Gastronomy and Social Networks: Heritage and Foodblogging in Catalonia

Laura Solanilla
F. Xavier Medina
Open University of Catalonia (UOC), Barcelona. Spain

This article presents the results of a research analysing the relationship between cuisine
and identity in Catalonia in the context of new digital practices. The aim of the research
was to test whether social networks, mobile devices, and the popularisation of ICTs are
becoming factors associated with the recognition of culinary practices as elements of
identity in contemporary Catalonia. The results show that these new online practices
are transforming the definition of Catalan cuisine and reformulating it in accordance
with new contemporary values.

Key words: cuisine, identity, Catalonia, ICTs

1. Historical and cultural background

Catalan cuisine is one of the best historically documented ones in the world. The first
known cookbook in Catalan language is the Book of (the three books known as) Sent
Soví (14th century), which is also one of the most ancient European cookbooks in
vernacular language. After that, Master Rupert de Nola writes also in Catalan the book
Llibre del Coch (Book of the Cook) in Naples (circa 1485). Throughout the modern age
and especially during the reign of the Borgia family in Rome, the dishes “Catalan way”
became popular in different European courts.

From the eighteenth century, Catalan cuisine suffers a withdrawal period lasting until
well into the nineteenth century. In 1835 appeared La cuynera catalana (The Catalan
Cook), which is not just a cookbook: in a very didactic manner, it describes hygienic
protocols on the table, on food preservation, and even on domestic economy. This book
is very interesting from our perspective, because for the first time it puts together the
word cook with the adjective Catalan.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the writer Ignasi Domènech, after contributing to
promote spreading French Haute Cuisine among Catalan bourgeoisie, published his
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book La Teca: la veritable cuina casolana de Catalunya (1924) (A Meal: the true
Homemade Cuisine of Catalonia). It soon became a classic wedding gift between
middle class young couples. But the explicit relationship between cuisine and identity
and the emergence of the concept of national Catalan cuisine appears for the first time
in 1928 with the publication of the Llibre de la cuina catalana (Book of Catalan
Cooking) written by the journalist and politician Ferran Agulló.

The Spanish Civil War sank into oblivion both works, only recently recovered. The War
led to destruction, poverty and hunger in Catalonia, where the food became a true
obsession for a large segment of society.

1.1. The loss of Traditional cooking (1960-70)

During the Franco dictatorship, the concept of Catalan cuisine was banned although
some authors published books and articles on the “Spanish Cuisine” with timid
references to regional Catalan cuisine” [e.g. Nuestra Cocina. Gastronomía e Historia
(Our Cuisine. Grastronomy and History), by Néstor Luján and Juan Perucho, published
in Barcelona in 1970].

Since the late 50's, the Catalan traditional cuisine had virtually disappeared from
restaurant menus replaced by a Spanish standard or by a typical mass tourism menu:
including gazpacho, paella and others.

During the 60’s, Josep Pla was commissioned by the Destino magazine to write a series
of articles on traditional cuisine of the Empordà (the most north-eastern Catalan region).
He compiled and published his work under the title El que hem menjat (What we ate) in
1971, during late Francoism and just before political transition, when people returned to
talk cuisine as a Catalan identity feature. Pla witnessed the loss of traditional cuisine
and marked as its cause [new] lifestyles, touristic predation, and the country’s general
fragility, without power structures or with powers often more symbolic than real.
(Fàbrega, 2002: 19).

In 1977, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, in the prologue to the first edition of L’art del
menjar a Catalunya (The Art of Eating in Catalonia) stated: [...] Among the destroyed
signs of Catalan identity there is Catalan Cuisine. The Catalan landscape is up to 50%
occupied by posters advertising housing estates while the remaining 50% is occupied by
posters where the traveller is promised a gastronomic paradise that has only two
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arrival paths: Bread with tomato and ham and grilled rabbit with allioli. [...] It is true
that there is a priority order and that the Espriu’s goal of “Saving the words” appears
to me fundamental in the times went or going by. But I deem lawful every parallel effort
to save a plot of identity that deserves a spot in the collective memory of our people.

