Word: boqueria
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...Boqueria remains primarily a produce market whose vivid colors (more than a dozen types of tomatoes), pungent scents (over a hundred classes of vinegar), and boundless array of tastes (nearly two hundred different kinds of salt) combine to create a palace of epicurean delight. "I never thought we'd get a stand here," admits Oriol Ibars, one of four partners in the Pazzta venture. Speaking reverently of the culinary cathedral he had visited each Saturday with his father from age two, he adds, "It was a far-fetched dream." By sheer luck they happened onto Don Jaime's fruit...
...Boqueria, whose origins lie in an open-air market that began during the 13th century and which took its current position along the city's iconic Ramblas boulevard in 1840, embodies the city's sense of continuity. "I see people buying fish from my son who are the great-grandchildren of people who bought fish from my grandmother," says Manel Ripoll, president of the market's merchant association and a retired fishmonger. Though his children are the fifth generation to run the family stall, his grandmother might not recognize the Boqueria today. Fishmongers still dominate, but immigrants now run several...
...Many long-time lovers of the Boqueria view such change as a betrayal of a sacred tradition. Sniffs Guy Bonrepos, who has owned a French cheese shop at the market for 20 years, "A lot of the old produce stalls have been bought and changed for the tourists. They take rotting fruit, cut off the bad parts, and wrap the rest in plastic. Can you imagine? Plastic...
...proprietors of Pazzta see their artisanal pasta as a continuation of what is unique about the Boqueria - the special relationship it offers customers with what they eat. "People want to know who provides their food," says Ibars. "They want more of a connection with what they eat than they get at a supermarket...
...Pazzta's fate, in fact, will likely reveal less about its owners' culinary skills or business savvy than about the kind of rapport 21st century Barcelonans seek with their food. Ripoll is optimistic. "The Boqueria is about more than food," he says. "It's about health, about quality of life, today as well as in the past...