My Mongetes a la Catalana recipe

Catalan food, as observed by my friend Sebina, can be a little heavy sometimes. This mainly comes down to a love of recipes involving beans, especially in conjunction with lots of pork products. A classic combination is Botifarra amb Mongetes, sausage and beans… but that's a tad dull if you ask me. Instead, I prefer 'Beans a la Catalana', made with either mongetes (big white beans) or fabes (young green broad beans). This is my made up recipe for Mongetes a la Catalana, another great rustic dish for wintry days and evenings. The measures are based on serving four or five people.

What you will need:

About 700g of good Mongetes blanques. Go for 'ganxet' type as these seem to be better. When I say 700g, I mean when they're still in their water, in the jar. Strain them but do not wash them.
3 strips of good panceta/cansalada/pork belly, cut into large postage stamp-sized pieces. Not too large, mind
Sausage. Go for about 400g of botifarra sausage (chopped up as well). I used some mini chipolatas with black truffle but I don't know how easy these are to come by
2 cloves garlic, minced (or whatever you call it)
Handful of chopped parsley
Dash of white wine
Salt
Good olive oil
About 15 mins

What you need to do:

Heat a nice amount olive oil to medium-high temperature (around level 5 on my cooker) in a large, heavy frying pan. Add the panceta, making sure to add plenty of salt (it'll be a bit tasteless otherwise). After a minute or two, add the sausages. Fry the meat for 5-10 minutes, until it browns. Ensure the oil doesn't get too hot and that the meat doesn't burn. It might well spit a bit at this point (the fatty panceta does like to 'pop' from time to time). When browned, remove the meat with a slatted device, and place in a bowl.

Let the oil cool down a little bit before continuing. Get the heat down to medium/medium-low.

Now throw the garlic and parsley into the pan. If you got the oil temperature right, it'll fry but not burn immediately (that happened to me the first time I tried this). Fry for about a minute. Now add the strained beans and stir together for another minute. Here, I like to add a dash of white wine, just to provide a bit of liquid to the dish. Don't add more than a glass. When the wine has reduced down, add the meat again. Cook it all together for about four or five minutes (keeping the heat really low), and that's it.

Serve a fairly small portion in a bowl with pa amb tomaquet and a glass of decent red wine. This dish is filling, warming and really yummy. Hope you enjoy it!

January 30, 2010 | Filed Under Catalonia, Food | Leave a Comment 

thebadPoll: what's correct: Catalonia or Catalunya… or Cataluña?

This new poll is borne from a post I read today at Jeremy Holland's From Barcelona blog. But it's also, I must admit, something I've probably grumbled about before.

Among the people writing about Catalonia in English, there seems to be little consensus as to what we call the place. I always use the English form 'Catalonia', Jeremy uses the Catalan 'Catalunya', Graeme at South of Watford uses the Spanish 'Cataluña'… doubtless someone out there (Trevor?) uses the archaic 'Cathalunya'.

My reasons for using the English form are fairly simple: firstly, consistency. In my guise as a sort-of-managing-editor, I spend plenty of time making sure that everyone writing for our website writes as consistently as possible. That is, we have a house style which should always be applied. So we write in American English, generally try to avoid jargon – sometimes a difficult task when writing about technology, and use the same naming conventions when referring to organisations, places or people. The idea of consistency in such writing is that a reader should never have to trouble themselves as to why we're suddenly using a different word to describe something. I use 'Catalonia', 'Spain' and 'Seville' because I'm attempting to maintain some sense of consistency in the way I write (though a quick search shows that I have used 'Sevilla' a few times!). I feel that the majority of news organisations and works of reference would agree with me when I say that as a rule, toponyms ought to be written in the same language as the rest of the article.

The second reason I prefer the English form of the name is that when I'm writing in English, I'll use an English word wherever possible. This has nothing to do with any kind of linguistic conservatism: though my 'trade' involves the constant use of English, I'm the first to proclaim that one of its great strengths is the lack of an Academy that protects it from foreign influence. I do, however, broadly agree with George Orwell's Six Rules for clear political writing. As far as I'm concerned, 'Catalonia' is a perfectly decent English word that has been in use for hundreds of years and, like 'Spain' does the job admirably well. So why opt for the Catalan version? To me, it sounds like an affectation, particularly when this exception – this break in consistency – is applied only to 'Catalunya', and not to 'Spain'.

