Catalonia, World Region of Gastronomy

Since an­cient times, Mediter­ranean civil­i­sa­tions have given hu­man­ity one of the most pre­cious and every­day trea­sures that never goes out of fash­ion: the uni­ver­sal lan­guage of gas­tron­omy. From the Greeks and Ro­mans to the peo­ples of North Africa, pass­ing through Oc­c­i­tan, Neapoli­tan, Cata­lan, An­dalu­sian, Si­cil­ian re­fine­ments... the con­tem­po­rary world can­not be un­der­stood nowa­days with­out the gas­tro­nomic con­tri­bu­tion that flour­ished around the Mediter­ranean. Thanks to its priv­i­leged cli­mate and ge­og­ra­phy, over the cen­turies it has turned into a great fac­tory of ideas, in­no­va­tions and tastes that have con­quered the palates of the world, so that surely the first great glob­al­i­sa­tion of hu­man­ity was gas­tron­omy. Cat­alo­nia is known as a land of con­trasts, where culi­nary tra­di­tion is part of the cul­tural her­itage, boast­ing a great num­ber of in­ter­na­tion­ally renowned chefs and over fifty Miche­lin-starred restau­rants. Next year, Cat­alo­nia will be the World Re­gion of Gas­tron­omy. This well-de­served recog­ni­tion not only cel­e­brates the rich Cata­lan cul­ture, but also its tal­ent to in­no­vate and adapt to mod­ern times. It also brings chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties. First of all, to pro­mote the wealth of our coun­try in the en­tire cycle that feeds the gas­tro­nomic cul­ture: from farm­ers and local pro­duc­ers to chefs and restau­rants. Sec­ondly, be­cause Cat­alo­nia has al­ways been a step­ping stone and has been able to take ad­van­tage of the con­tri­bu­tions that have ar­rived from other cul­tures, and this is a per­fect op­por­tu­nity to demon­strate it. And, fi­nally, be­cause Cat­alo­nia has had the vo­ca­tion to act as a leader in the Mediter­ranean re­gion, and this is where part of its iden­tity lies. While we await the gas­tro­nomic events next year, in this Sep­tem­ber issue we re­flect on the chal­lenges and op­por­tu­ni­ties they bring, and have a look at the essence of Cata­lan gas­tro­nomic cul­ture, and how over the years it has known how to em­brace tra­di­tion while en­cour­ag­ing in­no­va­tion and sus­tain­abil­ity (check out our fea­ture and in­ter­views on pages 12-22 of this issue).