just by arriving at the table. Pair it with varied starters, such as Roman-style squid, prawn carpaccio with extra virgin olive oil, or with lobster salad with red berries.

I interview the chef Sergi de Meià (Barcelona, 1977) at the Centre Comarcal Lleidatà, located on Gran Via in Barcelona. On the second floor, while a group of elderly people play cards, we sit at a table illuminated by large windows. The conversation begins with his origins in Lleida, from Vilanova de Meià, and we move on to the restaurant where I first met him, Sergi Ferrer-Salat's Monvínic, which has since disappeared and been replaced by the Finestres bookshop.

If you enter Mundana (c. Aribau, 34) for the first time, after crossing a shop window where you will find sardine cans, shoes, and a bottle of cologne that smells like pencil, you will find everything you need to have a vermouth or an aperitif with the best brands from Catalan artisans and from other towns. And whoever says aperitif and vermouth, also says knives from the Pallarès brand from Solsona. If hunger can wait, at Mundana you might find that artisan, Catalan-brand piece of clothing that suits your taste: take note of the sweaters from the IAIOS brand, from Granollers, by designer Gemma Barbany Arimany. And if you are interested in the cologne you saw in the shop window, know that it was created by Barcelona designer Oriol Montañés. And that the scent is cedar, that is, the one that makes the freshly sharpened pencil: sweet, dry, and warm at the same time.Behind the store that sells everything design-related in food, clothing, and decorative objects are siblings Anna (Barcelona, 1964) and Jaume Colomer (Barcelona, 1979). One, a molecular biologist by training, specialized in cancer studies; the other, an industrial designer, specialized in industrial creativity. One day they decided to reinvent themselves and six years ago opened their dream, which was to illuminate what local designers create. After having been in the Gràcia neighborhood, they have been installed for two years on Aribau street, near the restaurants Mont bar (with two Michelin stars), Mediamanga, and the indispensable La Valenciana.

“It is very important for me to be here”, said Ferran Adrià. “Today we have become a family again”, affirmed the chef. We are at Can Jubany, at an event in tribute to Santi Santamaria, organized by his son Pau, fifteen years after his death. Everyone has come today. “How nice that we are all here”, said Roser Torres, the woman who has organized the biggest gastronomic events of recent decades. She is known as Mama by many chefs. And like a good mother, she looked happy today that, finally, a battle that was hard and bloody for those who lived it and that time has finally reconciled was being brought to a close – posthumously, of course. has ended up reconciling.

I interview the cook Ada Parellada (Granollers, 1967) one afternoon after she has finished recording recipe videos. She offers me a piece of a blueberry pie, delicious, which she has prepared with nine ingredients. Only nine ingredients, because that way everything is easier, she says. We start the interview by talking about the last one I did with her, in which she told me the story of her family, and how it was that she decided to open the restaurant Semproniana with her partner. Ada Parellada has just written the book Els plats del dia (Rosa dels Vents), in which she vindicates set menus, like the ones she prepares at her restaurant daily for 23 euros, and which are dishes made from start to finish, and elaborate Catalan cuisine.

“Hello, my name is Montserrat, I'm from Plans de Cornet I'm eighty-three years old, and today I'm going to make you a wild boar stew”, she tells us, as she opens the farmhouse door for us. If we look in the Diccionari Català-Valencià-Balear we find that singlar, also written singlà, appears “as a synonym for senglar" in Igualada, Calders, Centelles, Manresa, etc. Our wise woman is from Bages. She lives in a neat farmhouse, where geese, dogs, rabbits, and chickens also live, in addition, of course, to part of her family. Today she is accompanied by one of her granddaughters, from Manresa, who, smiling, tells us: “I'm her assistant, but she goes on her own!” It's true. Our wise woman is agile, she doesn't stop moving, lifting pots. She immediately cuts fuet (homemade) to offer it to us.

If two years ago the Corpus of Catalan Cuisine included the recipe for gazpacho, which caused a great stir, the new edition brings grilled fish. "We don't understand how we hadn't included it yet [in the Corpus]; now it's there and also another novelty, fish 'romesco' instead of meat 'romesco'," states Pepa Aymamí (Vallmoll, 1945), who also adds that in the new edition they have included exhaustive files for all ingredients.

The Boqueria Market has named Carles Gaig alongside other great figures, as it has included him in its Council of Sages. A recognition also received by Juanito Bayén (from Pinotxo), Jean-Louis Neichel, Isidre Gironès, Josep Lladonosa, Jaume Subirós, or Francesc Fortí. The history of the Gaig family and gastronomy began in 1869 in Horta, when his great-grandmother created a "little tavern", in the chef's words, with chairs and a watering trough for horses. People passed by there to avoid entering Barcelona, where they had to pay a few cents to pass. So, to avoid the tax, many people used this route to go from Sant Andreu del Palomar to Esplugues and save themselves the fee. The great-grandmother, with a commercial nose, began to offer simple dishes, and that's how the business started and predestined Carles Gaig's future long before he was born. Today, he receives this tribute with his wife, Fina Navarro, National Gastronomy Award for her work in the dining room, and their daughter Maria, the fifth generation who has already joined the restaurant, seated in the front row.