1.2. The flourishing of today’s Catalan cuisine (1980s-nowadays)

Since the 80’s Catalan cuisine has undergone a large transformation. On the one hand,
the rediscovery of traditional dishes and on the other hand the first sparks of creativity,
through figures such as Josep Mercader (1926), the “father” of modern Catalan cuisine
at Motel Empordà restaurant in Figueres.

In this decade the emergence of Catalan cuisine takes really its place on the agenda.
Seven years before, Manuel Vázquez Montalbán himself talked about the danger of
extinction of Catalan cuisine and alerted on the risk of it being considered almost as an
archaeological or folk relic. He rectified nevertheless in the preface to the 2nd edition of
The Art of Eating in Catalonia, stating that:

[ ... ] I may say, and should say, that the panorama of Catalan cuisine has changed radically. [ ... ]
It would be an unpardonable foolish thing not to realize what most relevant factors have influenced
the obvious recovery of Catalan culture of cooking and eating. Not much present in restaurants,
relegated to foci of local resistance or in practice decaying by homemade cookers, Catalan cuisine
made a recovery drive that has resulted in the opening of restaurants, the new qualification of their
chefs, the reprint of copious literature of the past, the demand of the cuisine consumer, and the
emergence of a new generation of amateur chefs. This consumer’s requirement causes the revision
of many restaurant menus as well as the accurate quality of raw materials and manufacturing
processes (Vázquez Montalbán, 1984).

In relation with the recovery of traditional cooking, we have to point out the increasing
amount of publications of several books about Catalan cuisine, e.g. Josep Lladonosa’s
El gran llibre de la cuina catalana (The Great Book of Catalan Cuisine) in 1991 or
Jaume Fàbrega’s La cuina catalana (Catalan Cuisine) in 9 vols. in 1992. All this
evolution will lead to the Candidacy of Catalan Cuisine to be declared as World
Intangible Heritage by the UNESCO and the edition of the Corpus del Patrimoni
Cultural Català (Corpus of the Catalan Culinary Heritage) in 2006.

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The idea that there exists a Traditional Catalan Cuisine, as a Heritage item, a feature of
Identity, something to preserve and to care of is currently widely accepted. It is indeed
supported by scholars and by the work done within the Corpus of Catalan Culinary
Heritage.

But we are living today in a crossbred Catalonia: our culinary habits are being
transformed day by day by a series of social factors (who cooks and why, work outside
home, time to cook and time to eat, the incorporation of new robots and utensils…) that
also encompass contact with other culinary cultures, as well as globalization (including
Internet) and immigration, etc. If our cuisines, as a part of our cultures, are continuously
evolving and are never static, their rhythm of transformation is nowadays more and
more accelerated.

However, at the same time there also exist growing Food conscience positions:
recovering local products, eating on a seasonal basis, Km. Zero, Slow Food… Catalonia
is actually an important gastronomic-touristic destination and has a very high
internationally recognized cuisine with well considered chefs (Roca, Adrià,
Ruscalleda…). And this importance is expressed both locally and internationally
through the mass media and, of course, through the Internet as one of the most
important ways of current communication and relationship.

It is in this complex framework where we can find a very lively and active food blogger
community who chooses to write in Catalan as a sign of identity. This group of culinary
bloggers in Catalan recognize themselves as a community (Catalan gastrosphere) and
share symbolic and identity elements in relation to the culinary practices. In the
following sections we analyze the role of this virtual gastronomic community in the
construction of today’s conception of Catalan cuisine.

2. Foodblogging in Catalonia

In the last three years there has been an increasing number of food blogs who choose
Catalan as a language of expression but there is no data about who this Catalan food
bloggers are, what they do and why? Is there a relationship between Catalan food
blogging practices and nation identity building process? [In other words: Is there a
social, commonly perceived practice more than just a personal choice?].

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To answer some of this questions we have designed a survey with 22 open-ended
questions that was intended to know what is the profile of food bloggers who write in
Catalan, which kind of contents they offer and which sort kind of relationships -on line
and on site- exists between them. The survey was open between March 6th and April
15th of 2013. We got 173 answers from a 395 identified blogs in Catalan (44%
responses). And here are some results.

