BARCELONA, Spain–Cosmopolitan, innovative, spectacular and welcoming, that’s Barcelona. This 2,000-year-old city on Spain’s Costa Brava has a number of lures for tourists–art, architecture, markets, music and history. And on the world’s culinary scene, it is the go-to city for cutting-edge gastronomy.
Site of the 1992 Olympics, Barcelona plays host this year to two international events. Both are hot tickets.
The Barcelona Forum, a major international exchange of ideas based on three themes–peace, cultural diversity and sustainable development–is much more than a series of dialogues among Nobel laureates and activists. Festivals, performances, theater, cabaret, a speakers’ corner, kids’ tent, street events and a nightly parade are part of the mix.
The other major event marks the 100th anniversary of Salvador Dali’s birth on May 11, 1904. The city is hosting a year-long celebration, Dali 2004. One facet of the commemoration, “Art and Gastronomy,” is an edible homage to the artist. Thirty restaurants are presenting special menus of foods typical of the region and those often seen in Dali’s works of art.
Succumbing to the lures of Barcelona, my husband, Bob, and I immersed ourselves in the Mediterranean city’s culture for a week of playing, eating and learning. We also toured the three towns called the Dali Triangle to see the Dali museum in Figueres, a castle retreat in Pubol and the Dali house-museum on the bay of Port Lligat, to the north of Cadaques, the fishermen’s village where Dali spent his childhood.
We made several discoveries.
Barcelona is the capital of Catalonia, a sophisticated, self-governed region within Spain with a unique culture. It is not the Spain of flamenco dancing and paella. The residents speak Catalonian, a distinct language, not a Spanish dialect.
And, it turns out, Salvador Dali was a foodie. He was obsessed with food, wrote extensively about it and even devoted a cookbook to his wife and muse, Gala, “Les Diners de Gala,” published in 1973, but now out of print.
DALI’S OBSESSION
Salvador Dali was an artist who defies classification. His prolific work includes drawings, films, illustration, graphic design, art objects and oil paintings. From childhood, he was thoroughly grounded in technique, and, as an adult, he was able to focus on the art. Though he experimented with Impressionism, Futurism and Cubism, he is best known for his work with Surrealism. He used scientific procedures and optical instruments to create illusions. Dali was one of the first artists to use his life and work as a marketing tool. When Andy Warhol was still in diapers, Dali was well into mass consumption and mass culture. Some consider him a genius, others a nut case. You decide.
The Dali Theatre-Museum in Figueres, a small town about two hours north of Barcelona, is one of the most visited museums in Spain. The town’s central avenue, or rambla, is lined with modest shops and sidewalk cafes.
But, whoa, around a corner and up a block looms a huge red building that appears to be covered in tan polka dots and topped with — wait, yes–eggs. Huge eggs. After a closer look, it seems that the polka dots are (ital) pa de crostons, (unital) triangular crouton breads typical of the area and shaped to resemble a toreador’s hat. Both decorations are a response to the artist’s worship of these foods. “Bread has been one of the oldest subjects of fetishism and obsessions in my work, the number one, the one to which I have been most faithful,” Dali wrote in his diary.
There are many photographs of Dali wearing such a loaf of bread on his head for a hat. “All my acts respond to ideas I had as a child,” Dali wrote. “For example, the bread I often put on my head is a hat with which I introduced myself at home when I was 6. I emptied a (ital) pa de crostons, (unital) and I put it on my head.”
As for the eggs, Dali explained that he and Gala were the children of Jupiter and Leda and were hatched from gigantic eggs. The moment that they broke the shell that protected them, they became immortal brother and sister. Huge eggs also dominate the decoration of Dali’s house in Portlligat, a fishermen’s village of white houses.
Dali’s famous melting clocks also have a link to food. One hot August afternoon in 1931, as Dali sat at his workbench nibbling at his lunch, he had one of his most stunning insights. Upon taking a pencil and sliding it under a bit of Camembert cheese, which had become runny in the summer heat, Dali was inspired with the idea for the melting watches. They appear often throughout Dali’s works and are the subject of much debate. See, for example, the clocks in his painting, “The Disintegration of Persistence of Memory” (1952).
