food

With the Hostelco industry trade show, the major show devoted to the food sector expects 150,000 visitors  

The theme was yellow, the colour of support for imprisoned pro-independence leaders

Christmas time is not only about holidays, nativity scenes, lottery and Christmas carols in Catalonia. One of the highlights of this time is the traditional never-ending family gatherings in which a lunch can easily finish when half of Europe is already having dinner. Several dishes are most likely to be found in Catalan homes on these days.

Christmas Day

Meat and vegetable broth is the top dish for December 25. Large pasta shells are also typically found in this traditional dish. After the broth, some special meat dish is coming, which is usually some bird, including rooster, chicken and duck. A nibble including sausages usually precedes the broth, and as a dessert, nougat, shortbread cookies and neules, some other kind of biscuits.

Boxing Day

Despite so much eating on December 25, a new family lunch is also typical in the following day, Sant Esteve or Saint Stephen, which is a bank holiday in the country. As people have already cooked enough, the most popular lunch on December 26 is the leftovers of the day before. But in style. The meat left from Christmas Day becomes handmade cannelloni in several households. In fact, Catalans will have eaten more than 4 million cannelloni this Christmas, according to the Catalan Federation of Butchers.

New Year’s

Some families also gather for New Year’s Day, although some others rather not do it as the effects of the New Year’s Eve celebrations are sometimes too much to be able to sit down at a table for several hours the day after. Anyway, what most Catalans certainly do at midnight is eating twelve grapes as the bells chime twelve times. 

Increase in Christmas food sales

Mercabarna's fish and seafood wholesalers expect to an increase of approximately 2% in Christmas sales. Specifically, they calculate to sell some 7,200 tons of fish and seafood and 90,000 tons of fruits and vegetables.

According to the president of the Fish Wholesalers Association, Leandro Serra, this increase is due to some recovery of the domestic market and to the fact that this year both Christmas’ Day and New Year’s Day are on Monday.

Sant Egidi lunch

Some people have no home where to have lunch on December 25. That is why the community of Sant Egidi, in Barcelona, organizes a Christmas lunch. This year, around 1,300 people took part in the lunch.

Food drive

Several initiatives such as this one need some food to be possible. Catalonia’s holiday food drive, the Gran Recapte, was held on December 1 and 2 with a record 27,000 volunteers. It began right as markets and supermarkets opened their doors to shoppers, with 2,700 drop-off points throughout the country. More than 4,000 tons of food were collected in two days. 

In Girona, a Red Cross psychiatric aid program for the homeless is implemented in time for the cold snap

Five-time number 1 holder Ferran Adrià states that internet and TV have changed cuisine dramatically

More and more people in Catalonia are turning to ecologically friendly food. According to the Perception and Consumption of Organic Food barometer, half of all Catalans consumed ecologically friendly food during 2015. On the way towards an ecologically and environmentally friendly city, Barcelona City Hall is promoting some initiatives to make Barcelona a more ecological city in many facets like health, sustainability, trade and social welfare. Green Markets are integrated into the new municipal policies. The aim is to promote small- and medium-sized local and ecologically friendly Catalan producers within a maximum radius of 150 km around Barcelona. The intention of the City Hall is to spread the campaign to six markets this year and, bit by bit, to transform the whole network of markets in Barcelona into an example of respect for the environment. 

From the 25th to the 28th of April, Barcelona Gran Via will host a new edition of Alimentaria, one of the most important trade fairs in the world focusing on food and drinks and the second most important in the Catalan capital after the Mobile World Congress. Amongst the newest trends to be featured in 2016 are superfoods, local food and organics. The event is also celebrating its 40^th anniversary with several novelties, the most prominent of which is the Multiple Foods trade fair, a more diverse exhibition which will bring together different companies. Additionally added are beverage and frozen food manufacturers in Restaurama, Vinorum Think, and Halal Concept. The exhibition has a projected economic impact of 170 million euros for Barcelona, already manifesting in the high hotel reservations. 

In Napa Valley, California, 8 companies, 7 wineries, and 2 chefs from Catalonia will participate in the World of Flavors conference on the 22^nd of April. The event is renowned as the leading conference in the field of gastronomy in the United States. This year, 800 restaurant chains, hotels, chefs, and operators will attend the conference to check out the latest culinary trends and techniques. Catalonia’s participation in the conference is part of a business mission led by ACCIÓ, a project of the Generalitat to promote Catalan business competition, innovation and cooperation around the world. Catalan Ministry for Business and Knowledge Jordi Baiget will also accompany the culinary participants to the United States, making several stops in California, Miami, and Washington D.C. to discuss Catalan business expansion in the country. 

