Food is a catalyst for connecting people with local culture and traditions. A dinner table gathering is a language-barrier-free-zone allowing travelers from all backgrounds and walks of life to bond and connect. Culinary traditions hold the power to tell a story about the relationship between people and the land and sea surrounding them.

Through filming this adventurous culinary series in Spain for World Nomads, we got our hands dirty fishing for prawns and collecting seaweed, made our very own traditional herbal moonshine, and explored the best of culinary Cataluña and brought it to life with our video stories.

Joan Roca: changing the world, one dish at a time

When Restaurant magazine publishes its annual “Best Restaurant in the World” list, you never have to cast your eyes too far down to find El Celler de Can Roca. This three Michelin-starred restaurant topped the list in 2013 and 2015 and has been runner-up on four other occasions. If we were going to talk about food in Cataluña, we have to celebrate the pioneering work of the Roca brothers, Joan, Josep, and Jordi.

We skipped the obvious story of talented chefs operating at the peaks of their talents. That’s evident to anyone with even a passing interest in food. We focused on the brother’s deep connection to Cataluña and their charitable work with at-risk children and local farmers and producers.

We spent most of our time with Joan Roca. He took us out on a visit to a local vegetable garden from which his restaurant sources much of its ingredients. They also work with another garden operated by young people at risk of social exclusion. Sustainability also plays a big part in Roca’s life philosophy, and the restaurant runs recycling programs.

The Roca brothers are refreshingly down-to-earth, for chefs who have been garlanded with every culinary award imaginable. Their parents’ restaurant, Can Roca, is next door to El Celler, and Joan likes to pop over regularly to cook and dine with his family and remind himself of his roots.

Filming with Joan was a privilege, not only because of his extraordinary talents as a chef but also because of his commitment to leaving behind a better world.

Jordi Herrera: blowtorching beef with a culinary rebel

If the Roca family are culinary royalty in Cataluña, then Jordi Herrera is the upstart rebel taking Spanish cooking to daring new places. In the second chapter of this culinary series, we meet Jordi at his workshop in Barcelona’s La Sagrera neighborhood.

Jordi cuts a striking figure in a world often dominated by pressed white jackets and elegant dining rooms. His “kitchen workshop” bears more resemblance to a car garage, and his spiked goatee and penchant for biker jackets give him the appearance of a rock ‘n’ roll roadie rather than a world-renowned chef. His motorcycle jacket sums him up perfectly: two crossed chef’s knives below a steer skull, the words “Sons of Gastronomy” emblazoned across the top.

Yet there’s more to Jordi Herrera than a Son’s of Anarchy look and proclivity for rule-breaking. His dedication to food is absolute, and that’s what comes through most of all in his character. Jordi respects his ingredients with a reverence bordering on the religious. So when he pulls out the hot metal spike he calls the ‘enculadora’ (ass-skewer) and proceeds to stick it inside a fresh shrimp, he’s not doing it for the shock-factor. This homemade device sears the shrimp perfectly, from the inside out, in just ten seconds.

The video ends with Jordi, blowtorch in one hand, steaming metal spike in the other. He stares down the camera lens, eyes blazing, as screeching heavy metal guitar music plays us out: a culinary wildcard, trekking the gastronomic path less taken, brandishing his arsenal of unusual tools.

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Fireworks and moonshine in Santa Coloma

Santa Coloma de Farnes is a small municipality located in Girona province, yet it has played an outsized role in the history of Catalan gastronomy. In 1997, an astonishing discovery was made in the town’s historical archives: handwritten recipes for three different types of ratafia (a herb-infused liquor typical of the region) — which dated back to 1842, making them the oldest of their kind in Cataluña.

We arrive on St. John’s Eve, the most important festival in the region. The celebration has its roots in pagan summer solstice rituals. Traditionally, it’s the day when local people go out to pick herbs that go into ratafia, as they reach their aromatic peak.

We begin with a visit to a fifth-generation shepherd in the mountains above Santa Coloma. The peaceful images of herds of sheep ambling through the sunlit fields are soundtracked by gently strummed guitar, a percussive background beat provided by sheep bells. It’s another side of culinary Cataluña, away from the orchestrated chaos of Michelin-starred kitchens and gastronomic workshops.

We join local botanist, Evarist March, on a foraging mission. We learn which herbs go into ratafia and how to recognize when they are ready to be picked. Each step through the fields and woods of Santa Coloma turns the pages of a history book. Evarist dishes wisdom upon us that dates back more than a thousand years.

We also pay a visit to the previous year’s champion distiller, Fina Garcia, to sample her award-winning hooch. The complexity of the flavors stands in stark contrast to the drink’s simple, rural origins. Fina points out that there are over 40 ingredients in her ratafia, almost all collected by hand. She shares a book created by the ratafia brotherhood, full of secret rituals and incantations.

Our moonshine quest ends in the streets of Santa Coloma. Children hurl firecrackers as the town sits down for drinks and dinner: an entire village brought together in celebration of a festival honoring herbs and artisan liquor.

Playtime on the Catalan coast

Sitting in kitchens and indulging in moonshine tastings is all well and good, but the craggy coastline of Cataluña’s Costa Brava was calling.

These sparkling Mediterranean waters sustain 1,500 different types of seaweed. Evarist snorkels in the shallow bays and gathers a seaweed tasting menu: a variegated delight, plated on driftwood and eaten right there on the rocks, as the warm water laps at their feet.

Once dry, we visit Georgina Regas in the charmingly monikered little town of Torrent. Georgina is the founder of the Torrent Jam Museum. What started as a way to use the hundreds of lemons that fell from local trees became a life-long calling. Georgina gives us a hands-on lesson in jam making, with predictably lip-smacking results.

The final stop on our coastal Cataluña odyssey is the little seaside town of Palamos. Palamos prawns are considered one of the greatest seafood delicacies on earth and are famed for their intense, rich flavor.

We board a prawn fishing vessel under an eggshell blue sky. The sea is as calm as a millpond. The day consists of long periods of quiet, bookended by two moments of intense physical activity, as the nets are lowered and then hauled up, filled with their precious, wriggling catch. The hundred-plus kilos of shrimp and fish are then sorted by type and size. The extra-large prawns can fetch over 100 Euros per kilo.

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