The title of gastronomic powerhouse of Spain is disputed by two regions, Catalonia in the North-East and the Basque Country/Galicia in the North-West. Catalonia probably pips its rival to the post, partly for the strength of its traditions and produce, partly by pulling historic rank – Renaissance Italian foodies described Catalan chefs as the best in Europe – and partly because Ferran Adria, of the Costa Brava’s El Bulli, outguns Arzak and the other Basque stars in global fame.

Adria’s presence down the road from Girona, capital of the northernmost of the four sub-regions or comarcas of Catalonia, has equally boosted Girona ‘s long-standing claim to be the hottest food county of Catalonia. Every year the cities of Girona and Santiago, in Galicia, take turns to stage a Gastronomic Forum, a mixture of trade fair, conference, and food performance jamboree. 2009 was Girona’s turn to host the tenth edition.

The city of Girona has an exquisite medieval centre on a hill, a Plaza Mayor lined by excellent and moderately priced restaurants with tables under the colonnades, and a charming central park with a miniature forest of soaring plane trees. Beside this is the symphonic hall (really for cookery demos) and congress centre around which the marquees of the Forum set up.

A couple of hundred exhibitors at the Forum man stands ranging from the lavish to the homespun. There are wine producers from well known denominaciones such as the big Cava houses and from less exported, but promising ones: some Emporda denominacion wines are now considered to offer comparable quality to the best of the new Languedoc Roussillon products but at half the price, a fact attested to by the numbers of French who drive down to snap them up.

There are seafood wholesalers (sea urchins ubiquitous at present), producers of the famed local apples, turnips, spring onions and black potatoes, pork butchers ( exciting to discover a new form of chicharron, or pork scratching, the llardo de mucader, consisting of crisp fried lower intestine) and much more.

If Catalan cuisine is based on excellent rustic traditions, however, it’s the avant garde that gets the headlines, and the serious money . Jordi Pujol, the Catalan President, has been describing gastronomy as one of the region’s great attributes for a decade now, and heavyweight investment is starting to arrive on the scene: last year the Caixa Manresa, a local bank , paid for a lavish a new gastro-laboratory-hotel complex headed up by Adria, for example.

The megastar himself was much in evidence at the Forum. On stage with a soundtrack of Bowie’s Space Oddity rustling up a dish called “water lilies” out of not much more than a couple of dozen oils, essences and powders , some begonias, a flask or two of liquid nitrogen and an airbrush. In press conference, snapping back at a young journalist who maladroitly questioned his ideas on food texture “I’m an expert on texture. If I wasn’t would Harvard be working with me?”

School of Adria practitioners were even more in evidence. The almost equally famous Roca brothers, Joan, Josep and Jordi, constructed a post-modern dish of melon and ham via a process of liquefaction , distillation and condensation , along the lines of the beaming up process in Star Trek, so that the resultant ”melon” is visually identical to its former self, and composed of its former self, but actually a totally new object.

In addition to having a dish mimick itself, a favourite avant-garde theme is visual evocation of habitat. A very pretty blown caramel beetroot in truffle “earth”, or a gamba sitting on a beach of which the white sand and black rocks were both conjured out of gamba essence were amusing examples, but this conceit can’t withstand too many variations before tedium sets in. And some of the examples were not as visually pleasing as the Rocas’, for example “the market on a plate” by the Madrid duo Paco Morales and Rut Cotroneo, a jumble of miniaturized vegetable matter in a squirt of translucent foam, presented on a grey slate, looking uncannily like what our cat Muriel brings up on the kitchen floor when she’s been foraging in the garden to get rid of fur-balls.

The Forum provided interesting evidence of the spread of Catalan avant-gardism. A prime example was the drinks world. Ferran Adria and the Rocas both launched new products for big companies. Adria’s , for the brewer Estrella Damm, was actually quite conservative: a luxury beer named Inedit, made from barley, wheat, hops, coriander, liquorice and orange peel, designed to accompany fine food, and requiring appropriate ritual to consume. A team of soigné beer sommeliers on the plush red and black Damm stand spent the Forum conducting workshops for group after group of young soon-to –be consumers.

The Rocas’ offering, for the Cava house Agusti Torello, was whackier: ” solid Cava”. This consisted of a gel to be placed in a glass and topped up with liquid Cava, and will be on sale in a kit with half a bottle of bubbly, along with a range of other Roca Cava preparations, some of which come with instruction manuals.

The performance of the Barcelona cocktail maestro Javier de las Muelas, however, indicated solid drinks are not a Roca exclusive: de las Muelas has been serving a list of “gelatynes” such as his Negroni Spoon Martini for some time. De las Muelas’ workshop, conducted with a team of expert young barmen in impeccable white jackets, included some deliciously subtle variations on classics, such as slightly denser, faintly maraschino-tinged mojito, better than any you’ll get in Cuba, but the desire to epater resulted in items like a wasabi mustard Martini and the admittedly spectacular Carnyvore. This consisted of the livid purple flower tube of a Venus Vase, first cousin of the Venus Fly Trap, containing a mixture of vodka, pisco, lime, pureed tropical fruits, chile and Sechuan button peppers. The effect was like simultaneously sipping a fruit Smoothie and snorting caustic soda, and it was amusing to watch the initial shock on a taster’s face, followed by an expression denoting rapid reflection on whether to say it was wonderful or retch.

The region’s ice-cream makers had also decided not to be left behind. I counted around two hundred flavours including prawn, rocket, dulce de leche, apple and vinegar, caipirinha, gazpacho, bread and tomato, goat’s cheese, and aloe vera. No sign of pork scratching as yet. Should try harder.

One of the most interesting Catalan phenomena of recent years is the emergence of the so-called gastronomic groups, entities with names like Girona Bons Fogons (Good Stoves) or Cuina del Vent (Cuisine of the Wind, named after its airy coastal location rather than an over-enthusiastic use of pulses). The groups consist of restaurateurs and food producers from a sub-region who get together to discuss culinary practice, conduct joint marketing, and develop ingredients.

They can be more or less sophisticated or rustic. Some of the restaurants in the Cuina Volcanica are enticing sounding deep country auberges, whereas Girona Bons Fogons reflects the fact that the Roca Brothers and other Michelin two-gongers are members. But a buffet dinner prepared by the Bons Fogons consisted of dishes which were both delicious and down to earth: sea urchins, scooped out, mixed with a mild rouille-like cream and gratinated in their prickly shells; canelons – big cannelloni - filled with smooth rich paste of roast duck; the celebrated local calcots – big succulent spring onions – in a fine tempura batter; wonderful croquetas of botifarra pork sausage and Girona apple puree; crisp dried anchovy spines to crunch whole; beautifully refined veal tartare; a risotto- like arroz with little cuttlefish and wild garlic, to name but half the items on offer.

The conclusion from the 10th Girona Forum is clear: at its best, Catalan cooking is offering a blend of tradition, expertise and moderate price that makes it hard to disagree with the Renaissance Italian enthusiasts.

Philip Sweeney is a writer and broadcaster and currently co-leader of the Bristol convivium of Slow Food