The best xuixo in the world is from Banyoles

20/11/2018

The Can Padrés bakery in Banyoles (located 4 km from El Solei) has won the prize for the best xuixo ​​in the world in the gastronomic competition and in the Xuixo Year.

The "Best Xuixo in the World" competition has been organized for the first time in 2018, coinciding with the centenary of these Girona desserts, which have become a symbol of the city and the province of Girona.

The Xuixo is a typical pastry from the Girona region. It’s a deep-fried, sugar-coated cylindrical pastry filled with crema catalana (the Catalan cream is made with milk and thickened with cornflour). Commonly eaten for breakfast or tea. It’s assumed that this pastry originated in 1920s Girona.

The legend of Tarlà

According to a legend in Girona the invention of the Xuixo has to be credited to el Tarlà, a very sympathetic person that is very present in the legends of this area:

This acrobat that entertained the citizens in a quarantine during an epidemic, fell in love with the daughter of a pastry chef. Once when he visited his beloved girl her father appeared and he hid in a bag of flour. Unfortunately, he sneezed (which sounds like xui-xui) and was discovered. Before the pastry chef could get angry he promised to marry his daughter and give him the recipe of a special pastry: the Xuixo. He named it after the sneeze that betrayed him. Nowadays a figure of el Tarlà can be seen every year during the spring festivities when its copy is erected at the place where he had entertained the people of Girona.

To preserve the tradition, a doll is currently hung on Argenteria street in Girona, which turns around during the spring festivities (around Sant Jordi). It is a doll with a wooden head and a body of clothes, stuffed with sawdust.