Catalan cuisine encompasses influences from Spanish, French and Italian cooking.
The province of Girona boasts one of the most carefully preserved cooking traditions. It brings together the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean to create the concept of mar y montaña /mar i muntanya (sea and mountains). The geographical diversity puts everything into the melting pot: meat, poultry, game, fruit and vegetables. This is a cuisine that likes to mix flavours, sweet and salty or fish and meat.
Shopping for food in Girona / What to Buy
Shops open at 9.30am then close for lunch, re-opening again at 5pm until 8pm.
The supermarkets (Champion on the way into La Bisbal from Girona offers magnificent cheese, fish, and wines) remain open all day apart from Sundays when they generally close all day.
The Autonomous Catalan Government, the Generalitat de Catalunya, established a 'Denomination of Quality' Products included under this system are the apples of Girona and the anchovies of L'Escala.
Other notable products to buy in this region are the many types of Catalan Sausage (Botifarra, Fuet, llonganissa, peltruc), wild mushrooms, mature cheese and goat or sheep's milk cream cheese, plus fruits, jams and preserves.
Eating at home: a seasonal guide
Spring: Savour the tastes of spring with an omelette of courgettes, aubergines, garlic, artichokes and wild asparagus, or try tender spring lamb with minted peas and Morels (wild mushrooms). (Ask the butcher for the youngest lamb they have, this is the best.) There are specialist pork butchers that sell mouth-watering suckling pig, but you'll need to order it in advance. The fishing season starts around May, so pass by the fishmonger and see what delights grace the stalls. Cook up a magnificent suquet, the traditional Costa Brava fisherman's dish made from a selection of fish, usually hake (Merluza / Lluç) and monkfish (Rap / Rape) boiled in a thick broth and sofrito, garnished with mussels (mejillones/musclos) and served in a 'cazeula' (earthenware dish).
Summer: Fiesta season! The season that brings the mar i muntanya / mar y montaña (sea and mountains) concept into its own. Try Chicken with lobster, the Costa Brava classic. It seems an unusual combination, but you'll soon appreciate the enjoyable mixture of flavours. In Girona there are chicken specialists that can recommend not only which parts of the chicken you should use for particular dishes, but can also offer expert advice on cooking methods and recommended accompaniments (guarnición / guarnicio). Another masterpiece and probably one of the most unusual in the Catalan cookbook is the Estartit stew of sausage, rabbit, shrimp and fish, called 'Sea and heaven'.
Autumn: The hunting season and that of the wild mushroom, of which there are many (see guide below). Salads and vegetables make popular autumn meals. Combine this with fish and try esqueixada (salt cod salad) as a fresh palate-stimulating starter. During this season more so than any other, you'll see the streets lined with stall upon stall of succulent vegetables, all waiting to be chopped and roasted in olive oil, garlic and herbs for the perfect Escalivada, Tumbet or Xamfaina. Add this to a dish of oven-roasted veal for a hearty meal. Panellets are rich almond biscuits made in every household in Catalonia to celebrate the eve of All Saints Day. They are accompanied by roasted chestnuts and mature wine and can be kept for a long time, so make a big batch!
Winter: Warming meals, soups and winter vegetables like turnips, cabbage and parsnips. Snails and truffles are a winter delicacy, as are the sea urchins celebrated during the seasonal gastronomic feast from January to March. For Christmas, Escudella i carn d'olla is the dish of the day. This is a Catalan soup made with the famous pilota, a meaty 'dumpling' made'of parsley, breadcrumbs and egg. The stew probably has more ingredients than any other in the whole country: veal, bacon, beef, chicken, pig's ear and trotters, pork, white and black butifarra, ham and marrow bone, chickpeas, beans, potatoes, cauliflower, egg, turnip, carrot, garlic, flour, pepper, cinnamon and parsley.
Girona offers a diversity of eateries, from swanky establishments with imaginative gourmet menus, to raw standing-room-only taverns where famished workers amass to satisfy their ravenous appetites.
From the traditional concerns serving age-old authentic recipes, to the prestigious Michelin guide restaurants; Girona manages to cram a spectacular assortment into a relatively small area.
Eating out in Girona - recommended dishes
Once you've found a restaurant that suits you (and there are many to choose from in Girona city), you might like to try:
Starters
Pa amb tomaquet
Thick sliced country bread rubbed with tomato, olive oil, garlic and salt and sometimes covered with slices of Serrano ham.
Escalivada amb anxoves (baked vegetable salad with anchovies)
This typically Catalan vegetable dish is accentuated by the renowned anchovies from L'Escala. Tomatoes, aubergines, onions, peppers and courgettes all thrown into the pot along with garlic and a carefully selected bunch of herbs.
Main course
Graellada de peix i marisc (grilled fish and seafood)
If you like fish and seafood, this is the dish to order. It's a platter of delights: usually gambas (large prawns), calamars (squid), rap (monkfish), Lluç (hake), and sometimes polp (octopus). It's a 'dry' dish - no sauce - but usually served with slices of lemon and often Ali-Oli.
Botifarra amb mongetes (sausage with white beans)
The Catalan sausage Botifarra is the UK equivalent of 'black pudding' It's a melt in the mouth meat that is enhanced by garnish of beans.
Dessert
Bunyols / (fritters)
These are fritters traditionally eaten at Christmas but also enjoyed by tourists throughout the year. They are made from dough with a hint of aniseed, deep-fried then drenched in a brown sugar, cinnamon, and guava syrup.
Crema cremada (caramelized custard cream)
No visit to Catalonia is complete without trying this dessert. Catalan cream can be described as crème brullee - creamy custard with a crisp caramel topping. Catalan creams are flavoured with lemon zest and are traditionally served in an earthenware dish.
Gastronomic Seasons
Throughout the year, Girona celebrates its renowned gastronomy with a series of Gastronomic Seasons which involve the promotion of special menus in selected restaurants, cooking demonstrations and general awareness-raising publicity.
Early in the year from January to March, Palafrugell celebrates the sea urchin with La Garoinada. From February to March, you are invited to enjoy 'Peixopalo', the cod cuisine, in Sant Feliu de Guixols, Platja d'Aro, Santa Cristina d'Aro and Llagostera.
In the same towns during April, stews laced with pulses like Broad Beans and Peas are highlighted as the cuisine of the month.
From April to June, The famous Palamós prawns are celebrated in Sant Antoni and Palamós, and during the same period, the Cuisine of the Rock Fish is honoured in Begur.
In Sant Feliu de Guixols, Platja d'Aro, Santa Cristina and Llagostera, La Cuina del Peix Blau Ganso sees rice specialities and Suquet (stew) of oily fish celebrated and in September, the Cuisine of the Cim-i-Tomba, a traditional local fisherman's dish of fish and potatoes in an ali-oli sauce, sees several restaurants take part in promoting the traditional culinary values.
From October to December, the Celebration of the Lobster takes places in Sant Antoni de Calonge. Also in October, when the Girona sport of mushroom picking gets underway, La Cuina del Bolet involving specialities made with local wild mushrooms gets started in Sant Feliu de Guixols, Platja d'Aro, Santa Cristina and Llagostera.
Mar y montaña: from sea to mountain; the cuisine of Girona is as diverse as it's cities, towns and coastal resorts. Go there, sample a diversity of scenic wonders, and match them with a multiplicity of gastronomic delights.
