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Abstract
It is rare that a gastronomical debate turns into a media sensation. However, that is exactly what happened during the summer of 2008 when Catalan chef Santi Santamaria criticized his rivals for the use of “suspect materials” in their food preparations and for creating “dishes that our parents would never have served us,” while reclaiming “traditional and artisan” cuisine. During the endless diatribes, the opposition between traditional Catalan cuisine and molecular or techno-emotional cuisine was clearly drawn. In this paper I analyze how Catalan cuisine has moved from being home-based, straightforward and locally accented to become a highly sophisticated, cosmopolitan restaurant cuisine with a strong drive toward innovation and iconoclastic creation. Such a rapid yet profound change in culinary culture could be easily dismissed as a consequence of dramatic socioeconomic upheaval, but this change mirrors the same relentless quest for the Catalan community to achieve cosmopolitanism in all areas.