Traditional activities

Between a red pine tree and a gum tree, there is a 'rovelló' hidden.

The members of the Catalan community in Australia often got together for typical activities from Catalan popular culture. Eulalia Clota and Dolores Barbeta spent many afternoons together making laces and exchanging patterns. At the time, it was very popular to embroider the family initials in pillowcases and shirts. Lace making was very important to certain women, to the point that Adelaide Galimany brought to Australia her ‘coixi de puntes’ (lace pillow). Lace making is not exclusive to Catalonia, as it is common in many parts of Spain and indeed across Europe, but it is still very popular amongst Catalan women, especially in the Maresme area.

Do you want to know a bit more about this art and other traditional trades in Catalonia? Click on the link. 

On the other hand, men liked to meet for hunting days and mushroom picking. As in Catalonia, such activity often became an anual ritual, where families went to the countryside with their baskets, sticks and penknives to collect wild mushrooms. , the famous ‘rovelló’, one of the most priced wild mushrooms in Catalonia, is found in Victoria. As with eggplants and capsicums, at the beginning of the 20^th Century the Australian population had not yet cultivated a taste for these exotic Mediterranean foods.

Do you want to know a bit more about ‘rovellons’? Click on the link.

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