From the 10^th to the 14^th of October, the German city of Cologne will host Anuga, the world’s most important Food and Agriculture Fair which gathered together, in its last edition, nearly 7,000 exhibitors from 100 countries. Catalonia’s food industry will be represented through two main sectors; olive oil and nuts on the one hand, and cold meats on the other. The Catalan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fishery and Food is aware of the importance of the EU market, as more than 50% of Catalonia’s food and beverage production is exported there. Moreover, the EU is the biggest consumer of food and beverages, ahead of the US and China.

The 47^th International Jazz Festival in Barcelona has organised a public celebration called ‘Jazz and Food’ this Saturday, the 3^rd of October, at ‘Parc del Centre’ in Poble Nou neighbourhood. There will be 12 hours of free music programmed for the event and a wide range of food trucks selling international street food. The party in the park is part of a new programme which was proposed on the 40^th anniversary of the festival. “It was an idea we pursued for years and now it is a reality. We have found the formula,” stated president of The Project, Tito Ramoneda, who recalled that the park has a special symbolism for the festival and said that he wants to continue celebrating the festival’s opening there. Between 20,000 and 25,000 people are expected to attend the event. 

Over 28,000 people visited the 5th edition of Barcelona DeGusta from Thursday to Sunday this September at the Fira de Barcelona, Barcelona’s trade fair institution. The popular food show where visitors can discover and taste new products and learn how great chefs work has returned to Barcelona after a 4-year break. This year it coincided with the main feast of Barcelona's patron saint, 'La Merce', and will continue to do so as the organisers of the event stated that this contributed to the event's success. More than 90 activities were scheduled to be attended by 27 chefs with a total of 10 Michelin stars, including Joan Roca, Carme Ruscalleda, Nandu Jubany, the Torres brothers and Carles Abellán.

The health benefits of the Mediterranean diet have been endorsed by two new research projects as part of the study group PREDIMED (Prevention with Mediterranean Diet). One of the projects concluded that a Mediterranean diet supplemented with olive oil reduces the risk of diabetic patients suffering from retinopathy, the leading cause of blindness amongst these patients, by 44%, as published in the journal ‘Diabetes Care’, coordinated by the Catalan University, Rovira i Virgili (URV). In the other study, published in the journal ‘JAMA Internal Medicine’, the Mediterranean diet was associated with a 68% relative reduction in risk of breast cancer. This study was coordinated by the University of Navarra and researchers from URV also participated.

Cacaolat – a popular chocolate milkshake produced in Catalonia since 1933 – continues to expand its international presence and has now arrived in Portugal as well. Invented in 1931 by Catalan entrepreneur Joan Viader Roger (already the owner of milk factory Letona), two years later it went on the market, becoming the first industrially manufactured cacao smoothie in the world, the company claims. Notwithstanding that its production was paralysed between 1936 and 1950, it went on to become a very popular product in Catalonia, also thanks to a smart communication strategy. Since 2012, it has belonged to the brewery Damm and soft drink producer Cobega, two of the leading beverage companies that founded the Grupo Cacaolat S.L, and the brand is now going through another sweet moment, after a few years of rough times.

The month of July started with the strengthening of Catalonia's business and economic relations with China. On Wednesday, China Construction Bank Corporation (CCB) - the second largest bank in the world by market capitalisation (207.9 billion U.S. dollars) - opened its first Spanish branch in the Catalan capital with an official ceremony at the Palace of Pedralbes. The same day, the Catalan Government signed an agreement with the Chinese Province of Fujian, aimed at expanding export opportunities for Catalan agricultural products and promoting the exchange of market and legal information between the two partners.

An increasing number of people are fed up with living in concrete jungles. Many think of the countryside as a solution to problems such as stress, a low-paying job and pollution. Due to the start of the economic crisis, this phenomenon boomed, with people beginning to look for an 'alternative way of life' or, at least, new opportunities. Catalonia and the whole of Spain are no exception to this. Here, moving (back) to the countryside nowadays looks like an attractive option to many, especially to young unemployed graduates. However, sustainable agriculture initiatives and the like are the 'junior division' compared to more complex social, cultural and ecological experiments: the eco-villages. Coming in different shapes and sizes, their members share resources and spaces, grow their own food and cover in a sustainable way the energy demand of the buildings they live in. With different missions and features, many eco-villages can be traced back to one or two decades ago and could teach a lot to newcomers.