Josep Pla in his book ‘What we have eaten’ (Austral, 2013) tells us about the escudella de carn d’olla or Catalan stew, as the dish that is mostly eaten in Catalonia on the day Jesus of Nazareth, Ava Gardner and Don Raúl del Pozo: day up, day down. On the one hand there is the escudella, the broth that is served with the galets (a large shark pasta), in what is known as galets soup or Nadal soup. On the other hand, and as a second course, the meats and vegetables previously used in the pot for the broth. This protein feast is known as carn d’olla and is made up of four meats that are roasted at different times such as pork, beef, chicken and lamb. Manuel Vázquez Montalbán also included this typical Christmas dish in ‘The art of eating in Catalonia’ (Península, 1979). The one prepared by the Senillosa sisters is of recognized international prestige. In Madrid there are many families who serve Madrid stew for this day of peace and searching for faith. More modest than the escudella but it also improves when prepared the day before. Related News menagerie opinion Yes When you don’t want to see Alfonso J. Ussía They become ideological suicides, an army of unconditional men who would be willing to do anything As a child we used to eat at my paternal grandparents’ house the leftovers from Christmas Eve dinner. I was especially crazy about a cold cut that my aunt Rocío prepared with a little truffle. At my house, the night before, my mother’s entire family came to dinner. He always prepared a joke that made you lose your senses. We were thirty something. Thanks to them, the Hornedos, I have known the true meaning of family and blind loyalty. My uncle Javier, the boss, calls it roots. The rest say that it is because of the lip that we all have the same and that especially bothers the political members of the family in each birth that has made us in our fifties. That poularda was taken once a year. Just that day. Because there are things that are better left alone. In Norteña they ate sea bream or turkey. The seafood thing came much later, like the Catalan ‘gauche divine’ or the Madrid ‘jetset’. For this reason, until well into the eighties, in the vast majority of homes in Spain they chose between those dishes: sea bream, turkey, goat or lamb. The elvers were an appetizer at five hundred pesetas per hundred grams that you ate the rest of the days because you could. Now, however, Christmas food is celebrated in restaurants and home delivery. It makes me sad to think that, for many children, that special day reminds them of a ‘smash burger’ like it reminds me of Tia Rocío’s cold cuts. Or worse still, that Christmas Day tastes like pizza or kebab, because as we grow, laziness makes us weaker and what my uncle Javier says about being rooted is for them a game of Play Station. I refuse to let that happen to mine. That’s why I take advantage of this long weekend of the Constitution to fill the refrigerator with foods that I only buy now on the eve of Christmas. I have the recipe for the cold cuts. I am sure that the first ones will not be like the last ones that Aunt Rocío prepared, but in a couple of years I will embroider them. As I have also bought a syringe to get the turkey drunk, a puff pastry dough to make a sirloin Wellington and even some blinis to accompany a salmon from Pescaderías Coruñesas. In the end it’s about that. To let December contaminate those close to us with magic and to do what we don’t do the rest of the year so that these days are different. Try to make a little effort so that the memory of your children when they grow up brings them back here, to these years in which it is up to us to leave them the best possible memory. The one that scratches us older people a little when we look back. Christmas is here. Put a Nativity scene in your house, a tree and go to the Plaza Mayor for figurines and moss. That’s what Christmas is. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting where we came from because you won’t know how to get back when you get lost. They have another three hundred and sixty-three days to fool around and order a hamburger at home.
#Christmas #food
