# Catalan cooking traditions

**Language:** Spanish  
**CEFR Level:** B1  

> Join Elena and Pablo for a delicious tour of Catalan cooking traditions, one short conversation at a time. Each lesson trains your ear until you can follow every word and answer back.

**Setting:** Elena and Pablo are taking a week-long culinary tour through Barcelona and rural Catalonia to explore local food traditions. As long-time friends traveling together, they discuss recipes, regional ingredients, and dining customs at markets and traditional taverns.

## Lessons

### 1. Noticing market sights and smells

Pablo and Elena take in the morning atmosphere at the market, noticing open stalls and smelling freshly toasted bread from a nearby bar.

### 2. Explaining how to prepare tomato bread

Elena details the proper way to make traditional tomato bread with garlic, while Pablo questions having raw garlic so early in the morning.

### 3. Comparing fresh market food options

Elena points out fresh prawns and Pablo admires the sausage stall, leading to a debate over black sausage and bean dishes.

### 4. Suggesting a traditional winter dish

Pablo suggests eating escudella for dinner, but Elena points out that the rich soup is traditionally a winter dish.

### 5. Describing how a meal is served

Elena explains the two-course serving style of escudella soup, prompting Pablo to appreciate getting two dishes in one meal.

### 6. Proposing a main course alternative

Elena proposes chicken with scampi for dinner, explaining to a skeptical Pablo how land and sea ingredients combine in one dish.

### 7. Discussing unique food combinations

Pablo questions mixing meat and seafood, while Elena explains how the flavors combine and shares that her cousin taught her the recipe.

### 8. Asking about unusual sauce ingredients

Elena reveals that the sauce contains chocolate and almonds, while Pablo expresses distrust toward dark sauces.

### 9. Inquiring about seasonal food specialties

Pablo asks about grilled onions he heard about from a passenger, and Elena explains that calçots are a seasonal rural specialty.

### 10. Describing traditional ways of eating

Elena describes the messy, hands-on ritual of eating calçots with bibs and romesco sauce in a social setting.

### 11. Planning a future culinary trip

Pablo and Elena agree to return in February to eat calçots, with Elena promising to make homemade romesco sauce.

### 12. Talking about classic local desserts

Pablo and Elena discuss crema catalana, fondly describing its caramelized sugar topping and traditional seasonal timing.

### 13. Discussing holiday food customs

Elena explains the festive tradition of dipping crisp barquillos into cava at the end of celebratory meals.

### 14. Making dinner plans and sharing food

Pablo offers to reserve a table for nine o'clock and share both main dishes, after which Elena asks him to buy her a coffee.