Jeremy makes a couple of points when explaining why he prefers the Catalan form. He's right to say that using 'Catalunya' hardly makes a piece of writing harder to understand. Pretty much anyone reading either of our blogs would be perfectly comfortable with the Catalan toponym. He also talks about the fluidity of English and its willingness to absorb words from other languages and cultures – something I mentioned above. But he does rather cloud the issue I thought we were talking about: whether there's a correct way to name the place in English. He also introduces something of a red herring: street names and people's names. To me, calling Joan, 'John' is incorrect… and calling the Plaça de Catalunya 'Catalonia Square' just aren't the same thing as calling Catalunya, Catalonia.

But I may be wrong. Jeremy has promised that he'll change and start using the English form if that's what most Catalans say they prefer. I'm not going to change the naming conventions I use, no matter what you say. But I am interested in hearing what you think. So the question is: when writing in English, what's the correct way to refer to the place? Catalonia, Catalunya, Cataluña, or something else entirely? As always, vote early & often to the right >>>

January 29, 2010 | Filed Under Catalonia, Language, Polls | 36 Comments 

Are the Brits the most racist Catalans?

"Most of the genuine Catalan people I know ( real ones – not the ones who are called Jordi Gárcia Sánchez et al)"

You won't hear many Catalans spouting this kind of crap (though I know 'charnego' still gets chucked about sometimes by the knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers). So why would a dodgy English blogger from a two-donkey village outside Barcelona* try to get away with it?

Note also the smooth practice of closing comments on a post when you've been proven wrong continues as if it'll never go out of fashion.

__
*No relation.

December 16, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Internet computer, Language, Politics | 6 Comments 

Less than 30% turnout in today's Catalan independence 'consultations'

TV3 is reporting that of the 700,000 people eligible to vote in today's referendum/consultations, 200,000 voted. If that number is correct, the turnout stands at just under 30%.

What does this mean for Catalonia? There are several points to take into consideration (which affect any interpretation of events in various ways):

It remains to be seen what effect these consultations in the form of a referendum will have on Catalonia's political future. My bet is that whatever the result, ERC, CUP and the CdC will claim it as a vote in favour for an official referendum within the next two or three years.

Barcelona, if it ever manages to hold a similar consultation, will always be the decider.

December 13, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | 8 Comments 

13D: Some of Catalonia votes for independence tomorrow

This weekend, 700,000 people in Catalonia are eligible to vote in the region's first ever referendum on independence from Spain.

Or at least, that's how the BBC has it. Tomorrow will be interesting because the turnout will give everyone an idea of how far CUP, ERC and even CiU can run with independence as a vote winner. But Barcelona and the more 'Spanish' suburbs (like Cerdanyola) aren't taking part. As I've pointed out elsewhere: we all know that if it were up to Vic, Catalonia would have declared independence years ago.

I'll be watching tomorrow's results with some interest. But I'd rather they had a proper vote, and we could all be done with it.

December 12, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics, Spain | 1 Comment 

Spanish corruption news round-up

I've been off work for a few days due to a wicked cold, which has left me thinking that probably the last thing I need to do is spend more time in front of my computer. But all the same, there are a couple of stories developing in Spain which deserve something of a recap.

Firstly, Gürtel. This case of corruption in the Valencian PP has moved on quite a lot since the courts ruled that it was unlawful to 'archive' the case. The PP itself has moved from dogged support for anyone and everyone connected with the party to a few pre-emptive and yet also belated amputations. Top of the list is Ricardo Costa, general secretary of the Valencian PP. President of the Comunitat Valenciana Fracisco Camps seems to have had his hand forced by PP head office and has announced that Costa will be out in a few days, all the while noting that he trusts and backs him implicitly. This is the first major head to roll in the PP but it likely won't be the last. Esperanza Aguirre, president of the Comunidad de Madrid has also forced the exclusion of three regional PP names, Alberto López Viejo, Alfonso Bosch Tejedor and Benjamín Martín Vasco – all linked with the Gürtel case.

