Traditionally Lent has been represented as a doddery old woman, with seven legs, a face of bitter apples, one hand brandishing a salted cod and the other carrying a basket full of vegetables. The produce she has in her hands give us lots of clues about what people eat around this time, characterised by austerity and abstinence. For seven weeks the spirit prepares to relive the death of Christ, and that means purifying the body too. Therein lies the old custom of ‘staying lean’ and eating little, with meat and eggs forbidden.

That has turned Lent cooking into a subgenre of our cuisine, with a good collection of recipes dominated by fish, especially cod, and seasonal vegetables, such as cabbage, chard, artichokes, and so on. As tradition dictated we could only eat one meal a day, meals back then usually had lots of calories and were supplemented by legumes and dried fruit. Even though the secularisation of society means hardly anyone stops eating meat these days, people still consume lots of cod between Carnival and Easter Week, while bread and cake shops are full of bunyols (fried pastries).

But why is cod the star dish during Lent and not any other kind of fish? Because in days gone by, if you lived a long way from the sea, it was very difficult to keep fish fresh and at its best. Cod comes from the North Sea and is conserved in salt, so traditionally it has been one of the safest fish to eat. That has also made it a product with strong roots in our cuisine and, thanks to Lent, it has also become very versatile. Catalan recipe books have dozens of recipes with cod as the main dish and they are nearly all associated with Lent.

Some of the most popular are cod with samfaina (similar to ratatouille), cod “in the tin”, cod with garlic mousseline, with pepper and tomato, Catalan-style with dried fruit, and so on. But it can also be eaten with casseroled rice, pickled with potatoes, or with chickpeas and spinach, a real winter dish. Other very common variations include cod fritters and croquettes, salt cod purée (brandada) or shredded cod (esqueixat) As we do with pigs, we make use of every part of cod. You can eat the innards, usually stewed or in a hotpot, and the cocotxes, muscular glands that can be eaten with a sauce, fried or in breadcrumbs.