Ramón Cabau's opera

The lack of relevant cultural criticism (well-paid, in short), the scarce tradition of solid biographical writing (American-style... well-paid, in short) and what Ors and Ferrater said about the difficulty of finding holy continuity in our tradition of letters and music have caused Catalan culture to be perceived as the imprecise set of a chaotic series of homenots (and donotes) geniuses that sprout like random mushrooms. We have all bought into this thesis at some point, as if Pau Casals, Salvador Dalí, or Josep Pla himself were small occasional miracles that, fortunately, bring us closer to European standards but are alien to the broth from which they emerged. This is also applicable to the figure of Ramon Cabau, a man who today is remembered as a simple legend of Barcelona, the illustrious dandy of the Gòtic, but who should be justly vindicated as one of the best gastronomes of old Europe.

The clichés are changing and La Punyalada today is relevant due to the publication of the book Una òpera gastronòmica. Vida i mort de Ramon Cabau, ànima de la Boqueria by journalist and food expert Marc Casanovas (Ara Llibres). This is an essential volume, and I would say not only for those interested in a figure like Cabau and the country's gastronomic history, but above all for all of us who seek some identity foundations from which to recover a Barcelona with soul that moves away from the paradigm of a shopping center for tourists. Marc has written a book, I must insist, in the Yankee style; with a dazzling body of documentation and first-rate interview work with all those who were lucky enough to cohabit with this unique biped. And most importantly, this biography has the delicacy of being read with an almost novelistic prose that is not a fucking bore.

This book must be approached to understand that today's contemporary Catalan cuisine would not be the same without Ramon Cabau and the gastronomic revolution that took place in his temple, the Agut d'Avignon restaurant on Carreró de la Trinitat (a beautiful corner where one of those infected establishments now subsists, where frozen paellas are eaten that should be included in the Penal Code).

The story of Cabau, it has been said ad nauseam, is like a movie; from his orphanhood and arrival in Barcelona to ​​a pharmacist's training that he would later combine with a unique culinary intuition, to the establishment of Agut as a nerve center of the city and, once the invention imploded with success, to his subsequent exile in Canet to work as a hermit farmer. Casanovas reviews it all point by point without hagiography, including brave passages where he tackles thorny issues such as the protagonist's bipolarity.

Many years ago, my putative father Àngel Juez (the soul of our beloved bar, the Ascensor del Carrer de Bellafila) introduced me to the figure of this immeasurable genius; the first thing he told me was about his symbiotic relationship with the Boqueria market, which he helped dignify by turning it into a supply space for the best restaurants in Barcelona. Ángel always told my dear composer Joan Magrané that an opera should be written about Cabau, and although we still lack this composition, at least we have this book that also shines musically in its ending, where the author's prose sharpens to describe one of the most beautiful suicides in the history of Barcelona (which, in turn, was perhaps the prelude to the fatal death of the Boqueria). Before ingesting a small bottle of cyanide, Cabau gave flowers and kisses to his beloved stallholders, said goodbye to his market, and died in the arms of the adored Lluís Petràs.

I said at the beginning that ours seems like a story one would think concocted from brilliant mushrooms (the metaphor is apt, because Cabau was a true fanatic of the product) to which we do not know how to give continuity; this is a book that explains how our cuisine had a time of emancipation from external influences and chose to maintain its essence of products and recipes, without thereby avoiding the paths of risk. In this sense, it is necessary to establish a very clear line between the titanic work of Cabau and his contemporaries and the new Catalan cuisine of the Adriàs and company. This gastronomic opera that Marc Casanovas has created has given more substance and light to this backbone that unites diverse traditions, reminding us that new ideas are always ancient discoveries that we had forgotten. Barcelonans, read this immense book that finally brings us closer to normality.