#vallespir

Picking coscolls (Molopospermum peloponnesiacum).

This plant grows in rocky spots in mountains in Europe above 1500 m above sea level, such as the Pyrenees and the Alps. In the Pyrenees, people pick them to make salads. This plant is a bit like mushrooms, many people go to pick them but they won't tell you where they have their spot.

The coscolls are picked during May and early June, before the flowers open. Then, they have to be peeled, taking away the little branches and the exterior layer, because the edible part is the stem. They are cut in short pieces, two cuts in the shape of a cross, and left to soak in water.

Their taste is very fresh and crunchy. In this time of the year, they are the protagonist of different salad recipes in the Pyrenees mountains of Catalonia and Northern Catalonia.

Amelie Les Bains.

Vallespir, Northern Catalonia.

La Tria de Mulats, the traditional annual fair of horses. Photos by Jordi Borràs for La Mira.

On Saint Edward’s Day, the 13th of October, the mare farmers of Molló and the Camprodon valley go to get their herds. For Saint John’s Day [24th of June], they took the herds to graze in the grass fields of Rojà, a mountain in the Canigó massif, at the other side of the border that divides Catalonia since the Treaty of the Pyrenees.

On the days before Saint Edward’s, the livestock farmers take their herds of mares and young horses to the mountaintop of Costabona, near Espinavell. On Saint Edward’s, they bring down the herds to the village, where they display the horses, and the farmers deal which animals they want to sell or buy.

De Salses a Guardamar i de Fraga a l’Alguer: les comarques de parla catalana una a una. 4/88: el Vallespir (Northern Catalonia).

Vallespir is a shire in Northern Catalonia whose capital city is Ceret.

In Vallespir there are three towns (Sant Llorenç de Cerdans, Arles de Tec and Prats de Molló) where they celebrate a tradition that has been proposed as a UNESCO World Heritage. It’s the Festa de l’Ós (Bear Festivity), an ancient tradition to celebrate the beginning of spring where some locals dress as the bears waking up from their hibernation that come down to the towns.