Every Barcelonian keeps in their memory the precise moment they stopped going to La Boqueria. I correct myself from the start; perhaps it wasn't a sudden break, like that of the husband who leaves to buy cigarettes or the lady who discovers her partner fornicating in the marital bed. With La Boqueria, we have all given ourselves a second, third, and umpteenth chance; to avoid the dreadful cramming of tourists at its entrance, Barcelonians got used to entering our most excellent market through La Virreina and Plaça de Sant Galdric or Plaça de la Gardunya. This second one has recently been in the news because it is the place where seagulls have a predilection for assaulting the guiris to steal their (otherwise disgusting) supposedly national cured meat sandwiches or the little boxes of fried food they buy in the unbearable market bars. Almost all of us hate the rats of the sky, but now we have secretly applauded them.
I was saying that we have all ended up distancing ourselves from La Boqueria, once one of the best markets on the planet, overflowing with gourmet stalls (like Menuts Rosa or the venerable Petràs) that unfairly survive surrounded by nauseating establishments where fruit juices and seventh-rate paellas are vomited out. Romantics saved the abusive presence of tourists and the denaturalization of a Barcelona market based on genuine skill in the art of slalom; but the overabundance of curious onlookers, tourist groups, and their general mother who bore them now makes it impossible.
When the divorce was insurmountable, many residents of the Gòtic emigrated to the Santa Caterina market, an equally brilliant architectural space (reverence, Mr. Miralles) and with a team of first-division stalls; such as the excellent bakery La Torna, the codfish seller Ràfols, the charcuterie Carles, Paco's fish, or Josep's delicious croquettes. These are, of course, my favorite stalls in Santa Caterina.
To be good, in a first-world city, these corners should not only be the most excellent spaces I find to fill my fridge, but the common citizen (as is my case) should experience there the frivolous joy and light Mediterranean conversation that we ask for in the markets. For now, and I cross my fingers, despite receiving tourists and urban architecture enthusiasts, Santa Caterina has remained a space for contact and conversation for indigenous Barcelonans. But lately I've started to see blood in the water... and the sharks' fins will show up sooner or later. In fact, the market has started to be a stop for tourist groups and it can be seen in places as civilized as Bar Joan (where it is delicious to have an omelet for breakfast while one wakes up and makes a mental list of groceries), which are already in the enemy's crosshairs.
A few days ago I was having a quiet meal at the bar, while I watched a group of Yankees devouring an absurd selection of cold cuts and having a glass of cava, right at breakfast time. The first temptation was to laugh with the moral superiority of someone who knows for sure that no self-respecting Catalan would have a plate of ham or fuet with a sparkling wine at ten in the morning; here we are civilized people, who bathe meat with tomato bread and have a light breakfast, so that hunger arises shortly after noon. But we have all been a guiri (that is, a gilipuá) at some point in our lives and, then, I felt a certain compassion for this group of friendly Americans, subjected to an activity that has nothing to do with the place where they are staying. This is how La Boqueria started and, if this nonsense continues, this is how Santa Caterina can also end up, unless the City Council authorities start to act with much more common sense.