Aguirre, suave political operator that she is, seems to be using this corruption case to make another push for control of the party. It remains to be seen how successful she is in this enterprise… but the idea of her leading the national party is slowly becoming a terrifyingly real possibility.

I wouldn't want to incur the wrath of Trevor by failing to mention the Palau de la Música Catalana case, here in Barcelona. This story, though nowhere near as politically damaging as the Gürtel case, is still serious enough to warrant a proper full-length blog post some time in the future. Essentially, the PMC case is a classic story of misuse of public funds (aka 'stealing a shit load of cash'). Boss of the Orfeó Catalan, Felix Millet, has more-or-less admitted that more than €3m of Palau funds went missing under his stewardship. He seems to have spent the money on himself (and his business partner Jordi Montull). It seems that among other things, the pair used some of the money to buy a building which they then sold on at a €1.5m profit.

The larger crime in the PMC case is that the bill for refurbishing the Palau a few years back was a massive €22m, even though it actually cost less than half that. So Millet seems to be willing to admit the 'smaller' crime in the hope that everyone will just forget about the other €13m that he nicked. Sadly, this could just happen: this case should have been in the courts years ago but for some reason only seems to have made it there now.

The political sides of this story are twofold: firstly, Millet is a big player in Barcelona's political-cultural axis. The position of head of the Orfeó/Palau is extremely prestigious and Millet also served on the board of FC Barcelona and was a recipient of the Generalitat's St Jordi cross. All that, and he seems to have donated about €500,000 to the Fundació Trías Fargas, a politico-cultural organisation which is effectively a part of the CDC, which itself is a constituent party in CiU.

The second controversy (and arguably by far the more important one) is that the courts in Barcelona received notice of presumed corruption, lots of €500 notes and various irregularities in the Palau, five years ago. It seems that they've done very little to prosecute the case since then, until now. Why? I suppose that would be the corruption.

October 11, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, PP, Politics, Spain | 3 Comments 

thebadPoll: Where to live in Barcelona?

RmdBcn

Gemma and I are beginning the process of looking for a new house. Our awesome little flat in Cerdanyola del Vallès was perfect as a starting point for our life together here but 7 years on, it's not getting any bigger. We're looking in Cerdanyola, because we like the area where we live. But we're also going to look at places in other parts of the metropolitan zone. This thebadPoll is really very simple: where would you choose to live in BCN if you could choose right now? Do you like the narrow streets of the Gòtic, or do you prefer the seaside charm of Vilanova i la Geltrù?

The list of options is not exhaustive, so feel free to recommend a place if you really think it needs a special mention.

As usual, you can vote on the right >> … but it's your comments I'm hungry for.

September 30, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Home, Spain | 12 Comments 

Joan Laporta: candidate for independence?

The president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, has been 'invited' to head up the electoral list of a Catalan separatist party. Reagrupament, a group that split from Esquerra Republicana (essentially on the grounds that the ERC leadership were allegedly losing their direction by participating in a coalition with the Madrid-controlled PSC), asked the Barça chief to be their first candidate in next year's Generalitat election.

Laporta will end his Barça presidency in June, and until then he appears unlikely to announce any plan for his future career. That career, according to many commentators, will consist of a long-planned Catalanista political thrust, a rumour backed up by Laporta's presence at the alternative celebrations for the Diada, last September 11th.

If it does happen, it will hardly be a surprise. Laporta has overseen the completion of the Catalanisation process at FC Barcelona, a process which begins with the club's own constitution. If he does accept the Reagrupament job, he'll likely prove to be a smooth and cunning opponent in the election. Is it just me, or is there a lot more independentist stuff bubbling on the stove at the moment?

