APICIUS 47. Joan Roca, Nacho Manzano, Paco Morales, Lera, Cerdeño & Madres

Format: 21 x 29.7 cm

Distribution: Worldwide

Language: Spanish and English

Launch: December 15, 2025

      Before the stars, the cameras, and the rankings, there were other hands. Hands that didn't measure or weigh, but knew. Hands that cooked by instinct, by love, by necessity, and by habit. Women's hands. Mothers' hands. They cooked long before their children dreamed of becoming chefs. Before there were à la carte menus, tasting menus, or avant-garde techniques. They were already cooking. They cooked to feed, to care, to gather. To turn little into much. So that the table would always be a place to return to.

      This issue of Apicius is a tribute. To those who came before. To those who laid the foundations unknowingly. To those who cooked without signing dishes, but signed destinies. Joan Roca, Paco Morales, Nacho Manzano, Iván Cerdeño, and Luis Lera are, today, benchmarks of Spanish cuisine. But before becoming great chefs, they were attentive children. They were children who smelled of sofrito and bread with chocolate. They were silent apprentices of teachers without schools. They were witnesses to knowledge passed down with wooden spoons, in low voices and with passionate souls. From their mothers, they learned to observe, to respect the product, to understand patience, to cook with care. To give without asking for anything in return. And also—though they didn't know it then—to move. Today, their cuisine has technique, recognition, and discourse. But when we scratch the surface, when we get to the essential, what we find is still that legacy: a way of loving through fire. To speak of a changing of the guard is not only to speak of generations. It is to speak of gratitude, memory, identity, and recognizing that the future is cooked with what has been inherited.

      Because they weren't on magazine covers (until today), but they are in every dish. Because they didn't write recipes, but they etched them into memory. Because they didn't have stars, but they were guides. This issue of Apicius is for them. For all the mothers who gave life and craft. For those who cooked before cooking was an art. For those who continue to teach, unknowingly, through their children.

This edition features 29 traditional recipes prepared by Montserrat Fontané, Olga Sánchez, Nati Garcia, Minica Collantes, and Consuelo López.

And also 29 contemporary creations by El Celler de Can Roca, Casa Marcial, Noor, Lera, and Iván Cerdeño.

Montserrat Fontané (Joan Roca’s mother)

• Roman-style squid

• Montse’s cannelloni

• Broad beans with black botifarra and mint

• Pig’s trotters with turnips

• Beef flank with morels

• Traditional crema catalana

  

Joan Roca (El Celler de Can Roca)

• Vegetable consommé

• Fresh and mature. Beetroot and apple sorbet, grapefruit foam, salt-cured zucchini, and impregnated kohlrabi. Parsnip and mushroom purée, grapefruit reduction, pickled cauliflower and shallot

• Glazed eggplant, flame-roasted eggplant, pickled eggplant, creamy eggplant, peanut and tamarind sauce, fennel miso, citrus and buckwheat gel

• Grilled snap peas with sake lees and green curry, pickled wild garlic, kohlrabi flower, pea purée, and pickled wasabi

• Guinea fowl with cabbage, cabbage demi-glace, fermented red cabbage, sautéed black cabbage with butter, Brussels sprouts with mustard beurre blanc, and grilled frisetta green

• Crema catalana with wild strawberries

 

Olga Sánchez (Nacho Manzano’s mother)

• Corn tortos with fried egg

• Braised moritos

• Fabada (Asturian bean stew)

• Roman-style hake

• Rice with Pitu de Caleya chicken

• Rice pudding

  

• Torto, egg yolk, and salted sardine

• Cod skin, eggplant, and truffle

• Moors and Christians

• Red beans, blueberries, and cured beef

• Hake in its essence, salad juice, and hollandaise

• Rice pudding, caramel crisp, and truffle

 

• Cordoban salmorejo

• Nati’s tripe

• Roasted peppers with crystal shrimp

• Esparragás chard with fried egg

• Torrijas (Spanish-style French toast)

 

Paco Morales (Noor)

• Chicken curd, saffron, egg yolk, date, and caviar

• Vegetable menestra with creamy corn and black mole

• Beluga lentils, Wagyu A5, and sheep's butter

• Red shrimp with bisque emulsion, chocolate picada, and Iberian pork belly

• Carob cake

Consuelo López (Iván Cerdeño’s mother)

• Friday's soups

• Manchego pisto

• Stewed potato omelet

• Partridge a la Toledana

• Garlic rabbit

• Cream-filled buñuelos de viento

 

Iván Cerdeño (Iván Cerdeño)

• Cheese and onion ice cream slice

• Pickles, salted foods, and Cornicabra juice

• Cauliflower tart, pickled young walnuts, and truffle

• Wild boar and spices

• Hare sabayon with senator sauce

• Pumpkin, yogurt, and tarragon

• Garlic soup in a pan

• Beans with hare

• Castilian menestra

• Braised wild pigeon

• Braised lamb trotters

• Seasoned sheep's milk

 

Luis Lera (Lera)

• Entreased lettuce with pigeon cachuelas

• Spring onion in lard with wild pigeon and Zamorano cheese

• Partridge in pepitoria with chanterelles

• Crabs and garlic rabbit

• Wild boar snout with tomato

• Barley, cocoa, and stout beer