2.1. On bloggers profile…

Most of them (149) are individually authored (149) and only 21 have more than one
author. In the case of single authorship, there is an overwhelming majority of women
(70%) against 17.64% of men.

In case of collective authorship, 15 couples are male/female, 5 are two-women, and only
in two cases there is a group of 5 women and a case where the group consists of two
men and a woman. In absolute numbers, we would have a total of 76% women (150)
and 24% men (47)- 77% individual author, 9% friends, 10% couples, 4% families.

The Age profile is also relevant. 34% are between 36 to 45 years old, followed by the
age range between 26 to 35 years old (29%) and the age rank between 55 to 46 years
old. 4,7% are less than 25 years old, while 7% are between 56 to 65 years old and 0,5%
are over 66 years old.

Educational level: The majority (61%) hold a Bachelor level diploma, while 17% hold
Upper Secondary Education level or Master and PhD level diplomas. Only 5% hold a
Lower Secondary Education level diploma.

About their Cooking training, 67% of them state that they have some training, save only
3% take professional courses and 1,7% work as Cooking teachers. The most popular
training consists in occasional workshops (93%), while 11% take a long-term training,
7,3% go there once a week and a 6,5% once a month. There were some interesting
comments in this question, e.g. “No. To discuss with mothers and mothers-in-law about
recipes I suppose it doesn’t count, but I have learned a lot!”.

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2.2. About blog contents

Source: own data.

The most popular month to start a blog is December, while the less popular is
July.When answering to the question #10.“How often do you update it?”, 32% state
they do not update the blog regularly, 30% once a week, 22% more than once a week,
11% every 15 days and only 5% say that they update it once a month.

The main core of the survey was about knowing whether there is a taken position on
Catalan language, and on protecting Catalant traditional cooking by food bloggers.
More than 78% say that they made Traditional cooking in their blog, and also 73% state
that they made Sweets and Pastries recipes. 33% say they made Cooking innovation
while 23% choose Dietary and ecological cooking and 19% Take away food. Only 10%
say they talk about Wine tasting and wine and food matching and 11% makes recipes
for Thermomix (the popular cooking robot). If we ask deep inside the term Traditional
cooking, 81% associate it with family recipes (Elaborate familiar recipes) and 58% try
to recover traditional Catalan recipes. Answering the questions about Traditional
cooking values, 89% believe that Catalan cuisine is part of the culture and heritage of
Catalonia, while 64% believe that Catalan cuisine deserves International recognition as
Cultural Heritage.

Most of the blogs combine food contents with other kind of stuff. 39% include
Restaurants or products critique, 30% a news and events calendar, 25% chronicles about
Cooking workshops and 6% include a wide range of contents as health, books and
literature, cinema, crafts and knitting, meteorology, travels, urban orchards and
ecological farming as well as a personal diary.

Image and photography is a very important feature for food bloggers. Almost half of the
bloggers believe that photography adds value to the content and 98% take original

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pictures and publish them. 11 % have done a course in food photography and finally,
35% of users posted photographs in another platform such as Flickr, Instagram or
Pinterest.

Catalan food bloggers have also a high presence in social networks. The most important
is Facebook with 86%, followed by Twitter (58%) and fhoto networks as Instagram
(23%), Pinterest (20%) and Flickr (13%).

One of the more interesting questions for our survey was “Why do you write your food
blog in Catalan?” since all Catalan speakers are also competent in Castilian. Choosing
Castilian could be a better way to get more followers and popularity to the blog. So, the
choice of Catalan has to be with an ideological reason. The answers of that question
relate both to a personal identity but also to a collective identity as a nation. In the first
case the statements are as follow: I’m proud to write in Catalan … I couldn’t write in
any other language … as it belongs to the level of leisure and not for business, I prefer
to have it in my language, As Josep Pla said: I’m not Catalan because I write in
Catalan, but I write in Catalan because I’m Catalan …I feel comfortable in Catalan …
it’s useful to practice Catalan , It’s my language and my culture, as gastronomy also is ,
It’s an identifying feature of my blog , I speak Catalan, I think in Catalan and I cook in
Catalan, … it allows me to be coherent with myself, … for me it has meant learning to
write in Catalan … it’s my mother tongue …simply I do as I feel.

