If you ask a Catalan the dish that best represents him or her, no doubt the answer will be "la Cargolade".
The cargolade is a typical Catalan dish offering a grilled snails in their shells.
The snails are placed on the shell side, prepared with salt, pepper, lard and herbs, over the embers of a wood fire. Throughout the cooking process, they are filled with melted bacon.
When they stop drooling, the dish is finely cooked and eaten with garlic.
"The Cargolades, before being a dish, are moments of conviviality bringing together many people.
It is eaten in summer, preferably in a meadow or at least in the middle of nature, with many people: a cargolade with less than 10 guests loses its interest. Those organized by the municipality of Bompas in July gather thousands of participants.
In practice, the cargolade consists of snails of course, but also Catalan sausages, grilled meat and a good dose of aioli and joie de vivre. A Catalan adapted from petit gris will eat you 100 on average, 30 for a small eater, about ten for those who make up for it on the sausage. Attention, we all know an exception to 150, see 200 snails per meal! (Catalan Pyrenees) ".
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