A few other paintings featuring food are “Portrait of Gala With Two Lamb Chops Balanced on Her Shoulder” (1933), “Basket of Bread” (1945), “Still Life With Two Lemons” (1926), “Still Life – Watermelon” (1924) and “Soft Self-Portrait With Grilled Bacon” (1941).
Of the 30 restaurants hosting Art and Gastronomy surrealistic Dali dinners this year, we chose Hotel Restaurant Llevant in the seaside town of Llafranc. All of the courses were served on specially designed and locally made dinnerware. Our reservations were for 10 p.m., Spain’s fashionable dinner hour, when it is barely dusk. It cost 43 euros or about $54. This was our menu.
– Cava Castell de Perelada (the local Catalan sparkling wine)
– Pa de Crostons (three-cornered crouton breads shaped like a toreador’s hat; likenesses of the breads dot the exterior of the Dali museum)
– Soup of Mussels With Saffron (mussels and other shellfish are prominent in Dali’s art; the base of his installation, “The Rainy Cadillac,” is paved with mussel shells, and his bed was decorated with shells; Spanish saffron is world famous)
– Deep-fried Lamb Brain With Romesco (Romescu is a classic sauce of Catalonia; lamb appears in Dali’s writings, and it is said that he liked brains)
– Poached Eggs With Duck’s Liver and Spinach (eggs are a favorite Dali icon)
– Red Mullet With Bits of Sausages (mullet is a typical fish of the area; Dali loved the sweet botifarra sausage of Figueres)
– Marinated Wild Boar With Beet Puree (wild boar is often seen on the Catalonian dinner table; red beets represent the barretina, the scarlet Catalan cap)
– Chocolate Flan, Chocolate Ice Cream and Red Berries (Dali loved chocolate; his favorite dish was said to be lobster with a chocolate sauce).
WHOSE MUSE?
Besides Salvador Dali, Catalonia’s favorite sons include architect Antonio Gaudi and artist Joan Miro. The thread of eccentric genius runs throughout their work.
Today, another Catalonian, Chef Ferran Adria, is their heir apparent. This pacesetter of international cuisine has been called the Dali of Food, and in many ways, he is to food what Salvador Dali was to painting–prolific, inventive, outrageous and sometimes shocking.
Both are masters of self-promotion and marketing. If Adria isn’t directly channeling Dali, then he has to have taken him as his muse.
Adria was born in Barcelona in 1962. His early training is classic French. His Michelin three-star restaurant, El Bulli, is located near the town of Roses, about 20 kilometers from Figueres, the site of Dali’s early childhood home and the museum. El Bulli is one of the most innovative and talked-about restaurants in the world. The 12-course tasting menu is an adventure into the possibilities of shape, texture, temperature and juxtapositions. Adria’s intention, as was Dali’s, is to provoke thought in the person experiencing his art.
Adria is obsessed with the science and form of food and the way it can be presented and manipulated in new and interesting ways. To do this, he maintains a laboratory workshop in Barcelona where he conducts experiments.
Some critics claim that Adria is more alchemist than chef, with his innovative dishes such as airy carrot-tangerine foams, raw quail egg encased in a caramel crust, seawater sorbet, liquid croquettes, bite-size cuttlefish ravioli with coconut, parmesan foam, fois gras ice cream, and potato filled with yogurt and coffee. That doesn’t stop hordes of gastronomes and professional chefs from seeking seats at El Bulli. It is unquestionably the hardest reservation to secure; every table of the six-month season sells out in a day.
If nouvelle cuisine was Impressionism, then what Adria does is Cubism. Many would even describe his creations as Surrealist. In his book, “Secrets of El Bulli,” Adria says, “I have no doubt that art can manifest itself in gastronomy, as much in the creation as in the perception of the diner. In my view, the true artists are the diners who are able to experience emotion as they confront a plate, to touch something that is difficult to conceive without resort to metaphor. Art is the experience of a shiver down the spine.”
Somewhere, Salvador Dali is twirling his moustache in approval.
