Cocas, or flat cake, with fruit, pine nuts, filled with cream, marzipan or pork crackling and all swilled down with a good cava or moscatel wine, are vital ingredients on the eve of Sant Joan (Midsummer Night). Bakers and pastry-makers produce thousands of these flat cakes every year, although some people prefer them home-made. And, as with any traditional food, “coca” has a long history behind it, packed with stories and variations well worth discovering.

• Sant Joan “coca” is made from brioche dough, a very common patisserie base that is also used for making other sweet dishes such as “Tortell de Reis”, a cake served on Epiphany.
• The name appears to come from the Latin verb “cocere”, which means “to cook”.
• It can be filled with a whole host of sweet ingredients: the most typical are with custard or marzipan but there are those use cream and more creative products.
• It is traditionally adorned with candied fruit and pine nuts, though the “cocas” with pork crackling prove more popular.
• As for candied fruit, these are most usually cherries, slices of orange and even chunks of melon, adding a characteristic touch of colour.
• Last year saw 900,000 craft-made “cocas” sold for Sant Joan in Barcelona.
• Some of the city’s most daring cake-makers suggest filling cocas with cream cheese and strawberries and “sobrassada” (cured sausage). Even a Sant Joan “coca” ice cream has been created.
• According to the Barcelona Cake-Makers’ Guild, the most commonly sold variety year after year has been the brioche one with fruit and pine nuts.
• Tradition says that Sant Joan “coca” tarts must keep to the standard measurement: twice as long as it is wide, and with rounded corners.
• According to the chef Ignasi Doménech, a coca’s width and length share the same respective proportions as day and night on Sant Joan.
• Sant Joan “coca” is named after the egg “tortell” that used to be eaten in ancient times: a round-shaped sweet bearing a clear reference to sun worshipping.
• “Cocas” that were eaten on this saint’s day were originally prepared at home and taken to the baker’s to be cooked.
• After the arrival of the first patisseries in the 19th century, the recipe was sweetened by the addition of cherries and other candied fruits.
• Modern-day “cocas” started to be used for festival eves in 1860, and by 1900 they were an essential part of the event.
• Country folk believed they had to be baked at home and eaten, as it was bad luck to eat them under a roof.
• At first, they were often accompanied by sweet or old wine, but today such beverages have given way to cava.
• Sweet dishes much like Sant Joan “coca” are eaten in many other parts of the Mediterranean on these dates.
• Closer afield: there’s a dish with the same name in Alicante though it’s a coca with greens and tuna.
• And the Sant Joan “coca” in Minorca is also known as coca bamba. It’s a tall coca shaped in a spiral form, typical of the saint’s-day festivals on that island.
• The same “coca” can also be eaten on the eves of the Sant Pere and Sant Jaume festivities, events that were once very popular.