There is nothing quite like the taste of a freshly opened sea urchin. Sweet, but salty; rich, yet ascetic; unctuous caramel cut through with saline astringency. Soft delicate flesh protected by a threatening spiny carapace. Its visual and sensory contradictions sum up perfectly the paradox of Catalonia. Both Salvador Dalí and his father loved eating sea urchins, freshly caught in the waters of the Mediterranean off the small fishing village of Cadaqués. Beneath the sea urchin’s spiny exterior lies an inner exoskeleton that is a perfectly symmetrical, segmented ovoid. This symmetry fascinated Dalí, who adapted its form to many art works. Food, in fact, runs throughout Dalí’s life and career, and appears in this exhibition in many forms – bread, fish, watermelons, milk, eggs, pomegranates, all have symbolic meanings that are unique to the Dalinian universe.