Ignorant, superstitious peasants from all over Spain flooded into Barcelona from the mid-18th century. And, as in all fast-growing cities, one of the first things they wanted to know was, Hey man, what’s in this pie?

This walk introduces you to one of the innumerable colleagues in cannibalism of Sweeney Todd, late of Calais: a woman who, at the beginning of the 20th century, progressed from street prostitution outside the port barracks in the Barrio Chino to running an underage brothel and occult slaughterhouse at the top of the Raval, amidst the banging and clanging of the workshops of Barcelona’s industrial revolution and a mass of convents and orphans’ homes belonging to a bygone age.

One of the alleged retailers of the salves and soaps produced in this witch’s kitchen was a young man in the next street, who was working at the time as a junk dealer and went on to become Barcelona’s finest folklorist. Through him we’ll discover what it was like growing up in Barcelona at the time, and how the old magic of monks and monsters, orphans and lepers fused with the new magic of furnaces and machines.

Travelling past the spot where potatoes–the source of gruesome snacks like patatas bravas–were first cultivated in Spain, we’ll finish at the gate through which Columbus entered Barcelona (if he actually came here at all) and yet more grisly meetings of historical fact and popular and literary fiction.

1. kalebeul » Elections (brothels, Nazis), corruption, Girona airport shuttle, an Andalusian lexicon says:

   June 5 2009 at 12:23

   [...] favourite scaggy bar on this walk has, improbably, a Botero print on the wall. The owner has never heard of Botero but likes fat [...]