Wordpress is dicking me about with images at the moment… but anyway, here's a nice pic of Laporta looking extremely comfortable with PSOE stooge, Montilla

laporta-montilla-1

September 20, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics | 12 Comments 

Adéu a l'estiu

rain1

Hello rainstorm, come into my life

September 18, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Photo posts | 5 Comments 

Barcelona sex mayhem – stories from Sunday night

Now I don't know how late Giles Tremlett filed this story about Barcelona. But the Guardian has it timestamped at 1938 Madrid time, which is certainly late enough to have come after a very hearty lunch indeed. One clue suggesting that this is the case comes in the form of the article's shortness. Tremlett isn't the most wordy of reporters but all the same…

Another oddity is Tremlett's insistence that "Although Las Ramblas has always attracted prostitutes, they used to occupy a small area near the port", which is, as a local travelling tinker muttered to me, "a complete load of bollocks". I'm not sure when this golden age of non bollock grabbing Rambline strolling is supposed to have occurred but it was certainly not very recently. Barcelona has always been packed to the rafters with ladies and gentlemen of the night (and plenty of lady gentlemen too). Indeed, it'd be hard to walk down a single street in the city without passing some brothel or other (even if you don't realise it).

What this whole story really represents is the latest development in a late-summer-nothing-to-publish episode, where El País shocked our sensibilities (and had us checking again and again) with some pictures of a long-haired tourist making the beast with one back with a prostitute round the back of an overpriced market. Noted local newspaper, 20 Minutos (oh, yes I did!) interviewed various pillars of the community the other day, asking them whether they thought that Les Rambles has a major problem with prostitution. General opinion: it's a hell of a lot better now than it used to be.

My feelings: Mexican sombreros and €7 a beer are far more offensive and nearly as exploitative.

September 7, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics, Spain | 10 Comments 

Arenys de Munt independence 'consultation' banned

A non-binding public consultation on Catalan independence, which was due to take place in Arenys de Munt this September 13th has been banned. A judge in Barcelona accepted the Madrid government's argument that only they have the authority to operate public consultations. The court also ruled that a town may not have a consultation that includes issues that are not wholly municipal, and that the Ajuntament (town hall) was too involved in the event, which is also illegal. The pretend referendum is being organised by MAPA, the Arenys group for Catalan self-determination (not by the town hall).

The vote gained widespread attention because fascist throwbacks, the Falange de las JONS announced a plan to protest against any movement for Catalan independence. In Arenys de Munt. On the 13th. Because that wouldn't be remotely confrontational.

Anyway, what we see here is further use of the PSOE's favourite tactic for disallowing democratic processes it feels it cannot control. The government typically waits until around a week before the event in question and then deploys its legal arguments, knowing that an appeal would be costly and would have to be done quickly. They did the same thing with their attempted criminalisation of Iniciativa Internacionalista and they've dealt with Basque political parties in a similar way.

As one commentator has asked: why all this effort to not hear what people want?

Organisers of the consultation have put a brave face on it: they reckon that a postal vote is still permitted. This story ain't over yet.

September 4, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics, Spain | 11 Comments 

This is war! War makes madness! This is madness?

This billboard is on my walk from the bus to work. It's advertising the 'This is war! Robert Capa at work' photographic exhibition which has come to Barcelona after a successful stint in London. The image used is, of course, Loyalist Militiaman at the Moment of Death – a fine photograph which most experts consider to have been posed (not that this makes any real difference: all images are created, one way or  another, and this is a particularly good image).

Attached to the billboard is an interesting statement from persons unknown, pointing out that Capa's great work was staged, and then continuing for lines and lines and lines without really saying anything that makes sense. Is this madness?

One other thing worth noting: hampones is a synonym of ladrones, I'm told. It's a new one on me.

capa2 capa1

August 17, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Photo posts | 2 Comments 

Just over a year ago…

…Iberian Notes stopped being updated. Just thought I'd remind you. A whole year of reduced blood pressure and increased happiness. I really never thought he'd be able to last a year.

And so it falls to me to be the moody expat loser blogger (Trev is better but he never says anything).

First topic: off to Modbury ('el poble') next weekend. Not much blogging will ensue. Still alive, though.

July 26, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Home, Internet computer | 4 Comments 

Is Barcelona inherently gay? How about ass?

