New York certainly doesn't lack good Spanish food—we can snack on Basque pintxos, feast on Valencian paella, or savor the ultra-expensive jamón iberico. But Catalan food, the cuisine of the region in northeast Mediterranean Spain, including Barcelona, is nearly absent. It's ancient, with roots in Roman times. At an archaeology-dig-turned-museum in Barcelona, you can see a Roman factory that made garum, one of the first fermented fish sauces. Surprisingly, Catalan food has not caught on much beyond its own boundaries, even though it's delicious—replete with fish stews, game, salt cod, fruit, peppers, eggplant, garlic, and allioli, the eggless emulsion of garlic and olive oil. And although tapas joints now jam Barcelona, traditional Catalan meals are more about main courses... More >>>