In the second case, the choice is not only a matter of personal taste, but it implies also a
sense of belonging to a nation and the responsibility it implies. In this case, the
statements are: Catalan is ours, as is our responsibility , To standardize the use of the
language in the Net, The traditional recipes of our land must be explained in our own
language, The goal of the blog is to spread Catalan culture, When there is no better
reason, I choose Catalan just to annoy…, … it was a way to introduce to our culture
(language and cooking) my friends from the States, To support and promote our
language, Because it’s an assertive action.

The answers to the question: “What are the main disadvantages of writing in Catalan?”
also are very revealing. For instance: …certain trademarks offer free items if you
change your blog into Spanish, but I have not done this, … the number of readers is
less, …it is difficult to disseminate a blog in Catalan because it creates rejection in

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many people, It reduces the possibility of visits, of comments, of sharing it in social
networks ….but I honestly don’t mind, I think if I had a business I would be forced to
make two blogs, one in Catalan and another in Spanish in order to sell more. I've seen a
trend that I'm considering adopting: writing the post in Catalan and then in English, It
gives it very local flavour, limited to the Catalan territory, … there are people that will
not read it because of the language, but honestly, I don’t care, Some people don’t visit
it for this reason, It can be a disadvantage for a non Catalan person, but I added a
translator. Occasionally I have duplicated a post also in Spanish, I reduce the circle…,
… some disadvantage regarding the impact outside Catalonia, but I couldn’t care.

2.3. On relationships

Foodblogging also changes relationships and open a new range of personal interactions.
These relationships may be face to face or in the online sphere. In the virtual world the
most common types of interaction are to make comments in other blogs and to
participate in cooking challenges.

In the first case, almost 50% of bloggers make comments very often, while only 14%
never make a comment. 37% say that they seldom make comments because of the lack
of time, but they would like to make them more frequently.

Related to cooking challenges, 47% never participate in them, but 24% do itregularly.
28% seldom participate.

Most of them (63%) keep their activity in the virtual world and do not participate in
onsite activities, but most of them express their wish to do it.

37% are nevertheless very active and participate regularly in activities as cooking
workshops, tasting products or meetings with food bloggers. 32% say they are activity
organizers. The last question was about whether having a blog has changed their
acquaintances. More than half (66%) stated flatly yes while only 21% say they have not
changed their relationships because of having a blog, and 10% pointed a difference
between the face to face and online relationships.

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3. To conclude (or not…)

Concepts like heritage and tradition have been transformed by the new online social
practices, so we can say that social networks, particularly with the popularization of
mobile devices and ICTs, are actually playing a significant role in the recognition of the
culinary practices as elements of identity in contemporary Catalonia. As one of our
informants said: “I think we have one of the best cuisines in the world, with great
professionals and a great historical heritage”.

However, the institutional concept of culinary heritage seems sometimes to be different

to the perceptions based in the amateur practice (in this case, Catalan gastro-bloggers).
The existing tension between heritage-building processes top-down and bottom-up
becomes evident especially in this context, looking not only for a cultural expression,
but for a very practical place in their everyday life: “I began to be a food blogging
because my children needed a place to find family recipes”.

This opens an interesting way of unexplored research, where public / private tensions;
commercial / amateur; tradition / innovation; global / local, inter alia, draw some unique
features marked by social networks and cultural practices related to leisure (and not
only leisure). Blogging gastronomy in Catalan is more than just blogging gastronomy
when comparing with other cultures. As one of our informants says: “For me, the blog
is a place for conscience”. And another gastro-blogger said: “I think it’s great any
initiative that puts the Catalan cuisine in the place it deserves”. Eating is no longer
consciously just a physiological fact, but an expression of culture, identity and habits
about themselves in postmodern societies. And Internet is helping to transform the
definition of Catalan cuisine, heritage and culture, and reformulating it in accordance
with new contemporary values, spaces, uses and challenges.

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