I don't know how they do it

Youngest and I, after five years here, would, you might think, be reasonably good at predicting how things are going to go at Catalan type events.

Seems not.

When we went up to Pedraforca, we stayed up there overnight before we climbed.  The idea was that we would be having 'supar' there, traditionally a light meal in the evening, often some bread with tomato, a little cheese or sliced meat and maybe some salad.

Hmmmm, I thought, we aren't used to having a giant Catalan lunch followed by a light dinner, youngest might be hungry.  So, we had a biggish lunch and a snack at 4 or so.

Then we got up there and by the time dinner was served at 9 Youngest was just about gnawing off her arm, so I gave her an entire fuet to eat.  That is a LOT of meat.

Then I gave her a couple of cookies.

Then we went into 'supar'.  First was soup.  Mmmmm!  Chicken noodle soup.  A clear yummy simple broth with noodles.  Good.  We each had two bowls and a tiny amount of salad, as did everyone else.  We figured that was pretty good and we were both fairly full.   There was also water, wine and gasosa, a slightly sweetened fizzy water.  Dinner over we thought.

Then came the botifarra and french fries.  Botifarra is a sausage that is a Catalan tradition.  Mine was a full 12 inches long.  Lots of fries.  The Catalans, all of whom were claiming to not be all that hungry, if hungry at all before the meal, finished theirs.  I ate about 2 inches and 2 fries.  Youngest finished hers and felt sick for the effort.

We were both simply stunned that they could have eaten all that.  Simply stunned.

Then came the desserts.  Most of them claimed to be full, but packed in a yogurt and an orange.  Then coffee, then coca, a kind of flat cake that is somewhat bread-ish in nature.  Four different types!

We groaned and left before the coffee.

I had brought a fair amount of food as the Catalans also traditionally only eat a cookie and coffee for breakfast.  We eat more breakfast than they report they do.

Wrong again.  Endless bread with tomato and cheese or meat, plus croissants and other pastries, coffee juice, milk, cold and warm, as well as cola coa.  Chocolate milk mix basically.

Uff.

They TUCKED IN!

So did we as we only had snack food to take with us on the walk and lunch looked scant.

Then came the sandwiches to take with us for esmorzsar at 11:30!  I could not imagine being hungry for a week at this point.

They were a full foot long!  OMG.

I left a fair amount of the food I had brought behind, and should have left more rather than hauling it, live and learn.

I truly don't understand how they aren't all HUGE.

Though I do have to point out that it is all really food.  No processed fat-filled sugar-saturated garbage.

Food.

A nation of trenchermen.