Explorer in Alimentaria: broth, caviar and Iberian ham

The Fira de Barcelona swallows and swallows the public and expels, hours later, fat people. No one leaves the gigantic enclosure without having filled the crop and the bag with brochures. Because that’s what it’s all about: doing business and eating or eating and drinking, doing business.

If this were a free access place, it would be filled with the crowd of breakfast barsvermouth vendors, dining rooms and picnickers, not at all intimidated by leaving the city of Barcelona and visiting their neighbour, in the very hospitable Granvia de L’Hospitalet estate.

Experienced in many Alimentarias and, in their digestions, I have double, triple or quadruple vision just by setting foot there: where to go, what to see, what to try? If Stendhal fell defeated by beauty, a ‘foodie’, by the infinity of suggestions. I see the first bags of Aneto in the shoulder bag of those accredited and how the broth flows from the pots. It’s a great idea: you serve yourself without putting up with a vendor giving you the cup.

I take the path of the Premium lounge, the club within the clubbut I entertain myself during the route.

I renounce tuna that is not tuna, pork that is not pork, and meat that is not meatI leave behind what-is-not in search of what-it-is, like a gastro philosopher stunned by metaphysics.

and I meet again Senén González’s potato omelette, with which he won a Spanish championship, and which I am served in a plastic dish and a fork made of the same material and which I do not enjoy with the taste of the past, perhaps because the tortilla art is becoming more widespread and more accessible. As well I peck the potatoes with spicy chorizo ​​flavor from Sarriegui, certainly itchy, and what a taste, although in the limbo of what-is-not.

My goals in Premium are two: caviar and acorn-fed Iberian ham, because in turbulent times it is better to take refuge in safe values, in gold, in olive oil and in dental clinics.

These eggs yes-that-are: “They come from sturgeons with 16 years and weigh about 50 kilos & rdquor ;, says Diego Gallegos, known as the Caviar Chef and with a star restaurant, Sollo.

Three different cans from the Riofrío house and mother-of-pearl spoons: I prefer the Russian Style, glups, although let’s not confuse what is Russian with what is Putin. Anyway, it’s Andalusian caviar, from Granada. 4% salt, six months in a can and long live the sturgeon. Diego Gallegos denounces how use is being vulgarized with exhibitionism: “It cannot be the Modena vinegar of the 21st century & rdquor ;. In the mouth, the round and crackling pleasure. Caviar with everything? Just caviar.

A few meters further Joselito, who is not only José Gómez, but José Gómez junior, the son. José Gómez son wants him to try the sirloin carpaccio: “Quality pork meat can be eaten raw & rdquor ;. Very thin slices, pepper and oil, and it is as if the pig were wearing fine boots.

Then the trilogy Iberian ham from 2015, 2016 and 2017. José prefers 2016, “sweeter”, I am happy with 2015, 2016, 2017 and that shoulder and that ‘coppa’ and the cured bacon with rosemary.

We are talking about acorns (there have been plenty: “They will give very good hams”), of vintage hams (2006, the oldest they have) and China, and it is once again gastropolitics or geogastronomy that sits at the table.

In this present, what-is-not competes with-what-is: it is better to be than to appear, it is better to be lettuce than simulacrum of meat.