If you've been wondering what I've been up to recently, and let's face it: you haven't but it works as an opening gambit; I've been fairly busy with a pleasantly productive period of work in the real world. My new-ish desk offers me a view over the city including the Sagrada Familia, Montjuic, the Forum, that hill where they have the Parc Güell and the Mediterranean sea (pollution permitting). Well, I've been doing that and tweeting.

I make no apology for using Twitter. I do apologise for dissing it in the first place, because it can at times be great. Much of my time on Twitter has been spent obsessively checking my 'hetero rating' on a website affiliated to Stockholm Pride, an event that kicks off next week. This fun little toy works by analysing one's tweets and every time I check it, I get a rating of '42% hetero'. Apparently, this is because I use the words 'Barcelona', 'coming out', 'opera', 'available' and 'ass' in my tweets. These words make me a 'hybrid hetero' and lend support to the argument for 'an extra orientation'. Sounds fine to me, except for the words selected that indicate my degree of hetero-ness.

Picture 1

Barcelona has long been gay-friendly and the unofficial Gayxample district contains plenty of hotels and bars which cater mainly to the gay market. But it's not an exclusively gay city. Indeed, I'd say it's probably predominantly not gay. But I may be wrong about that. Opera, as well as being often incredibly camp musical theatre, is the name of a web browser. Ass? Well… I can't really explain that. I may have been calling someone a loser ass or something. Or perhaps I was talking about ass, but that might possibly have been be hetero ass.

I shall spend the next few weeks tying to increase my hetero rating. I'll use manly terms like 'muscles', 'bear' and 'trade'. That should fix it.

Oh, and we also went to Cotlliure in Northern Catalonia (France as the nationalists would have it), a couple of weeks back. It's a lovely place, but I recommend visiting out of season if possible. Photos here.

July 23, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Home | 6 Comments 

Updated: Reports of electoral fraud in Spain

As mentioned in comments on my last post, there are reports today of numerous discrepancies in vote counting across Spain. Many of these incidents involve relatively small numbers of votes. But taken together, there are enough examples to plausibly suggest a widespread campaign against parties of the left, and those supporting independence for some of the 'autonomous regions' in Spain.

The story is being widely reported in the Catalan and Basque pro-independence media but has had few mentions in the mainstream Spanish press. The main party apparently affected by these discrepancies is Iniciativa Internacionalista (II-SP), which the Spanish government failed to have banned shortly before the elections. Zapatero's government accused II-SP of being a front organisation for ETA but failed to present evidence supporting this claim to the courts. II-SP received a vote of support from Arnaldo Otegi, spokesman for the outlawed Basque party Batasuna days before the elections. PP leader, Mariano Rajoy named them "the ETA list", while UPyD leader Rosa Díez declared that II-SP "is ETA". Apparently taking the lead from the USA's former right-wing government, neither party leader deigned to share their evidence with the voters they were appealing to.

The allegations fall into three groups: (a) the general feeling that the huge increase in blank and spoiled votes coincides a little too smoothly with II-SP and other parties faring more poorly than expected; (b) specific examples of localities reporting examples of discrepancies between town-hall and Spanish Ministry of Interior official figures; and (c) inexplicable displays of support for far-right parties in areas where they have never previously shown any support (normally at the expense of another party which did worse than expected).

It's too late for me to scurry around collecting examples of the three groups now, but the comments pages of this Avui story list several (at least one of which, the Vilafranca del Penedès one, seems to have been 'corrected', though by which side, I can't tell). Rab is sure that the way that these discrepancies affect specific parties suggests a fraud. I'll wait and see what appears tomorrow before I make the same judgement.

UPDATE

OK this is getting silly.

María Teresa Fernández de la Vega (Spanish VP)'s constituency recorded no votes for the PSOE

Europe of the Peoples-Greens have denounced irregularities

II-SP officials removed from recounts

Numerous towns appear to have returned erroneous numbers, major Spanish press outlets stay silent

June 9, 2009 | Filed Under Catalonia, Politics, Spain | 7 Comments 

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