Rayhanur Rahman Khan

For a Spanish restaurant blog: //header//Do It Like A Catalan Come rain or shine, from sunny Australia to chilly London and most places in between, Christmas is the time of year when it’s perfectly acceptable to eat as much as you like and not give a monkey’s what anyone thinks. And down in Basque country, it’s no different. There are fiestas practically every day of the year as Catalonians never need an excuse to party, so what happens when Christmas comes around and there’s a real reason to celebrate? Put it this way, don’t land in Barcelona on a full stomach on Christmas Eve. You’ll live to regret it… It all begins with The Feast of the Immaculate Conception or Dia de la Inmaculada Concepcion, on 6 December when people across Spain put up the festive decorations and Christmas is said to have begun. But it’s not until later in the month that the ‘feast’ is put into fiesta and the Catalan people start doing one of the many things they do best – cooking and eating. Like many countries in the Western World, Catalonians eat their Christmas dinner at lunchtime on 25 December. However, this differs to the rest of Spain where the main meal is served on the evening of the 24th. But the Catalans are very determined to stand out and with their traditional festive dishes, stand out they do. subhead//Meat and veg The main player in the sumptuous Christmas feast when everyone from the youngest generation of niños (kids) to the abuelos (grandparents) come together to celebrate is the delicious escudella de carn d’olla (or escudella i carn d’olla), a much-loved Catalan dish. Though the temperature rarely drops below ten degrees in Catalonia during December, this hearty dish will warm everyone up. It’s a one-pot concotion in which meat, vegetables and the huge pasta shapes - galets de nadal – all simmer together to make an impressive stew. In the run-up to Christmas, the galets, or noodles, can be seen all over Catalonia at the markets, such as La Boqueria in Barcelona. And as the Catalans know you can never have too much of a good thing, there is typically more than one type of meat in the escudella. A significant number of Catalan people are religious and this dish appropriately honours the various saints with beef, chicken, pork and lamb to honour St Luke, St Peter, St Anthony and St John. Oh and there’s usually a pilota or two (that’s meatballs, to you and me) thrown in for good measure to satiate the hungriest of people. Aside from all the carne, there are vegetables aplenty with potatoes, carrots, leeks, celery, chickpeas, onions and cabbage all thrown into the pot. Once everything is ready, tradition varies according to taste. Some choose to serve it all up together as a meaty pasta soup whilst others take the vegetables and meat out to serve as second course and start off the meal with the noodle broth. The choice is yours… For those who fancy a really large meal or have a lot of guests coming over, both stuffed turkey and grilled prawns are also traditionally eaten on Christmas Day. subhead//The sweetest thing After the main event, there’s traditionally a wide selection of desserts on offer. The Catalonians do sweets well at the best of times so the Christmas period is heaven for those with a sweet tooth. Torró (or turrón in Spanish) is a type of nougat that is available in shops across Catalonia all year round but is traditionally eaten at Christmas time. Flavoured with honey and sugar, topped with toasted almonds and other nuts, it is served either soft and chewy or hard and brittle. Spanish recipe books from as far back as the 16th century contain recipes for turrón and it is a much-loved sweet in Catalonia. Neulas are another sweet traditionally eaten at Catalan Christmas – a very more-ish biscuit that is rolled up like a pancake and flavoured with lemon. These are often dipped into cava, along with the torró for an extra festive taste. These sweets will be served up alongside a whole host of other desserts including marzipan and polvoron, a type of Spanish shortbread made with almond paste. It may be hard to stomach (pun intended) but the following day, there’s another reason to celebrate and a whole new reason to eat – the Feast of San Esteban. This is a festival exclusive to Catalonia, where the family sit round the dinner table to eat cannelloni filled with leftover meat from the day before. Catalan people are traditionally very resourceful so this is a tasty way to celebrate this quality! Subhead//A very royal celebration The Christmas celebrations keep on going right up until the 6 January, and the day of the Three Wise Men (or Three Kings) according to Catholic tradition. On this day the tortell de reis is eaten – an O-shaped pastry stuffed with marzipan and topped with glazed fruit. Inside the pastry there is a tiny figurine of one of the three kings, as well as a dried field bean. Whoever finds the bean in their slice must pay for the tortell so it feels slightly like a bittersweet victory, particularly as if you find the figurine in your slice, you get to wear a paper crown and live like a real king. So that’s a Catalan Christmas for you, in all its gastronomic glory. You can live like a king, eat desserts and drink cava as much as you please - all in the name of tradition. We wish you a Merry Christmas and Bon Nadal!