One of my most favorite cruises was to the Mediterranean two years ago, beginning in Barcelona. What a great city. I enjoyed Barcelona so much that when I saw this article entitled, A Catalan Christmas, I couldn't wait to share part of it. Maybe one day I will visit again, over Christmas.
A
Catalan Christmas
By LISA ABEND
IT was the Christmas
season in Barcelona, but inside the city hall, a 14th-century palace, a scene
from “the Arabian Nights” was playing out. Palm trees and satin cushions had
turned the Gothic patio into a desert tent, complete with incense and Middle
Eastern music. Pages, clad in pantaloons and velvet-trimmed turbans, led each
child to the Moorish throne of the Royal Mailman and the bulging satchel he
would use to convey their petitions to the Three Kings. Yes, those Three Kings:
the magi in the manger with the frankincense and myrrh. Here in the
Mediterranean, the North Pole and the jolly guy in the fur-trimmed suit don’t
make much cultural sense. And you have to admit that there’s a certain biblical
logic to having the Kings rather than Santa bear gifts.
Like so many things in life — soccer, sex, pigs’
feet with snails — Christmas is better in Barcelona. Not for the Catalans the
tinsel, the candy canes, the celebrity reindeer with his blinking nose. No,
Christmas in Barcelona is an altogether sleeker affair, whimsical and exotic in
equal measure. The lights lining the avenues are more artistic, the parades
better choreographed, the cakes more elaborate and the exertions more athletic.
(Witness the Christmas day group swim, when hundreds of Barcelonans launch
themselves into the chilly Mediterranean.) It’s the time when Barcelona is more
truly itself: the tourists are still here, but somehow it seems as if the city
has reverted back to its rightful owners. Which means that at Christmastime,
the balance between artistry and common sense that so deeply characterizes the
Catalan soul is on fine display.
Arriving in Barcelona on Jan. 4, I felt as
though I had stepped into a time warp, where the holidays, instead of having
passed into recent memory, were still building steam. As in the rest of Spain,
Christmas begins on the night of Dec. 24 and doesn’t end until Epiphany —
called Reyes — on Jan. 6, when all the gifts arrive. Throughout those two
weeks, children are released from school and work schedules are reduced, so,
whatever the hour, the city center is alive with locals. There’s shopping to be
done, of course, but most people engage in less commercial pursuits: a stroll
down the elegant streets of the Eixample to admire the Gaudí-esque lights
strung overhead; a stop at a stand in the Barri Gotic for a sack of chestnuts;
a visit to a church, whether the soaring Sagrada Familia with its newly
completed interior or the bare Santa Maria del Mar in the Born, for a holiday
concert.
Canelones are quintessential Christmas food in Catalonia,
and I had been told that the only place to eat them was in someone’s home. Fina
Navarro, the Fonda’s manager and wife of the chef Carles Gaig, explained:
“Traditionally, you eat them on St. Stephen’s Day,” Dec. 26, she said. “Your
grandmother would have made a big pot of escudella for Christmas Day,” she
added, referring to a chickpea and meat stew, “and she would use the leftover
meat to stuff the canelones.” It was hard to imagine even a grandmother making
a better version: the tender meat encased in pasta tubes and topped with a
creamy béchamel was deeply flavorful but surprisingly light.
The next day, I had a date at the crèche in Sant
Jaume Square in the center of Barcelona. In recent years, the Christmas tree,
like Santa Claus,
has made inroads into Spanish holiday culture. But the Spanish still reserve
most of their adornment impulses for Nativity scenes. The one in the square was
huge — a diorama, really — with bucolic scenes of peasants leading donkeys and
hauling hay.
Barcelona celebrates the arrival
of the Three Kings with the pomp of a state visit, and by the time I arrived on
the afternoon of Jan. 5, the waterfront was a mob scene. The mayor was there,
waiting anxiously on his receiving platform as a tall-masted ship sailed into
the harbor. The kings — Gaspar with a flowing white beard and with layers of
fur draped over his shoulders; red-haired Melchior with his soaring crown; and
dark-skinned Baltasar with his turban — disembarked amid a scrum of paparazzi.
After a few speeches about peace on earth, they received the key to the city:
one that, the mayor noted in this land of chimneyless apartments (another
reason Santa would find it tough in Barcelona), would unlock the doors to every
child’s house. A high-pitched roar went up as a mounted guard parted the crowd
of thousands. Gaspar, Melchior and Baltasar made their way toward the fleet of
Model T’s that would whisk them to the start of the cabalgata, or parade.
I raced along the waterfront and, turning left
on the Via Laietana, grabbed a prime viewing spot. It was nearly dark, and the
whole city, it seemed, had turned out, with families stuffed onto balconies,
and a clutch of Sisters of Mercy passing the wait by snacking on sunflower
seeds. A toddler in a bear hat made a break for the street; his parents
snatched him back just as the red-coated guards on their black stallions
approached. Behind them came floats, though the word hardly does justice to the
magical creations processing up the street.
There were dancing angels with illuminated
wings, and disco balls suspended from silvery sculptures that cast glittering
shards of light on the street. Fantastical birdmen on stilts preceded a swaying
dinosaurlike creature, and archers lowered their 15-foot-tall bows so that
procrastinators could drop last-minute wish lists into the wire mailboxes
attached there. Through it all, elaborately costumed revelers on the floats
pelted the crowd with candy; one nun elbowed me out of the way in her quest to
get a Starburst. Finally, the Kings themselves rode by, mounted on fine
carriages, and behind them, a giant clock, reminding children it was time for
bed.
For the rest of us, it was time for dinner. In
Spain, what you eat at Christmas when you’re not eating truffle-stuffed turkey
and the almond nougat called turrón, is shellfish.
When it was over, it was midnight. I wandered
over to the Gran Via, the broad avenue that cuts across the city, to find it
lighted festively and full of people happily perusing the offerings at a toy
market. Barcelona apartments are small, making it difficult for parents to keep
presents hidden until Reyes. So the sensible Catalans devised the very seny
solution of holding a market late on the night before the holiday; you can tuck
your kids into bed and go shopping without the little ones being any the wiser.
Except for a candy stall or two — all oversize ruby lollipops and snaking
lengths of lime taffy — the vendors were selling mostly plastic junk. But
everyone seemed so pleased to be there that the place felt charming
nonetheless.
The next morning, I walked to Escribà, the
city’s most famous bakery. It was early, but lines had already formed as people
waited to buy the traditional roscón, a ring-shaped cake made from brioche,
filled with marzipan or cream, and topped with candied fruit. Each one hides in
its eggy innards a dried bean, said to bring good luck — as well as the
obligation of paying for the cake — to the finder.
That morning, Christian Escribà himself was
there, busily making and decorating one ring after the next. He estimated he
would sell 3,000 roscones that day. As a saleswoman tied up each cake, she
slipped a paper crown beneath the knot. “My father started adding the crown in
1960, as a way of distinguishing ours from everyone else’s,” Mr. Escribà said.
I looked at the crown, which reminded me of things they used to hand out to
kids at Burger King to serve essentially the same purpose: marketing, pure and
simple. Then I looked at the exquisite cake, with its perfect ripples of cream
and jewel-like fruits. Art and commerce, whimsy and pragmatism. Rather than a
conundrum, I realized as I stepped into a city waking to one final day of
celebration, this was balance.
