Food

Since his infancy, Antonio, founding member of The Butifarra Appreciation Society aka ButiClub, has adored the sensations conjured up by the smell, taste and general squidgy nature of the traditional Catalan sausage.

Growing up in Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter, he would often stand outside the area’s most raucous bar, La Pineda, with his mates and watch the laborers take swift chugs of vermut followed by mouthfuls of butifarra blanca, negra or huevo for breakfast. His appreciation of the sausage, however, did not truly come to fruition until age 14, while standing outside the bar smoking a cheeky cigarette, he was grabbed by a man who swiped a finger under his lip and told him, “You have no cojones chico, the size of a man’s butifarra is a direct result of the strength of his bigote, and you have none.”

From that day forth, Antonio developed a strict routine dedicated to the growth of his moustache and through the years this discipline has brought him relative fame and fortune. He and his brother José eventually bought La Pineda and dedicated their lives to nurturing people’s obsession with butifarra and most cured meats in general.

But can Antonio’s greatness lie only in his magnificent moustache? Have the words of the drunkard come true? There are murmurings late at night in the Gothic Quarter and whispers on grimy street corners of secrets that will be passed from one generation to the next that this famous flavor saver may indeed be as fake as the Gucci bags sold on Las Ramblas.

buticlub.com