12.8.2022
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
C 307/25
5.3.
Causal link between the geographical area and a specific quality, the reputation or other characteristic of the product The features that link the product with the geographical area are mainly its historical reputation and the fact that knowledge of the production method has been transmitted unchanged from one generation of Catalan bakers to the next.
Its reputation is such that ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ is an essential feature of Catalan gastronomy.
In Catalonia, ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ has been recognised as a high-quality, artisan bread for centuries, and its high quality has often been the cause of dispute.
Thus, Professor Antoni Riera of the University of Barcelona, in a study on the production, sale and consumption of bread in modern Catalan towns and cities in the 14th to 18th centuries, records that in Barcelona in the 18th century the bread that was brought to the city from rural areas was a cause of tension, specifically, says Riera, ‘the pa de pagès that came from the surrounding villages’.
It is easy to understand the reason for the tension between the city bakers and those who came from outside the Catalan capital: pa de pagès was a better quality bread than the bread made by the bakers in Barcelona, and so people preferred it.
This is also stated by the historian Jesús Ávila regarding the bread that arrived in Barcelona from other towns and villages: ‘People preferred the bread made by the monks of Sant Jeroni in the Vall d’Hebron.
As well as pa de pagès, local district breads, such as those of Valls and Reus, and long French-style baguettes also became popular, as did llonguets [a typical Catalan bread roll]’.
As this shows, historians have regarded ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ as a quality product specific to Catalonia at least from the 18th century onwards.
Other bread-making specialists, gourmets and historians (F. Tejero, X. Barriga, J. C.
Capel, E. Rosset, P. Roca) repeatedly refer to ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ as a specific Catalan product.
It is also interesting to see how early on this bread became a distinct feature in Spanish painting.
One of the oldest depictions of ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ is in the mural paintings of Pia Almoina de Lleida (14th-15th centuries), which show large round loaves on the tables of the poor, different from the types of bread eaten by the more affluent classes at that time.
Other examples that must be mentioned are specific works featuring the shapes of traditional Catalan bread, by Picasso and Dalí (early and mid-twentieth century) and still lifes done by less internationally well-known painters in the second half of the twentieth century.
It must be pointed out how the fame of ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ has led to similar breads also being called pa de pagès, as in the Balearic Islands, or provinces neighbouring Catalonia such as Huesca and Castellón.
This is mentioned by José Carlos Capel (El pan.
Elaboración, formas, mitos, ritos y gastronomía, Barcelona, Montserrat Mateu, 1991), a scholar and writer on Spanish eating habits and a food critic, who states that ‘the name pan de payès is used to denote bread which, in appearance and taste, is trying to imitate, usually without success, this excellent Catalan bread’.
The official bread price lists that used to be published by the Spanish provinces under the supervision of the state authorities show how firmly rooted pa de pagès is in Catalonia.
Until bread prices were liberalised in 1986, pa de payès was on the lists for the four Catalan provinces, whereas in the Balearic Islands there was only pan de flama (the common baguette-type bread) and the bread locally known as payès was not on the list.
In recent years many newspaper articles have drawn attention to the excellence of bakers throughout Catalonia who, in centuries-old traditional family bakeries, have maintained ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ as one of their specialities.
Reference to publication of the product specification While the amendment is being processed, the updated product specification can be consulted via the following link: http:// agricultura.gencat.cat/web/.content/al_alimentacio/al02_qualitat_alimentaria/normativa-dop-igp/plecs-tramit/pliegocondiciones-igp-pa-pages-catala-modificacion.pdf and, once it has been approved, it will be available at: http://agricultura.
gencat.cat/ca/ambits/alimentacio/segells-qualitat-diferenciada/distintius-origen/dop-igp/normativa-dop-igp/plecscondicions/en-vigor/