Comments on: Is this Catalan Dish related to Mole and Curry?

By: Rachel Laudan

Rachel Laudan — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:10:30 +0000

Thanks Gabriella. There are lots and lots of links to come.

Rachel

By: Gabriella Termont

Gabriella Termont — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:11:24 +0000

What a fascinating connection! I am looking forward to more discoveries of culinary links between the Old and New Worlds.

By: Blood and Chocolate | Rachel Laudan

Blood and Chocolate | Rachel Laudan — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 14:53:45 +0000

[...] in several comments on my blog. He points, for example, to the use of chocolate in the Catalan dish mar y muntanya discussed earlier on this [...]

By: Juan

Juan — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:13:16 +0000

The most likely scenario is that you have mutual influences. As pointed out some of the nuns at the convent could have been Catalan, in addition you can’t forget that after the Colonization… the Spanish took many Indigenous artisans, artists & nobles to Europe often presenting them as “gifts” to the various Crowns & Nobility. The Spanish specifically designated the Aztec nobel lineages with their own Spanish title… Duke of Moctezuma… position still occuppied to this day by his descendants.

From the Spaniards own description of Aztec cuisine, arts & architecture it seems they were quite impressed… further there is evidence of the Spanish crown in different eras being particularly concerned with the treatment of certain indigenous groups.

Its not at all unlikely that Spain in general was quite impressed and open to some Indigenous influence particularly in the arts.

In Mexico you can see the evidence of an artistic exchange. For example the famous & revered image of the Virgin of Guadalupe was painted by an Aztec scribe whose name was Marcos Cipac. The painting which is considered to be a masterpiece equivalent to the European masters of the time (painted circa 1529)… indicates Cipac must have received some training in Europe & may have even seen the original Virgin of Guadalupe in its church prior to painting the Mestizo version.

By: Adam Balic

Adam Balic — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:14:20 +0000

I guess another interesting question is why would chocolate have been assimilated into the Spanish kitchen? It is a bitter substance (until the Spanish added sugar) and in cooking it results in a dark brown colour. I know that there was an obvious mesoamerican association of chocolate with blood (hightened by the addition of annato), but I wonder if this could also be true of Spain? At the present day there is a lot of blood consumption in Spain, at various markets it is sold in solid blocks. As yet I haven’t come across any historical Spanish recipes for Civet type dishes to illustrate the point though.

p.s. I left an earlier comment, but it is attached to the third image (when clicked on) rather then the main text.

By: Colman Andrews

Colman Andrews — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 21:07:31 +0000

I was interested to see your post regarding the possible relation of the use of chocolate in Catalan mar i muntanya preparations and Mexico’s mole. In 1992, I presented a paper on this very question in the Canary Islands, at a symposium called (in the rather inelegant official translation) “The Canaries in the Route of Food” (dealing with the islands’ important role in the transfer of food products, in both directions, between mainland Spain and the New World). Specifically, I addressed the question of whether or not mole had any relation to the picada, the paste commonly including chocolate, one or more kinds of nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, pine kernels), olive oil, garlic, parsely, and fried bread, all ground in a mortar, that is common to mar i muntanya dishes and many other traditional Catalan sauced dishes. For some reason, I’ve been unable to find a copy of that paper or of my research file for it, so I can’t provide specifics at this point, but at the time, I recall, I did turn up information suggesting that, while the origins of mole are clearly pre-Columbian, there is a possibility that some of the nuns at the convent in Pueblo at which mole poblano, the type we most often think of as mole, was invented, were Catalan or at least had access to early Catalan cookery texts (like the Libre del Coch). The technique of making and method of using both mole and picada is very similar, as you note, and though pre-Columbian Catalans wouldn’t have had chocolate, both Catalans and indigenous Americans had mortars (the molcajete in the latter case), and some mutual influence between the two preparations seems not at all unlikely.

Though Catalonia wasn’t considered part of al-Andalus, incidentally, there is a strong connection with Moorish cooking and culture in general through the Balearic Islands, which fell to the Moors in 798, and were later worried by North African pirates–until Jaume (or Jaime) I, “the Conquerer”, chased them out entirely in 1229. This is significant to Catalonia because a large portion of Jaume’s troops came from the Emporda (Ampurdan) region, and they effected a long and complex cultural exchange between the two areas. This is seen linguistically in, among other things, the use in both the Balearics and the Emporda of “es” and “sa” as articles in place of the conventional “el” and “la” of Catalan. The Emporda is also the region in which arguably Moorish-influenced multi-ingredient dishes like the mar i muntanyas (a class of dishes rather than a single one) are most prevalent and definitive.

Glad you liked the recipe, by the way.

By: catalonia weblog

catalonia weblog — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 17:51:48 +0000

Nice post Rachel. Some great information on catalán cuisine. I just love it. Very informative weblog, keep up the good work.