Publication of an application pursuant to Article 6(2) of Council Regulation (EC) No 510/2006 on the protection of geographical indications and designations of origin for agricultural products and foodstuffs

2012/C 128/09

This publication confers the right to object to the application pursuant to Article 7 of Council Regulation (EC) No 510/2006 (1). Statements of objection must reach the Commission within six months of the date of this publication.

SINGLE DOCUMENT

COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 510/2006

‘PA DE PAGÈS CATALÀ’

EC No: ES-PGI-0005-0880-15.06.2011

PGI ( X ) PDO ( )

1.   Name:

‘Pa de Pagès Català’

2.   Member State or Third Country:

Spain

3.   Description of the agricultural product or foodstuff:

3.1.   Type of product:

3.2.   Description of the product to which the name in (1) applies:

PGI ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ is a traditional bread, round, with a crisp crust, tender crumb and large alveoles, which must always be shaped by hand. It is produced using traditional methods, with slow fermentation, and is always baked in ovens with a refractory floor.

Bread covered by this PGI has the following characteristics:

3.3.   Raw materials (for processed products only):

Wheat flour: W between 150 and 240 and P/L between 0,4 and 0,6.

Water: worked into the dough at 60-70 % (litres water/kg flour)

Starter dough from a previous fermentation: between 15 and 20 % of the amount of flour in the dough.

Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae L.): maximum 2 %

Cooking salt: maximum 1,8 % (per 100 kg flour)

3.4.   Feed (for products of animal origin only):

—

3.5.   Specific steps in production that must take place in the defined geographical area:

The entire production process must take place within the defined geographical area.

3.6.   Specific rules concerning slicing, grating, packaging, etc.:

PGI ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ is sold to the public as whole loaves, uncut.

The product is sold packaged. Each loaf must be individually wrapped and the bags must be made of paper or any other material that is sustainable, biodegradable and eco-friendly.

The product must be packaged in the establishment where it is sold, just before sale to the final consumer, as packaging can accelerate the spread of moisture from the crumb to the crust, so that it becomes soft and chewy, making the bread less crusty on the outside and less spongy inside.

The bread may only be cut into slices (llesques) at the customer's request on purchase.

3.7.   Specific rules concerning labelling:

The outside of the packaging must clearly bear the PGI name ‘Pa de Pagès Català’, the PGI logo and the EU logo, as well as the information generally required by current legislation. All operators who meet the requirements of the PGI specification will be entitled to use the ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ PGI logo.

Reproduction in black and white of the PGI logo:

Pantone colours of the PGI logo: peel (baker's shovel): 457, shadow 265, crust 124

4.   Concise definition of the geographical area:

The geographical area of the Protected Geographical Indication ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ covers the entire region of the Autonomous Community of Catalonia.

5.   Link with the geographical area:

5.1.   Specificity of the geographical area:

‘Pa de Pagès Català’, more commonly known throughout the Autonomous Community as pa de pagès, is the bread with the greatest historical reputation in Catalonia. The etymology of the name pa de pagès already gives a clear indication of where the product originated: in rural areas. Pagés means farmer or peasant in Catalan. PGI Pa de pagès was the bread made in rural areas throughout Catalonia for local consumption. It was therefore an artisan bread, as it was made in the masías (farmhouses) and in the villages. Bakers in rural areas also made pa de pagès because it kept perfectly for several days, which was ideal for country folk. Pa de Pagès is round and always shaped by hand; the dough is fermented slowly and baked in an oven with a refractory floor, a tradition that has been maintained for over 600 years.

For centuries, the tradition of pa de pagès was passed down from one generation to the next, in people's homes and in rural bakeries. It was these rural bakers who, with the successive migrations from rural to urban areas that took place in Catalonia from the 16th to 18th centuries, gradually introduced pa de pagès to consumers in the large towns and cities and the surrounding areas.

At the end of the 19th century certain historical events occurred that led to ‘Pa de Pagès Català’ becoming more widely known as the most typical Catalan bakery product. The World Fairs held in Barcelona in 1888 and 1929, which coincided with the industrialisation of Catalonia, triggered a huge migration of people from rural areas to the Catalan capital. Thousands of people left their villages in the interior and southern part of the region to make a better living in factories in Barcelona and other industrial centres such as Manresa, Reus, etc. Among them were people who had been bakers in their villages of origin or entrusted with making pa de pagès at home. Many of these people found work not in the factories, but in the town and city bakeries, which had to produce bread for an ever-growing population.

At the same time as these people became bakery workers, the bakery sector itself was changing, with the introduction of machinery and flours that were more refined than those that had been used up until then. This was when baguette-type bread began to appear, which was easier and quicker to make than the traditional pa de pagès. However, the new urban populations remained loyal to their traditional bread and asked the bakeries for pa de pagès, so the bakeries started making pa de pagès as well as modern baguette-type bread.

At that time pa de pagès was known throughout Catalonia as a traditional, artisan bread, the good old bread, which was quite different from the new types of bread. It has exactly the same reputation today. To the extent that one cannot imagine pa amb tamàquet (bread with tomato), one of the most famous Catalan specialities, being made with any other type of bread.

In the 19th and 20th centuries the method used to make pa de pagès in Barcelona and other industrial towns was gradually adopted all over Catalonia. This method has not changed and has remained essentially the same for the past 100 years, according to descendants of bread-making families throughout the region. The bread is made using slow methods and special attention is paid to how it is baked, especially when adding the steam — this is where each baker employs his/her individual skill, which determines the final appearance of the crust.

5.2.   Specificity of the product:

‘Pa de Pagès Català’ is the most representative Catalan bakery speciality. It is a slow-fermentation bread, shaped exclusively by hand and baked slowly in ovens with a refractory floor. It has a crisp, toasted-brown crust, a tender, spongy crumb with large alveoles, which keeps its fresh appearance and pleasant texture for 8-9 hours after it is baked. These features result from the expertise and long experience of the Catalan bakers, and give the bread its special character, which has always been the same and has maintained its reputation over time.

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 already regard ‘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-20th century) and still lifes done by less internationally well-known painters in the second half of the 20th 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 on 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.

Publication reference of the specification:

The full text of the product specification can be found at:

http://www.gencat.cat/daam/pliego-pa-pages-catala

(1)  OJ L 93, 31.3.2006, p. 12.