Roses, Catalonia

Catalonia is an autonomous community located in northeastern Spain, directly south of France. It is comparable to Quebec in Canada in that it has a distinctive language and culture that is not shared with the rest of Spain. This extends to cuisine, but I'll go into that further in my next entry. 

el Bulli was located in Catalonia, and adapted many of its traditional flavors and dishes into something wholly unique that inspired an entire generation of chefs. 

Catalonia is a different beast than the rest of Spain. Its culture is rooted less in machismo and more in artistic achievement. An example of this is the banning of bullfighting, a Spanish tradition, in all of Catalonia. The focus on the arts has led to the regions status as a creative center, in mediums such as architecture (La Sagrada Familia) and dance (Patum de Berga); this extends to cuisine, where traditional Catalonian dishes have been adapted within the structure of molecular gastronomy into a kind of culinary meme, replicated worldwide.