After these months living in Barcelona, you will have realized that here, we like to eat a lot, that any excuse is good to organize a lunch, or a dinner; surely you have already organized more than one in your student flat in Barcelona trying to adapt to our customs.
Well, at Christmas, this pleasure in food increases even more; gastronomy is, without a doubt, the absolute protagonist at this time of year, and all the families gather around the table to spend these days, which some like so much, and others avoid.
To familiarize you with what you will find these days in your student flat in Barcelona, if you decide to spend the holidays here, we will tell you about the typical dishes, customs and gastronomic traditions that we follow when celebrating Christmas, somewhat different from those in the rest of the country.
It is important to know that, in Catalonia, there is no big Christmas Eve dinner, the big celebration, which takes place on Christmas Day and St. Stephen's Day, 26 December, which is also a holiday here. These two days are reserved for the family and from the morning, the cooks of the house are preparing the “escudella”, the “carnd'olla” and the “sopa de galets”, or the stuffed chicken or capon, baked turkey, orange duck, roast lamb or baked fish, depending on the menu decided in advance for this year.
As our reputation for eating precedes us, we usually make extra food, no one can go hungry; but we also have a reputation for making the most of our food and not throwing anything away, which is why, from the leftovers of the big Christmas feast, in all Catalan homes, we make the typical St. Stephen's cannelloni, stuffed with leftover meat from the “escudella” or stuffed chicken or turkey.
A week later, the New Year's Eve and New Year's Eve celebration ceases to have this traditional and familiar tinge and becomes a celebration with friends, leaving aside traditional dishes and giving way to a more modern and innovative cuisine.
In any of the two celebrations, turrones and polvorones can't be missing from the table, present on a tray from Christmas Eve to Three Kings Day. And of course, the cava of the land to spend so much food.
Finally, on Three Kings' Day, after watching the parade in the neighbourhood of your student flat in Barcelona, go to the bakery to buy the Tortell de Reis, with its crown and its little surprise gift.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!